Enhancing used car profit: accelerate the remarketing process

Once a retailer has added a used vehicle to its inventory, the number of days it takes to bring it to market is one of the most crucial things it can influence from a profitability perspective.

Within this, three areas of focus stand out.

1. Ensure stock is not lost in the remarketing/preparation cycle.
2. Realise the opportunity to market fresh incoming stock as soon as possible.
3. Optimise and retain the part-exchange opportunity.

Accelerate the marketing process

Before a car even arrives at the showroom, vehicle description and, dependent on location, imaging processes can often be started. When looking at the online marketing of your vehicle inventory, Auto Trader points to the critical importance of the right imagery:

• Buyers expect to see 20 images in an advert.
• Real Images of cars perform 4x more than CGI.

Well-shot, clear images that represent the true condition of a vehicle are vital to ensuring a retailer’s stock stands out. It no longer requires high-end photographic equipment, extensive training, or too much of that all-essential time.

With just a smartphone and the CitNOW Imaging app (formerly Auto Imaging), challenges associated with creating digital vehicle assets, such as time to shoot and upload images, quality, and cost, are addressed. Added to this, with auto-background replacement, CitNOW Imaging automatically applies on-brand backgrounds ensuring consistency and quality across all listings.

The in-app AI-powered quality control and real-time guidance on image-taking ensure the correct images are captured, and image quality is at its highest. Once taken, stock feed integrations and APIs enable the image portfolio to be uploaded seamlessly. The net result is rapid, consistent online listings.

CitNOW Imaging speed to market

Throughout 2023, the time it took for three different retailers to bring vehicles to market significantly decreased, showcasing the impact of CitNOW Imaging. Retailer 1 began the year with a 24-day speed to market average, which decreased to just 10 days by year-end. Retailer 2 implemented the CitNOW Imaging app and then experienced a notable drop from 22 days to 9.9 days within six months. Lastly, Retailer 3, started at 25.7 days and have now reduced their time to market to 15.1 days.

Time is money in used vehicle sales, and CitNOW Imaging is reducing stocking days for retailers successfully.

Optimising the part exchange opportunity

People often begin their car buying journey months before they enter a showroom and the value of a part exchange could be vitally important when customers make a purchasing decision. It is here that CitNOW Appraise, our fully digital vehicle appraisal tool, can be very effective.

Straight from the dealership website, CitNOW Appraise allows retailers to keep part exchange opportunities within their dealership and avoids them losing out to competing online car buying platforms. It also puts the customer in complete control of the part-exchange process with them providing essential vehicle information, photographs, and videos which help retailers offer accurate and authentic valuations.

Not only does the ease of use and more accurate valuations help build trusting relationships with customers, but it also helps to boost the intake of quality stock for retailers and a higher resale value which ultimately delivers a higher used car profit.

Just contact us to discover more about how CitNOW Group can help enhanced your used car profits.

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