General Inventory Questions

[AmexBlackG5]

What's a rough estimate of cars you have in your inventory?

How many trailer's do you receive in per week with new inventory

How many trade In's do you take in per day or weekly?

[XDCX]

Thanks for the post - sorry that no one has provided an answer.

The site's been pretty quiet this week. I'm still trying to figure out what works best to drive traffic to the site resulting in active members.

In answer to your question, it really depends on the store. The store that I worked at only did about 60 - 90 New and Used per month. Our New Car inventory tended to go from feast to famine - it seemed like we always had either too many or not enough.

We tended to wholesale many of the trade-ins. The Service Department was struggling for business and wanted to totally recondition every car we sent to them. There's nothing worse than taking a trade-in for a good ACV and then finding out you're buried in the car after it goes through the Service Department.

Thanks again for the post - hopefully others will chime in with their stories.

[SHACOS]

You'd better believe I would have answered if I was directly involved in my company's inventory.

[XDCX]

Originally Posted by SHACOS

You'd better believe I would have answered if I was directly involved in my company's inventory.

SHACOS - You're the best....

You've been a great supporter of the site and I appreciate your contributions.

[AmexBlackG5]

Originally Posted by SHACOS

You'd better believe I would have answered if I was directly involved in my company's inventory.

Could you please ask someone at your dealership for a rough estimate of the figures? Its very hard to grow a niche forum with constant traffic

[SHACOS]

Well..I do have rough estimates. I work for corporate, so we have 108 different stores. On average we like to keep our inventories relatively small to cut down on flooring expense and the overall liability of having new cars sitting on relatively unprotected lots. I would say we average 350 cars on inventory (new and used) for our domestic stores and somewhere around 150 to 200 at our imports. We do have a couple of import stores (Toyota) which break the mold and have upwards of 400 to 500 cars.

New cars come in weekly. Most of our Stores get 10 to 12 a week on average. Trade in's are a little harder to average out. I would say 50% of our deals bring in a trade on average, so probably 10 to 12 trade in's a week on average as well.

[XDCX]

Originally Posted by AmexBlackG5

Could you please ask someone at your dealership for a rough estimate of the figures? Its very hard to grow a niche forum with constant traffic

Thanks for the support - I agree that it's difficult to build traffic for a new Forum.

That said, I remain 100% convinced that there is a need for a place like Dealershipforum.com.

Thanks again for the support and have a great week.

[dodgeboy]

We are a stand alond Dodge store in a semi-rural market. We are cutting our new inventory. So far in '08 we've cut our count from around 175 and our target is 120. At times in the recent past we have had well over 200 units in stock. We have a record of our sales for the past 22 years by month and model. Forcasting inventory needs depends on someone getting a handle on a particular cars lead time, and estimating sales baised on seasonal and historical needs. 4X4s in the fall, Mini Vans in the spring ect. The wild card may be fuel and incentives. We got caught very heavy in Diesel trucks which were good sellers, but no more. We are committing more rescorces to used inventory, trying to stock about 80 to 100. What a nutty business!!

[XDCX]

Originally Posted by dodgeboy

We are a stand alond Dodge store in a semi-rural market. We are cutting our new inventory. So far in '08 we've cut our count from around 175 and our target is 120. At times in the recent past we have had well over 200 units in stock. We have a record of our sales for the past 22 years by month and model. Forcasting inventory needs depends on someone getting a handle on a particular cars lead time, and estimating sales baised on seasonal and historical needs. 4X4s in the fall, Mini Vans in the spring ect. The wild card may be fuel and incentives. We got caught very heavy in Diesel trucks which were good sellers, but no more. We are committing more rescorces to used inventory, trying to stock about 80 to 100. What a nutty business!!

I agree with everything, especially the last part. (What a nutty business!!)

I started another thread on Chrysler's request for a 60 Day Production Commitment as part of their 2009 Dealer Sample Meetings. I think it would be hard to order that far in advance given the current selling climate.