A Lost Art…

Back in the good old days we used to hit some homeruns on used cars. There have always been a few deals each month with some big time grosses on them. Sorta like hitting a 500 foot homerun. Not easy to do, and not that many, but there were always a few that were knocked out of the park. Those homeruns went a long way toward improving overall average gross.

For sure we would be better off with a consistent $2500 per copy, but we can all attest to how difficult that can be. Most dealers have become very price conscious when posting units on the Internet and thus have gotten away from swinging for the fences once in a while.

Many dealers are using a “bucket system,” which I do like as it gives you a solid discipline for making systematic price changes. The downside is every unit on your lot isn’t the same and you cannot price them all based on a bucket concept of 95% of market for the first bucket for 20 days. There are some units you need to be under the market and some over the market regardless of which bucket they might be in. To say they are all the same will cost you both unit sales and gross profit.

When considering which units to go for the fences on you have to use the data available to you and some good common sense. When you’ve seen hundreds of horses over the course of time you should be able to spot a Zebra (homerun car) once in a while.

Just as in baseball, you need to know the count and the game situation before you swing from your heels and you need to be smart enough to know when to swing for the homerun on certain cars. Swinging for the fences on the wrong cars and for too long a time period will only make matters worse.

So, keep hitting singles, doubles, triples and you will score some runs. Crashing a home run once in a while feels good and sure helps the overall gross average.

Time to swing….Batter up…That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs.