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Best Businesses

JKR Receives 2015 “Best Businesses of Orlando” Award

JKR Advertising & Marketing has been selected as a 2015 “Best Businesses of Orlando” award winner in the Advertising category by the Best Businesses of Orlando Award Program. Each year, the organization identifies companies that achieve exceptional marketing success in their business category. Best Businesses award winners are select local companies that enhance the […]

WIIFM

Potential Customers Ask: WIIFM?

WIIFM is the acronym for “What’s in it for me?” It’s something you should always keep in mind when preparing your advertisements, because everyone seeing or listening to your product offerings is asking that very same question. Most of the time they don’t even realize they’re doing it, but subconsciously they are. To keep their […]

Tax Season

Finish Tax Season in Fine Fashion

Tax season is almost over, so be sure you finish strong. The opportunities are certainly there for you. To illustrate our point, we give you two eye-opening statistics. First, research done by the Internal Revenue Service indicates that 40% of people expecting an income tax refund allocate these funds for either housing or transportation – […]

Steven Mendoza

Recent Billing and Co-Op Department Hires are Key Additions

To better serve our clients, we have made four recent additions to our billing and co-op department. Their importance to the company cannot be understated, as they work closely with both the Account Executives and Media Buyers to ensure all invoicing is properly done – and double-checking that the advertisements abide by stringent corporate co-op […]

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Recent Posts

Post-Pandemic Dealer Gross Profits are Down – But They Don’t Have to Stay There!
March 13, 2024

It is no secret that dealer gross profits per vehicle are down sharply in the post-COVID automotive world. According to a recent article in Automotive News, gross profits of the six largest publicly traded dealership groups plunged significantly from Q4 2022 to Q4 2023. One of them was actually down 35% per vehicle!

The article explains: High interest rates, more expensive vehicles and a steadier post-pandemic supply chain continue to soften demand and bring it closer to pre-pandemic levels. Still, new-car buying has remained strong overall …

This means that, while sales volume is similar, overall bottom lines are lower for many dealers due to the reduced gross profits. What about your dealership?

Being Realistic
It’s time to turn the page! The time for dealers to simply be order takers for people willing to pay MSRP for a vehicle (and in some cases more) has passed and dealers have to work hard once again to achieve acceptable gross profits.

Selling a high volume of cars doesn’t control gross profits, no matter how much you wish this was the case. Correct processes and menu pricing – and strict adherence to them – do!

What kind of processes?
∙ Slow down the transaction! Your sales staff has to once again sell the customer on the features and benefits of every new and pre-owned vehicle on your lot.

∙ Your salespeople and managers should devalue the customers’ trade-in value (politely, of course) as much as possible. After all, if the customer expects you to lower your price, shouldn’t you be able to do the same on their trade? Remember, you’ll have to fix it up, put your name on it and resell it to someone else with all the tenacity you would a brand-new car. So make sure you buy it right … because the profit is made when you buy it, not when you sell it!

∙ To that end, management should be ready and willing to leave the desk and do thorough walk-arounds on each trade to ensure the best outcome for the dealership.

The Cure for Low Gross Profits
If you are like a lot of dealers these days, you could use some good news. Here it is: while you may not have the capability to achieve profit margins similar to those you enjoyed during the pandemic, they could likely be improved. JKR’s clients enjoy the benefit of attracting not only more customers, but better ones, too!

If meeting and exceeding your sales goals (and increasing gross profits at the same time) sounds great to you, you need to call us. Don’t settle for reduced gross profits when help is out there to get you closer to where you’d like to be.

Want to know how we do it? Reach out to Senior Partner Richard Brauns (407) 701-4233 or Partner/Vice President Jon Albert (407) 718-2494 today.

JKR Automotive Advertising: We Move Cars.

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