Every sales manager has asked themselves this question; I know I have more than once. Think about it for a second: when sales slow down, what do we tend to do? The answer I commonly get is, “We chop prices.” Wouldn’t it help to know if the shopper count is down rather than just assume the problem is pricing? Here at Lotpop, the last thing we suggest to do is to change the price. One of the things we do is turn to live market trends and our own data. Below are snapshots of two dealerships in different markets; one is in the eastern region of the U.S., and the other is in the Midwest on the same day.
In these Lotwalk data examples, I want to demonstrate how to determine whether the market is slowing down or we have an issue with merchandising/pricing. The two dealerships' data below also prove we can have two extremely different situations happening at the same time in different markets.
Understanding Lotready data is significant in these examples: having a vehicle be LotReady means having the correct amount of photos plus a detailed merchandising process. This will ensure a higher SRP count.
Dealer #1 is showing only 55% of its inventory is Lotready, meaning only 55% of the units are properly merchandised. Notice how the SRPs are green, which indicates an increase in the number of times our inventory has shown up in searches, yet only 55% of the inventory is relevant in shopper searches. This data indicates to me there is an uptick of shoppers in my area, and I need to increase my Lotready % in order to take advantage of this shopper rush.
Dealer #2 has its inventory completely merchandised, indicated by 100% LotReady, yet the 3rd party SRPs are dropping. This is an indication there are fewer shoppers in this particular market.
Paying attention to your LotReady percentage and Google trends data in your market area will help you with your next plan of action, and chopping your prices is not always the answer.
-Mike Clites
Industry Specialist
mclites@lotpop.com
Comments