The first quarter is big for used car sales. Many consumers use their tax returns to make vehicle purchases. Shoppers with bad credit and who are looking to escape the high price of new cars are also very active in the timeframe. To align your dealership with this seasonal trend The Moran Group has put together marketing best practices to ensure your dealership is taking full advantage of used car shopper interest.

Actual Photos

70% of shoppers surveyed don’t even click through from an SRP (search results page) to a VDP (vehicle details page) if there isn’t an actual photo. Even with pricing and everything else competitive, adding photos can make one of the biggest impacts on your sales. Good online used car dealers regularly have 85%+ of actual photos in their inventory.

Provide A Good Online Shopping Experience

When a shopper is on your site, provide a clear and straightforward way to navigate. A study by Cobalt showed that 100% of the shoppers surveyed chose to sort the inventory by color first. Other key features to include on Vehicle Search Pages include, price, mileage, body style/vehicle category, make and year.

Sandwich Pricing

When showing inventory on 3rd party sites, it can be beneficial to have the lowest and highest priced vehicles of any given model. That way if shoppers sort by Price: Lowest to Highest or Price: Highest to Lowest, your inventory shows first.

Facebook Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace likely has an established, active community of buyers and sellers. With millions of people checking vehicles listings on a daily basis, many pre-owned car dealerships are finding great success. Some are reporting up to 300 additional leads per month. If utilizing Facebook Marketplace treat it as an extension of your online showroom by including relevant information, treat every conversion as a lead and respond to messages in a timely manner.

These are just a few ideas to help set your dealership up for used car success in the first quarter. To get more information on a detailed online marketing plan please contact a specialist at The Moran Group today.