How to reduce dealership inventory aging with software

What to check before you decide

Set rules by age. For example, a first price review at fifteen days, a photo and listing check at twenty, a price move at thirty and a wholesale decision at sixty.

Write the rule, assign an owner and let the tool alert the manager when a unit crosses a line. Decide in advance who can approve a price cut.

Check the data behind the tool. Does it use local, current market listings and sold history?

Does it account for mileage, options and condition? Does it show days of supply for the model, so you know whether the market is thin or flooded?

Can it push the new price to your website and listing sites at once?

Look upstream as well. Review your last twenty wholesale losses and ask what the buy decision missed.

Track days to sale and gross per unit by source: auction, trade-in and street purchase. Stocking better is often worth more than pricing faster.

Hold a weekly aging meeting of thirty minutes. Walk the list of units past the review line, decide price, photo, recon or wholesale for each, and record who does it.

Review last week's decisions first. A short, regular meeting beats a large quarterly purge.

Look at acquisition as well as pricing, because a store that keeps buying the same slow segment at auction will keep aging it no matter how clever the repricing rules are, and a simple review of which purchases turned fastest last quarter can improve the next month's buying.