Next Day Traffic

It was a race to the finish for dealers and customers alike as the government’s Cash for Clunkers program headed into its final lap on Monday.

Over the weekend, car dealers across the country watched their lots grow empty as crowds rushed to trade in gas guzzlers after the government said that the $3 billion rebate program would end at 8 p.m. EDT Monday, two weeks earlier than expected.

Excerpt from Associated Press. Click here to view the full article.

With a growing number of iPhone Apps hitting the market, you may want to have your IT dept look into creating an iPhone App for your dealership. Especially if you are a highline store or have a large customer retention base from service. People are falling head-over-heels with the techno geek gadgets of today. This is one more of the latest, in a long line of things like social network pages, live chat systems and others.

Create an iApp – a few people will use it; 
probably less than 2% of your total customer base. 

But think about this:

YOU JUST PERMANENTLY PLANTED YOUR BUSINESS 
ON THAT CUSTOMER’S CELL PHONE.

How much is that worth?

Sample resources:
iPhone Development Center – Apple Developer Connection
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/

How to Create Your First iPhone Application
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/11/how-to-create-your-first-iphone-application/

Data show last year’s gas spike had a marginal effect on buyer habits

Exerpt from Paul A. Eisenstein, msnbc.com contributor

What looked like a permanent divorce, triggered by $4-a-gallon gas, has proved to be just a temporary lovers’ quarrel between Americans and their light trucks.

According to new industry data, last year’s fuel price spike had only a marginal impact on the U.S. car market. After an initial, knee-jerk response toward smaller cars, most motorists went back to buying what they would have if prices hadn’t risen at all — including pickups, SUVs and other light trucks.

Car shoppers have a few more days to take advantage of popular program

Aug. 20: Reports indicate that the government is planning to end 
the Cash for Clunkers program on Monday, Aug. 24 at 

Carmike Cinemas created ‘Stimulus Tuesday’ at theatres Nationwide to help with summer and fall movie attendance. Strong LLC, of Birmingham Alabama, with Mike Strong as the “official chaperone”, took the entire staff, friends and family to see “THE GOODS: Live Hard. Sell Hard.“ in the first ever Strong Company Movie Night. Car people have referred to this movie as what could be the next “USED CARS“ but employees of Strong really just wanted an excuse to goof off and watch a great movie.

The mantra of this movie was “I Sell Cars” which was the line used a least 2 dozen times by actor Jeremy Piven, but in the words of John Paul Strong… 
“I DRIVE TRAFFIC.”

This is a great stress reliever for dealership employees around the country. Take your sales people and managers for what will make you really be proud of your chosen profession.

MOVIE SUMMARIES
The Goods:  Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009)
In a desperate attempt to save his rapidly failing used car dealership, Ben Selleck hires a crack team of “car mercenaries” to ramp up sales during the Fourth of July weekend. Led by the fast-talking, foul-mouthed, self-assured Don “The Goods” Ready (Jeremy Piven), the group has three days to sell over 200 cars. Ready and his ragtag crew descend on the town of Temecula like a pack of coyotes on a basket full of burgers. Selling, drinking, selling and going to strip clubs is their stock and trade. And they do it well. 

Used Cars (1980)
Used car salesman Rudy Russo (Kurt Russel) needs money to run for State Senate, so he approaches his boss Luke. Luke agrees to front him the $10,000 he needs, but then encounters an “accident” orchestrated by his brother Roy, who runs the car lot across the street. Roy is hoping to claim title to his brother’s property because Roy’s paying off the mayor to put the new interstate through the area. After Luke disappears, it’s all out war between the competing car shops, and no nasty trick is off limits as Rudy and his gang fight to keep Roy from taking Luke’s property. Then Luke’s daughter shows up…

The new General Motors, looking to reinvent the car-buying experience 
in California, is selling cars on eBay through September 8th.

The website will offer vehicles for sale in a format familiar 
to current eBay sales: “Buy It Now” or “Best Offer”.

Visit http://gm.ebay.com/ to see for yourself.

• More than 220 dealers join promotion
  
• Up to 20,000 new vehicles online
  
• ‘Buy it Now’ or ‘Best Offer’

FORGET buying baby clothes, TVs and designer shoes online – the new General Motors in the US is selling cars on eBay.

The auction and sales website is teaming up with 225 Californian GM dealers – including Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and the now-defunct Pontiac brands – in a claimed first-promotion to “click and buy” new vehicles.

The gm.ebay.com site went live this week and will run until September 8 in the US.

GM says car buyers will be able look at up to 20,000 vehicles in California dealer stocks online and will be able to ask questions, value a trade-in, compare and negotiate prices, arrange financing and payment.

The website will offer vehicles for sale in a format familiar to current eBay sales: “Buy It Now” or “Best Offer”.

Vice-president of eBay Motors, Rob Chesney, said more than 12 million individual car shoppers visited the website every month.

“Through this program, we are helping GM dealers to extend their physical showroom while at the same time delivering to our buyers the great deals and broad selection they expect from eBay,” he says.

GM US sales vice-president Mark LaNeve says the partnership is reinventing the car-buying experience in California.

“As the dealer showroom expands from the parking lot to the laptop, this makes it easier for a customer to browse available new-car inventory, make an offer, buy it now, or send a message asking for more information from a dealer all at the customer’s convenience,” Mr LaNeve said.

The troubled carmaker quotes research from J.D. Power & Associates that shows more than 75 per cent of new-vehicle buyers in 2008 used the internet during their shopping and research process, a five per cent increase on the previous year.

However, in Australia GM Holden spokesman Scott Whiffin says Holden has no plans to embark on a sales plan with eBay but will watch the US experiment.

Article courtesy of Stuart Martin, The Daily Telegraph

As Congress works to replenish the ‘cash for clunkers’ coffers, details on what drivers are trading — and buying — are emerging.

If you were wondering what America was going to do with all those Ford Explorers, wonder no longer. We’re euthanizing them by the tens of thousands.

Of the top 10 vehicles traded in since the “cash for clunkers” program went live in late July, six are different model years of the once-ubiquitous Explorer, according to data collected by the Department of Transportation and reported by the Jalopnik automotive blog. Lumped together by nameplate rather than model years, its death-row companions include the big Ford F-150 and Chevrolet C1500 pickups, the Chevrolet Blazer SUV, the Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee, plus the Dodge Caravan and Ford Windstar minivans.

The Explorer was for several years the nation’s best-selling passenger vehicle, with more than 400,000 a year leaving showrooms in the late 1990s. The most-popular versions got around 15 miles per gallon.

Read the full article here.

Auto recyclers hope to make profit; effects on market uncertain

Exerpt from Eve Tahmincioglu, msnbc.com contributor

Jim Biggs, yard supervisor at B&F Towing Co. in New Castle, Del., is getting ready to destroy a 1997 green Nissan Pathfinder SUV that looks in pretty good shape except for some wear and tear.

The government’s hugely popular “Cash for Clunkers” program is keeping B&F and other scrap yards across the country busy crushing roadworthy vehicles and sending them on for shredding.

Death of a car… Tracing the junking of a ‘clunker’ video