Over half of all car purchases are for used vehicles. Used cars are lower in price and lower in risk. A common barrier with advertising used vehicles is the large competition. People will spend up to 15 hours conducting online research before thinking about purchasing a car, according to Google. As your potential customers search for cars, your used dealership website needs to be up-to-date with all the used vehicles you have on your lot. With an abundance of pre-owned vehicles and not enough people who want to buy them, how can you stand out and show customers that your dealership is different?
That’s where inventory management software comes in. Inventory management for car dealerships allows you to organize your vehicles, find essential details about your used vehicles within seconds, and merchandise your lot online. While customers used to visit dealerships to look at cars, most of that process has become entirely digital.
The benefits of inventory management software for your used car dealer website go a long way. Here are 5 reasons why inventory management is important for marketing your used vehicles.
1. Save time and organize your lot
Keep track of your cars and organize them by make, model, year, price, and more. VIN decoding lets you enter your vehicle’s vehicle identification number, and with a click of a button, all the important information about your car is automatically put onto your vehicle display page. With all the details you need about your used vehicle and its features readily available and quick to find, it’s easy to create different categories for your customers to find the type of car they need.
2. Showcase your cars
Create a virtual showroom for your vehicles on your website. Inventory management software makes it easy to automatically pull information about your used car and place it onto a vehicle display page (VDP). VDPs are important for search engine optimization (SEO), which we’ll cover next.
3. Improve your SEO
When you have individual VDPs for your used cars, customers are more likely to find your dealer website. How does this work? If you don’t have VDPs, you may be out of luck when it comes to showing up on search results pages for used cars. Search results for keywords such as “used cars near me” are heavily dominated by Craigslist, CarFax, Autotrader, and other big-name companies.
Your SEO needs to go beyond basic keyword phrases like that, and focus on used car makes, models, features, prices, and mileage. When a customer near you searches for a used Toyota under 200,000 miles, if you have cars like that on your lot, the corresponding VDPs on your website will show up for users.
4. Target specific users
Inventory management allows you to be more strategic about the customers you target. Unlike OEM new car dealerships that focus on their overall branding, used dealerships can also target customers who are looking for specific vehicle specs, price ranges, or mileage ranges. By showcasing your individual cars and all the important details, your customers are more likely to come across your VDPs and stay on your website.
5. Use dynamic inventory ads
Imagine your used vehicle page getting matched to a customer in your area who is looking for that specific vehicle. It’s like match-making online, but for cars! That’s exactly what dynamic inventory ads do. All you need to get started is a Google Ads manager account for your dealership and individual VDPs for your cars.
Drive more traffic to your website and improve your sales with our inventory management system today! To learn more, call us at 515-232-2024 or sign up below.