In 2005, a group of automotive industry veterans recognized a profound change in the used vehicle market brought about by the advent of the Internet. Empowered with online research, customers were arriving at dealerships more informed than ever, putting significant pressure on dealerships’ margins and profits. Led by Dale Pollak, the team responded by founding vAuto, a new type of used vehicle management system that is helping dealers increase sales and revenue while reducing costs and inventory.
Pollak recognized that the used vehicle marketplace had to evolve and adapt to the realities of what he calls “the new used car marketplace.” Accordingly, vAuto provides a philosophy of management, as well as, a technology designed to support the implementation of the necessary new approaches to used vehicle marketing and management.
Most used car inventory management systems provide users tools that help dealers with stocking, appraising, pricing and more recently, merchandising. While the vAuto system provides this functionality, its primary purpose is to change the manner in which used vehicle management decisions are made.
The cornerstone of vAuto’s philosophy is that decision makers know a used vehicle’s real-time supply, demand and price sensitivity metrics when making stocking, appraising, and pricing decisions. Using proprietary technology, vAuto is the first and only inventory management system to provide decision makers with actual, real-time, supply, demand, and price sensitivity data. The accurate data helps dealers leverage the natural forces of a rational market by identifying those vehicles in the current market that have the greatest potential based on real-time supply, demand and price sensitivity. vAuto allows dealers to intelligently expand their inventory beyond their historical core inventory and/or franchise brand to include the vehicles that their market is demanding. During the appraisal process, vAuto provides live retail market data at the time of acquisition, enabling dealers to make strategic purchasing decisions based on likely retail prices rather than solely on the traditional third-party wholesale guide values. vAuto’s pricing tool identifies every competitive vehicle in the relevant market in its most granular configuration in real-time. Most importantly, the vAuto system provides decision makers with guidance as to how to determine the optimal vehicle price. This is done by the introduction of quantified supply, demand and price sensitivity in the form of vAuto’s exclusive used car market day’s supply. vAuto’s merchandising system also allows dealers to know if all of their vehicles have current and correct information online, while also generating compelling descriptions to get more clicks on every online listing.
vAuto is the fastest-growing provider of web-based inventory-management systems for the automotive industry. vAuto’s new “Live Market View” technology allows dealers to manage used car inventories based on comprehensive supply-and-demand information for millions of vehicles. Headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, Ill., vAuto maintains a research and development center in Austin, Texas. The nation’s five highest-volume franchised dealerships by brand currently use vAuto’s stocking, pricing, appraisal and merchandising systems. In addition to being one of the Top 10 of 2010, vAuto was recently ranked number 22 in Inc. Magazine’s 2009 annual ranking of the fastest-growing, privately held companies in America. The company finished 2008 with a total of 1,600 dealership rooftops, up from 550 in 2007. In the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, vAuto added over 400 new customers, representing more than a 100% increase over the same period the prior year and nearly tripling its customer base, doubling employment and expanding its headquarters facilities in Austin and Chicago. Below are comments from dealers who currently use vAuto:
“We have used vAuto for the past two years at all of our 19 franchises… one of the best vendors we have ever done business with.”
Byron Brisby
Flemington Auto Group
“The user-friendliness of its application makes it easy to use… vAuto’s strong technology, industry acumen and commitment for continuous improvement are the key elements of their success.”
Y.L. Man
DCH Auto Group.
