vAuto Technology Helps Dealers Avoid Inventory Disaster

Spiraling gasoline prices not only are hammering vehicle sales, but also are threatening automobile dealers’ viability.

While everyone knows that gasoline prices are affecting the value of larger used cars and light trucks on dealership lots, no one knows where this is headed on a daily basis. With a new barrel price for oil each day, dealers have been unable to adjust vehicle values fast enough to match the market.

Chicago-based vAuto has introduced new technology that uses a live market view to track and report vehicle valuations, supply and demand in real time. For example, on July 1, when gasoline prices hit a new high of $140.97 per barrel, at 8:00 a.m. in Chicago, the market price and days supply of a 2006-model Cadillac SRX sport utility equipped with a 3.6-liter engine were $22,375 and 123 days, respectively. By noon, the price had dropped to $21,735 and the days supply had jumped to 154. By 9:00 p.m. the market value had fallen even further to $21,075 and the days supply had climbed to 179.

“With the ability to track this data in real time, vAuto clients are able to avoid getting caught with vehicles whose values no longer reflect the current market,” noted vAuto Founder and Chairman, Dale Pollak.

Joe Gilsdorf, a vAuto customer and the owner of Henry Chevrolet in Henry, Ill., saw retail prices fall $1,300 in his market in one day using vAuto’s technology. With this knowledge, he took vehicles back to auction that he had purchased just the day before.

“It was like having insider information,” Gilsdorf said. “The dealers that bought the vehicles that I was reselling were working with wholesale values from previous days that had not yet adjusted to what I was seeing in the retail market. They didn’t realize that in the past 24 hours the average retail market price had dropped $1,300. I truly felt like I had an unfair advantage, but it is all about survival.”

Keith Jezek, vAuto’s president and CEO noted that the benefits of his company’s technology are truly amazing.

“We can sit in front of a screen and watch the valuation, supply and demand of used vehicles fluctuate minute-by-minute,” Jezek explained. “This technology is a revolutionary breakthrough for dealers trying to keep pace with a retail market that is now as volatile as the New York Stock Exchange.“

With hundreds of inquiries per week, vAuto has become the industry’s fastest-growing supplier of market information for used-car dealers. In the last month, vAuto eclipsed the 1,100 dealership rooftop mark, making it the clear industry leader.

Jezek said, “We’re talking about technology the likes of which dealers have never before had available. It tells a dealer what to stock, how much to pay and how to price long before the competition is able to recognize and react to an emerging trend.”

The nation’s six highest-volume franchised dealerships by brand now use vAuto’s stocking, appraisal and pricing systems, including Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Nissan, Lincoln Mercury and Toyota. Virtually every imported and domestic vehicle brand is represented on the company’s customer list.

Headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, vAuto maintains a research-and-development center in Austin, Texas. Triple-digit increases in its customer base have the company searching for additional technical- and sales-support professionals in both Chicago and Austin.

Further information about the company is available on the Internet at www.vauto.com.