Where Dealer Gross Comes From in 2026: A Franchise Dealer’s Guide to Used Vehicle Margin
Used vehicle gross is the most controllable lever on a franchise dealer’s P&L right now. New car front-end is largely reactive — it moves with inventory levels, incentive programs, and consumer pricing expectations that individual dealers don’t control. Fixed ops gross is relatively stable but bounded. Finance and insurance has compression of its own. Used […]
53 Trade-Ins a Month: How Koons Motors Changed Its Used Vehicle Acquisition Strategy
The benchmark number in used vehicle acquisition right now is 53. That’s how many trade-in appointments Koons Motors generates every month from their existing customer database — not from auction, not from appraisal lane walk-ins, not from third-party lead providers. From past buyers who are contacted proactively, qualify through an AI-driven conversation, and book an […]
Used Vehicle ROI by Acquisition Channel: A Framework for Dealer Principals
Every used vehicle a franchise dealer acquires came from somewhere. Auction, appraisal lane walk-in, proactive database outreach, off-street purchase. Each channel has a different cost to acquire, a different average gross, and a different net margin per unit. Most dealers have a rough sense of these differences. Few have a framework that makes the comparison […]
The Trade-In Gross Advantage: Why Your Own Customers Are Your Highest-Margin Inventory Source
There’s a version of trade-in acquisition that most dealers are already doing: the appraisal lane. A customer walks in, mentions they might want to trade, and the process kicks off from there. That’s reactive — you’re working with whoever shows up. Then there’s a version most dealers aren’t doing consistently: proactively contacting past buyers in […]
Front-End Gross Is Compressed. Here’s Where Dealers Are Finding Margin Instead.
For about three years, the math was unusually simple. Inventory was short, demand was high, and franchise dealers were retailing new vehicles at or above MSRP with minimal effort. Front-end gross that used to require real negotiation skill and inventory discipline was showing up automatically. That era is over. New car front-end gross has compressed […]
What Does a Used Car Actually Cost You? The Real Math Behind Auction Dependency
Most dealers have a rough sense that auction is expensive. What most dealers don’t have is a precise number — the actual all-in cost of getting a unit from the auction block to retail-ready on their lot. That gap between “rough sense” and “precise number” is where margin disappears. This post builds the full cost […]
Auction vs. Trade-In: The $3,500 Gross Difference Dealers Are Leaving on the Table
There’s a number every GM knows but rarely says out loud: the average unit bought at auction produces around $1,500 in front-end gross. Thin margin, high risk, and that’s before you factor in what getting there actually costs. There’s another number most GMs don’t track as precisely: the average trade-in sourced from your own customer […]