Dealer groups can expect to save over £1m each by embracing automation to streamline their used car online merchandising, says Autofinity.
Autofinity’s chief solutions officer Chris Banks led an in-depth analysis to uncover the true price tag of marketing a used vehicle online whilst in stock. The company then liaised with dealer group partners to check the authenticity of these figures.
He said: “When we showed our analysis, the feedback was almost a resigned realisation that the cost to the business both in terms of resourcing and pounds and pence was so high.
“Our intention was to show in granular detail, the expenditure on one part of the business and explain how automation can improve efficiency and therefore save costs whilst freeing up the time of employees but even we were shocked.
“On the positive side, automation can very quickly make an impact and using the same modelling we have calculated that a dealer group could save more than £1 million a year.”
The analysis found that in order to merchandise a vehicle, staff are expected to complete 21 separate tasks.
Autofinity’s ViHUB removes the need to double key, automatically populating integrated marketplaces. It also allows for the pooling of vehicle data to boost data efficiencies, accuracy and enhances vehicle description.
Initial set up costs are almost halved at £18 when deploying ViHUB. Initial set up marketing costs would be reduced to £13,867. This amounts to £155,856 per month or £1,870,267 per year.
The potential savings total £26,433 on the initial marketing setup costs alone, equivalent to £214,404 per year.
By integrating systems and automating updates, dealers could save £13 per vehicle per week (over £25,000 for a stock holding of 2,000 vehicles) which translates to a monthly stock management saving of £110.789 or £1,329,467 per year.
