Automobile Dealers Need to Master Inventory Management Right Now

It’s a usual day at the dealership. There are new and old customers strewn about, getting their automobile queries answered. In walks a customer through the main door who walks up to the main desk and asks for the availability of a certain popular product with some specific features.

Unfortunately, the dealership can’t address the customer’s requirement, as their old dealership management software informs them that they don’t have the product. The customer starts to leave disappointed, but not before informing that a dealership across town has what he wanted and he just wanted to ask around other places to get a better price.

Sounds familiar?

For most people, buying a car is a sizeable investment and possibly, the second biggest investment in their life after investing in buying a home. There are long-term financial implications of getting a car, in the form of loan payments for a couple of years, because of which customers are not willing to compromise. And why should they? It’s a big investment. It is obvious that they would want exactly what they are looking for. In such cases, what can a dealership do to improve its customer experience and stay competitive?

Well, putting some effort into inventory management would most certainly help! As a dealership employee/owner, you might be wondering how is inventory management supposed to help here.

Dealership inventory management not only helps in improving dealership operations, it also assists in anticipating the needs of prospects. Let’s find out how.

What inventory management helps with?

Inventory management helps a dealership be smarter about its storage, de-clutter the stock and address demand. Most importantly, having a well-organized inventory helps a dealership solve customer queries faster and improve the customer experience.

Given the high value and size of products, there’s a certain limit to how much inventory a dealership can handle. Therefore, planning the inventory is essential to “thin the herd” by identifying and removing non-performing stock. This not only helps in increasing sales and gross profits but also in making the overall stock slicker and smarter. Use dealership management software to plan and manage your stock, identify stocking problems and analyze sales to predict future demand and place orders accordingly.

To make smarter choices for your dealership, try dealership management software like AutoBooom. AutoBooom helps manage the inventory through informative stock reports. Additionally, stock reports can be used to analyze inventory based on different factors like location of stock, quality, and closing day stock.

You can also keep track of stock that’s assigned to a salesperson at the dealership and move stock across different branches and locations through a stock transfer system. AutoBooom is an automobile dealership management software that is interactive, user friendly. It also allows you to handle end-to-end sales, reporting, inventory, and operational needs of any dealership.

De-Clutter with Inventory Management

Imagine trying to fit a few blocks of Legos into a matchbox. Obviously, one would have to be careful about how to stack so that they can minimize space consumption and fit more blocks. Managing the inventory of a dealership is similar to this. There’s a limited amount of space available to stock and a dealership has to be smart about utilising it.

You want to stack your best products with equal emphasis on niche items to attract maximum customers. That’s where dealership management software comes in. Dealership management software helps in identifying the best-selling products through sales reports. Further, a dealership can use that information to stock products that are in high demand.

Consequently, when you are aware of the stock that’s not selling, you can begin the process of clearing them out and using that space to instead add popular products.

The reasoning behind decluttering is simple. Let’s say there are products that have not moved from in-rest to in-transit over a long period of. Does it make sense to keep them in the storage space gathering dust?

No, it doesn’t. Instead, clear the unused stock with massive discounts and advertising and use that space to introduce fresh products that are currently in demand. This will drive sales up and also remove the non-performing assets in your inventory.

A Nicer Experience for Your Customers

With inventory management, your dealership can improve the customer experience significantly. If we reconsider the situation presented at the beginning of this article, we can say now clearly that the dealership could have improved the customer experience if the demand for the product was anticipated beforehand and stocked accordingly.

The inventory management module of a best dealership management software would have notified about products that are in demand and when those need to be re-stocked.

In Conclusion

Everyone needs a good inventory management software system. Even superheroes like Iron Man and Batman have Jarvis and Alfred respectively, to make their inventory management smoother. It’s time for your dealership to find your very own dealership management software to get the most out of your inventory.