An automotive market analysis does not need a consultant or a thick report. With your own sales records, a map and a few hours, you can see where your customers come from, where you are losing ground and which opportunities are closest.
Keep the goal narrow. You want answers to four questions. Where do my buyers live? What are they buying? Who else are they buying from? Where is the easiest growth? Everything below serves one of those.
Export the last twelve months of sold customers from your DMS with postal code, vehicle sold, new or used, and whether there was a trade. Count sales by postal code and sort from highest to lowest.
Do the same for service customers. Service usually draws from a tighter circle than sales, and comparing the two shows where you sell cars but lose the service business.
Look at your used inventory by segment and price band. For each group, compare how many you sold with how many days they sat on average.
This is market analysis in its most useful form, because it comes from real buyers in your real market.
Spend an hour shopping your competitors online. For each of the three or four stores you lose deals to most, note the following.
You are looking for a weakness you can beat. If a competitor is slow to reply or thin on a segment you stock well, that is an opening.
Put the map and the competitor notes side by side. Growth usually hides in one of three places.
Pick one pocket to go after first. Trying all three at once spreads the effort thin.
Analysis only pays when it changes what you do. Write a one-page plan: the target area or audience, the offer, the dates and the number you will measure.
Social advertising is well suited to acting on this kind of finding because you can aim at specific towns and audiences. A Facebook Sales Event can focus on the exact areas your map showed as gaps, start conversations in Messenger and book set appointments. Willowood Ventures runs these for 600+ dealer partners, and the market review before each event covers your area, your inventory and your set appointment target.
Rerun the sales-by-postal-code count after a quarter. Did the gap area improve? Did the fast segment stay fast? Market analysis is a habit, not a single project. A short quarterly review keeps your buying and advertising pointed at where the sales actually are.
Not to start. Your own sold and service records answer most questions. Outside registration or market share data can add detail later.
The GM or GSM with the used car manager and the marketing lead. The value comes from discussing what the numbers show.
How many sales come from a small number of postal codes, and how little the store sells in a town just down the road.
Willowood Ventures runs Facebook Sales Events for 600+ dealer partners and manages $4 million per month in social advertising. Dealers see approximately 800% average ROI, and 90% of them rebook. Book a demo and we will walk through your market, your inventory and your set appointment target.
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