For many dealerships, the stresses of the tax time are in-full-swing. While the tax season is a busy and strenuous time for dealers, it’s the best time to increase your sales and profitability.
As many consumers look to buy vehicles during tax time the next few months are crucial for dealership. To be successful dealers must be planned and willing to go above and beyond to attract customers.
Here are 6 tips to get your dealership ready for the tax season.
1. Integrate your accounting with your DMS
Consumers are always on the lookout for great car deals, more so during tax time. With that being said the last thing you want to do is waste valuable sales time chasing up accounts and tax affairs from the previous year.
Integrated accounting is the combining of your dealership accounting to your DMS. Integrated accounting syncs data two-ways which means when you sell a car or update any financial information it will be transferred from one program into the other, instantly and accurately!
The benefit of this is you remove costly administration time and common errors associated with keying data from multiple systems. This gives you more time to focus on converting leads into sales.
2. Run a Tax Season promotion
It’s tax time and everyone is looking for a deal. To stay ahead of the competition, it’s a great idea to implement a sale or promotion that reflects the tax time savings. Offering car buyers something different to what your competitors are offering is so much more attractive. The best part about Tax promotions are they are time dependent which means customers need to enquire and decide fast - reducing the negotiation and sales process.
Before implementing any promotion, it is best to investigate what other promotions or discounts are out in the market and how you can match and or do better.
3. Market Your Promotion
There’s no point running a promotion if nobody knows about it. You will need to promote your dealership and all the offers you may have any way that you can. This could be on your Facebook page, Google, or even through SMS and emails. These are a few inexpensive ways you can market your dealership promotions and maximise leads.
Marketing your dealership not only goes a long way to bringing customers in quickly but it builds your brand awareness which can translate into customer acquisition at a later point in time. If you are looking to implement paid advertisements you should assess all options and conditions carefully before posting.
4. Source great inventory
With the demand for used cars higher than ever right now we know how hard it is to get great stock at the right price. However, there are ways to source new high quality used cars.
Dealers should spend time looking for inventory that customers are demanding. They should research the available data, sales statistics, look at the trends and in this case see what industries can write vehicles off on tax. What consumers want in Sydney may differ to what customers want in Melbourne and vice versa!
It’s so important that you use valuation tools to assess the resale value. The last thing you would is to overpay for a vehicle and lose money.
5. Report on your Advertising
Studies show the average Australian motor dealership spends up to 8.2% of their yearly gross revenue on vehicle advertising. With that being said you will want to make sure you are getting bang for your buck.
It’s so important for Dealers to frequently assess their total advertising expenditure for each advertiser they send to and assess the leads received. Reporting on advertising ROI frequently gives you the ability to make changes on the go, save money and plan for future dealership growth.
6. Make your sales process easy!
If customers are having troubles with your buying process, they won’t buy a car from your dealership, simple! Creating a smooth sales process for your customer goes a long way. Simple things like free Car History and PPSR reports, flexible test drive times and good financing a can make so much difference.
In conclusion,
Tax time shouldn’t be stressful, it should be exciting and open your dealerships doors for future growth. To take advantage of tax time dealers should put a strategic and achievable plan in place and think of a way to stand out from the crowd.
We hope you enjoyed this article. To read more articles like this, please visit our latest news page here.
Where EasyCars can help?
EasyCars is a simple and adaptable dealer management system that automates the day-to-day tasks of running a motor dealership – freeing you up to go your sales.
Using the latest technologies, EasyCars eliminates common dealer frustrations and reduces time-wasting administration tasks to make business more efficient and streamlined today. With complete automation of advertising, accounting, stock management, Government compliance and access to free advertisers, EasyCars is a no brainer for today’s motor dealer.
Call us today on 1300 473 744 or submit the form below for a FREE no obligation live demo of EasyCars.