Demand-Driven Merchandising

In a market with higher carrying costs and slower buyers, some of the fastest gains may already be sitting on your lot and your website.

By Ashley Callahan, General Manager, PureInfluencer

There are times in this business when the market does some of the work for you, and this isn’t one of them. Dealers are looking at higher carrying costs, affordability pressure on consumers, and a wholesale market that may not provide the exit they want on aging inventory. At the same time, customers who need financing may take longer to decide.

None of that means the opportunity has disappeared. It means we have to get better at recognizing and acting on the opportunity already in front of us.

Waiting Is Still a Decision

I’ve spent most of my career working with operators, and one thing has held true across industries: when conditions get harder, waiting can feel like the safest decision. Sometimes it is. But waiting also has a cost, and nowhere is that clearer than with an aging vehicle.

Traditionally, a dealer has a few familiar choices for a unit that isn’t moving, and right now none of them is particularly comfortable.

Holding inventory carries a cost. Wholesale values have softened, and auction conversion has declined compared with a year ago. That makes the wholesale exit less attractive at exactly the moment the vehicle becomes more expensive to carry.

So, the question I’d be asking isn’t simply, “How quickly do we need to get rid of this car?” It’s, “Have we done everything we can to retail it first?” That’s a very different conversation, and it starts with your website.

Your Website Should Know What You Need to Sell

Dealership websites have traditionally been built around what customers are looking for. That makes sense: if someone searches for a specific vehicle, we want to make it as easy as possible to find it. But another side of the equation deserves more attention: what the dealership needs to sell.

If a vehicle has been sitting for 60, 75 or 90 days, simply having it somewhere in the inventory feed isn’t enough. Depending on how inventory is sorted, the vehicles a dealership most needs to move may get less visibility as newer inventory arrives.

“The dealership knows which units need attention, and the website has shoppers actively browsing inventory, yet too often nothing intelligently connects those two things.” —Ashley Callahan, GM, PureInfluencer

A great salesperson does this instinctively. A customer comes in interested in one vehicle, and the salesperson listens, understands what the customer wants, and may say, “If you like that one, I have another vehicle I think you should see.” Our digital experience should be capable of creating that same kind of opportunity.

Look Harder at the Traffic You Have

This idea extends well beyond inventory. For years, automotive marketing has focused heavily on generating more: more impressions, more clicks, more visitors and more leads. Those things matter, but every GM should ask another question: how much opportunity are we missing from the traffic we already paid to acquire?

Only a small percentage of dealership website visitors become an identifiable sales opportunity. Most shoppers visit, research and leave without ever raising their hands.

In an environment where affordability is stretching the buying journey, that gap matters even more. A shopper who once needed two visits to make a decision might now need four. Someone who would have purchased this month might need another paycheck, another conversation at home or another look at the numbers. That doesn’t necessarily make them a bad prospect; it makes their journey longer. And every return visit creates another opportunity for the dealership to recognize intent and engage that customer at the right moment.

The Buyer May Not Be Gone. They May Just Need More Time.

This distinction matters for automotive dealership leaders. When conversion slows, our first instinct can be to assume we need more leads at the top of the funnel, and sometimes we do. But before increasing spend, I’d want to understand what’s happening with the shoppers already moving through it.

Five Questions to Ask Before You Increase Spend:

1. Are we recognizing buying signals?
2. Are we giving high-intent shoppers a reason to identify themselves?
3. Are we connecting customers with relevant inventory?
4. Are we giving the sales team enough information to act when intent is highest?
5. Are we treating repeat website visits as additional opportunities rather than anonymous traffic?

Those questions matter more as customers take longer to decide. The objective isn’t to pressure someone into buying before they’re ready. It’s to become better at recognizing when they are ready.

Two Assets. Three Engines. More Opportunities.

Dealers often manage website conversion and aging inventory as two separate challenges, and I don’t think they should. You have vehicles you need to sell, and you have shoppers you’re already paying to bring to your website. The opportunity is in connecting those two assets more intelligently.

At PureInfluencer, that thinking drives myTraffic, myOffer and myTurn. myTraffic surfaces the shopper behavior and buying signals a dealer can’t otherwise see. myOffer engages those shoppers at the right moment, before they leave the website. And myTurn puts aging inventory in front of relevant shoppers while they’re actively browsing, giving those vehicles another chance to find a retail buyer.

The technology matters, but the strategy behind it matters more: get more from what you already have before assuming the answer is to buy more.

Technology Should Help Your Team See Opportunity Sooner

Technology should not make dealership operations more complicated. The best technology makes your people better at what they already do. A strong salesperson recognizes intent, a strong used-car manager knows which units need attention, and a strong GM understands where the store is making money and where opportunity is slipping away.

Technology should help connect those dots faster, and at a scale a person simply can’t manage manually. It should help surface the shopper who’s showing signs of being ready and help an aging vehicle get seen by someone who might actually buy it. It should also help the dealership act on information it already has, rather than constantly requiring another campaign, another source of traffic or another increase in spend.

Control What You Can Control

I’ve always believed good operators focus their energy on what they can control. We can’t control interest rates or wholesale values, and we can’t decide when every customer will be financially ready to purchase. But we can control what happens when that customer arrives on our website.

We can control whether our aging inventory gets a meaningful opportunity to be seen and how effectively we recognize intent. We can also control whether our first reaction to a difficult market is to spend more or to become better at converting the opportunities we already have.

The market will change again. It always does. The dealerships that build the discipline to make more of every shopper and every vehicle won’t have to wait for it.