Choosing profit over velocity isn’t just a trend — it’s a smart strategy for financial strength and resilience. Dealerships that prioritize gross profit per unit over increasing unit sales volume are finding a clearer path to success with an overall increase in revenues. By focusing on maximizing the margin on each sale rather than just pushing volume, they’re setting themselves up to weather market shifts and see greater profitability.
Why Profit Matters More Than Just Sales Volume
Chasing high unit sales volume might seem like the way to go, but the velocity strategy has now repeatedly been debunked and can actually squeeze your profit margins and increase operational costs. Shifting your strategy to center around gross profit means making more money on each sale, not just selling more cars. Dealerships that make this switch often find that, over time, they increase profits, reduce inventory costs, and build a stronger financial foundation for future growth.
Dealerslink is built on this hold gross profit-first strategy, with tools that help dealerships make smarter, data-backed decisions around inventory pricing and merchandising. For example, our real-time market pricing lets dealerships adjust prices based on current retail data analytics and trends, optimizing each vehicle’s maximum margin, not just always being the lowest priced unit in your market.
Asbury Automotive Group, one of the largest automotive groups in the nation, recently made the shift to a profit-over-volume strategy, demonstrating the power of this approach in today’s market. Read more on Asbury’s profit-focused strategy here.
Lowering Costs with Smarter Sourcing
To boost gross profit, it’s essential to control sourcing costs. Auctions, while necessary at times, often bring in vehicles with thinner margins. Instead, focusing on trade-ins and local customer acquisitions allows dealerships to capture high-margin vehicles without the additional costs of auctions and recon.
The Dealerslink Trade Appraisal tools streamline this shift to in-house sourcing, allowing dealers to access high-quality inventory from their local markets. This approach reduces auction expenses and aligns inventory with profitability goals.
Efficiency: The Secret to Maximizing Profit
Reducing operational expenses is another vital part of the profit-first strategy. Managing SG&A expenses can be challenging, but Dealerslink tools like reconditioning and inventory performance make it easy to keep costs in check.
Our platform’s automation also frees up time for staff to focus on revenue-generating tasks, avoiding time-consuming administrative work. This efficiency-driven approach aligns with maximizing per unit gross profit while keeping operational costs in check.
Building a Resilient Dealership
Focusing on gross profit doesn’t mean slowing down growth; it strengthens a dealership’s ability to tackle market challenges and capture high-margin opportunities. This strategy gives dealerships a resilient, profit-focused approach that withstands economic shifts and supply chain disruptions.
With the Dealerslink suite of tools, dealerships have everything they need to make the best profit-focused inventory decisions. From smarter sourcing to dynamic pricing and cost management, Dealerslink supports dealerships in the shift from velocity to profit — helping secure both immediate gains and long-term business stability.
