This week WalMart announced it will work with online auto sales platform CarSaver to sell vehicles at its superstores, working with select dealerships near the WalMart location. This is not new. Costco invented this business model and has been selling vehicles successfully for years.
It is interesting, however. If dealerships are serving mainly as a delivery point in these transactions, do they need to be multi-million dollar facilities requiring an image upgrade every few years?
Also this week, Amazon announced it will begin selling aftermarket auto parts. That caused stock of companies such as O’Reilly Auto Parts and AutoZone to plummet. My question is: Will Amazon also be competing against parts sales by dealerships? Seems not as this is DIY. But, consumers will see parts prices on Amazon and demand similar prices at dealerships. I look forward to talking with dealers at NADA to see if they see this as a threat to their fixed ops parts sales.
So, on to this week’s stories. I profile Rich LaLonde’s Summit Place Kia empire in Michigan. LaLonde went from working as a CPA to founding a very successful subprime financing consulting company and website to owning several of the most successful Kia dealerships in Michigan.
We also have a column by CliftonLarsonAllen, taken from its newsletter. When I read it, I knew it contained information that my readers could use. We all want to believe people are basically honest, but not all are, alas. They may work with, shall we say, alternative facts. CLA’s John Buelow writes about ways to prevent internal fraud at dealerships.
John will be appearing at our booth during NADA, as will many of our contributors. You can find a schedule of the names and times of the people who will be at our booth –#6310 – in this issue.
I am off to NOLA tomorrow. I look forward to seeing many of you there.
Meantime, you can check out this week’s Transaction News.
Enjoy!
