As we all gear up for the coming holiday week, it seems dealers are getting a present at the end of 2016. It looks like this will be a year of record sales in the U.S. auto industry. Edmunds forecasts sales will rise slightly for the year to 17,480,259 units. While the annual increase would be less than one percent, it is nonetheless a healthy figure.
I also read today in a story in The Detroit News that 2017 sales are forecast to decline, albeit slightly. That doesn’t seem to be having much impact on the dealership buy sell market, however. I hear from my contributors that demand is high and buyers are willing to pay “crazy blue sky” for some franchises. Look for a column on that soon.
If you’re considering buying a dealership and paying “crazy blue sky,” you likely want to feel there are ways you can make your acquisition more profitable in the future. This week, Don Ray discusses an area to look for those additional future profits – in labor costs in your service department.
As I discussed in an earlier column, last month I moderated a Buy/Sell panel at the China Automobile Dealers Association annual meeting. It was the first time one of my panelists, Linda Barnette from MD Johnson, Inc., had traveled to China.
She was a bit nervous beforehand, with a lot of questions and some worries about not relating to our Chinese hosts. But as you will read in her column in this week’s issue, Barnette found much commonality in dealers from all countries at the conference. And, she discovered, they are all interested in the U.S. market.
Also this week, Transaction News.
Enjoy!
