jdpetey wrote:Yes. If you want to get into the online arena of parts sales, they’ll help you set up a website that hides your true identity, a dealership, and you can sell parts at ridiculously low margins, while increasing your workload.
Unless you develop a STRONG plan, they will simply charge you a set up fee, along with a monthly fee, to accomplish this dead end feat.
You will now be able to compete with all the jackasses that undercut every other dealer by offering parts at prices that make the rest of us look like crooks and totally disregards the true nature of a dealerships business model.
If you don’t take the time to pre-plan how you will make it a success, you are essentially guaranteed to fail.
The true measure will become evident when you are unable to fulfill all your ‘new’ sales when you end up with negative reviews when you can’t deliver on your promises.
Unless you truly engage the competition, you are wasting your time and the dealers money.
I agree with JD here. my previous owner wanted me to get "in bed" with this company because he felt we were losing a lot of sales to online customers. I had already signed up for GM's On-Line accessory program and in my first year of selling on-line made approximately $50g in GP extra with little to no issues. I sat through their sales pitch promising us additional sales of a ton of money and all I saw was my boss' eyes twinkling! When I asked 2 questions, 1st was how accurate are the catalogs, and how many returns are generated, the salesman stumbled and said about 90% accurate, and as in all business' there will be returns 2nd, how am I going to compete with the guys out west who are selling parts in backend money? He again stumbled and said that was something I would need to discuss with my Dealer Principal... Long story short when the phone call was over I told my boss I wasn't going to waste my time selling parts at below cost in back end money to make an additional few grand in profits! I won't go into what happened from there.. LOL Suffice to say I am no longer at that dealer... They are supposedly using the company with the new Mgr and from what I have heard they are losing money because they are selling at 10 below cost just to stay competitive with the dealers out west..