vAuto Podcast

In this Q1 2025 edition of Live Market View, vAuto founder and Cox Automotive executive vice president Dale Pollak joins Derek Hansen at NADA 2025 to discuss market conditions dealers will face as the year unfolds. Dealership profitability and the need to acquire inventory—and provide greater transparency to win more vehicles from customers—top the list of key NADA take-aways. In addition, they discuss Dale’s transition efforts in his final year at Cox Automotive.

In this vAuto podcast, Nick Wright, director of client performance management, discusses how football coaching and play-calling principles can help dealers improve the consistency of appraiser performance to bring in more vehicles on the money. Nick outlines how persistent inconsistencies across appraisers translate to everyone effectively calling their own plays on specific vehicles—something football coaches don’t allow. Hear how you can help your appraisal team follow a strategy that defines the right money on every vehicle, improve the consistency of their vehicle condition assessments, and call the right audibles if/when it’s necessary to make deals.

In this vAuto podcast, vAuto’s Derek Hansen, Patrick Janes and Micah Tindor discuss the innovations vAuto will debut at NADA 2025 in New Orleans. They discuss how the new solutions help dealers and dealer groups implement a more consistent appraisal process with customers looking to sell or trade a vehicle, and centralize inventory management decision-making to improve rooftop-level performance.

In the Q4 Live Market View, Derek Hansen and Chris Stutsman discuss used vehicle sales, inventory and depreciation trends in Q4. They also share how predictive data science and AI-driven solutions from Cox Automotive help you identify each vehicle’s unique profile of investment risk and opportunity, price each vehicle to move in its ROI-optimal timeframe, and create more targeted engagements with current and prospective customers.

In this vAuto podcast, vAuto founder and Cox Automotive Executive Vice President, Dale Pollak shares a sneak peek of his new book, Invested: The New Science, Strategy and System of Used Vehicle Investment Management. Pollak shares:

Why he believes market conditions now require dealers to adopt investment management principles to contend with higher vehicle costs and declining front-end grosses.

How the book gives dealers a way to establish strategic, investment-minded objectives for vehicle acquisition, appraising and pricing.

Where he thinks the market will head in 2025 (hint: mostly favorable, with some uncertainty).

This webinar, “Don't Let Historic New Vehicle Troubles Haunt You Today” presented by Bethany Johnson and Alicia Rudowyj, gives you the tools to work smarter, not harder, in this new era of new vehicle incentives. Get best practices from top-performing dealers and the tools they use to help you accurately and efficiently apply the right incentives to the right vehicles faster.

In this vAuto podcast, Lee Segal, general sales manager at Rodland Toyota, Everett, WA, details how the dealership uses a blend of online and physical auctions to efficiently wholesale roughly 100 vehicles a month. Segal details how the dealership’s multi-channel wholesaling strategy strengthens the store’s ability to acquire vehicles from customers and feed their retail inventory. Segal also highlights wholesaling best practices he follows to build relationships and trust with buyers and deliver an optimal return for each vehicle they wholesale.

It’s a head-scratcher: Despite ample inventory and relatively strong demand, new vehicle sales aren’t living up to expectations. What gives? vAuto’s Derek Hansen and Chris Hanna provide answers and practical next steps in the Q3 edition of vAuto’s Live Market View. Get a quick view of how affordability, risk-averse lenders and more-difficult-to-manage incentives put the onus on dealers to move metal. Hear best practices to more effectively manage your new vehicle investments—all with an eye to help you capture a greater share of your market despite the headwinds.

In this vAuto podcast, vAuto Performance Managers Jim Tourigney and Patrick Wright detail best practices to help dealers avoid the five most-common merchandising missteps that result in used vehicles not moving when they should. From rethinking the role merchandising plays in your sales process to an over-emphasis on re-pricing rather than re-merchandising vehicles, Tourigney and Wright offer practical pointers to help dealers gain efficiency as they get more from their merchandising and related promotion efforts.

Bonus: The pair also distill key distinctions between merchandising new and used vehicles to better engage their respective buyers.

In this vAuto podcast, Scott Crompton, Marketing Manager for Victory Automotive Group and Dustin Corder, vAuto Performance Manager, share how they work together to help Victory drive success across its nearly 45 stores in 10 states.

Crompton details how Victory establishes operational guidelines and key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure individual rooftops serve the broader group’s interests as they make vehicle acquisition, appraising and pricing decisions.

Crompton also outlines how he manages and measures the group’s marketing spend in traditional and digital channels to support individual rooftops and the Victory brand.