Press Release
Toomey Motor Group celebrates four years of Indicata supporting and growing its used car business
Stock turn for Essex-based Toomey Motor Group is a vital part of its overall used car strategy and Indicata’s used car pricing platform is at the heart of supporting its used car teams sell more cars more often for more money
The Essex-based dealer group has been using Indicata for four years and has invested in scaling up its refurbishment facilities to reduce the strain on the refurb and repair team after its used car pricing data has helped increase stock turn.
“We revisit our pricing on every single used car in stock on a weekly basis against the entire market and against the competition. Our dealerships are in a very competitive area of Essex and by reviewing prices weekly we ensure that we can compete with every single car against rival dealers,” said Ammar Khan, Toomey Motor Group’s general sales manager.
“Consumers are very savvy and carry out a lot of research online before they even approach a dealer for a test drive so it’s important every one of our cars are competitively priced. It’s common for a consumer to contact us about a car if it’s a couple of hundred pounds cheaper than a rival dealer.
“Our monthly meeting with Indicata’s customer success team also provides a useful external view on our stock and together we will review prices and stocking days. Sometimes they can encourage us to increase prices especially on new stock that has reached the dealer while also analysing the aging stock we have on our forecourts.
“Because consumers are constantly researching prices online it’s also important that when a price is changed it gets updated on our website quickly. Indicata has an APi link in place with our website provider Dealerweb so within two hours a new price is live on our website. Sometimes consumers phone up and ask why a price on our website has changed so we know how switched on they are.
“That’s where Indicata is invaluable as we can see how competitive we are on every car in our 500-vehicle group stock but it’s not always about reducing the price of a car. Sometimes in our weekly review we increase a car’s price if the market has changed or if we have a model that is in high demand but low supply.
“We cannot rely on CAP for that type of pricing information whereas Indicata is providing us with data in virtual real time.
“EVs are a good example of a changing market as they are still not following a logical price trend. Their pricing has been very volatile with certain models selling fast and other cars taking longer to sell. You would be hard pushed to value cars without the help of INDICATA data because of the speed of change in this sector.
Understanding market supply is where Indicata’s Market Day’s Supply figure comes in as it shows how many identical vehicles there are in the market of that make, model, colour and spec. It also helps us when buying used stock and when pricing our current stock.
“Whether we are buying from auction or whether we are taking in a part exchange from a consumer we use INDICATA to help us manage the price we pay. Around 60% of stock comes from customer part exchanges, while 40% is purchased from external trade channels.
“If the MDS is low and we know a car is selling, we can afford to pay an extra £500 for the part exchange car in the knowledge that we are going to sell it quickly. Increasing our trade-in price gives extra peace of mind to the customer that we are treating the part exchange valuation fairly, and we have comfort in making data-led decisions rather than taking educated guesses.
“We typically sell around 6,000 used cars across the group and Indicata helps us keep stock turn to a sensible level. The sales team know what their stock turn is at all times – its currently running at nearer 45 days but we know it’s been as low as 35 days. Sales teams are competitive and this data is something that can be used to gauge success and power the overall group used car strategy.”