By Matt Hayward
There’s no question that COVID-19 has had a major effect on our industry. US auto sales in April, 2020 were down to an annualized pace of just 8.6 million vehicles, the lowest pace since the statistic began being recorded in 1980.
But not all dealerships had a poor April. In fact, many CBC clients continued to ‘buck the sales trend’. Consider these examples:
CBC Ford clients finished at #1, #8, and #11 in the United States.
A CBC Ford dealer finished #1 in the US for CPO.
A CBC dealer finished #1 in their State for the first time in their history.
A CBC dealer finished #1 in the New England Region for the 2nd month in a row, and has moved up to #1 in their State.
A CBC dealer was #1 in their major metro and #1 in their State in CPO, both for the second month in a row.
A CBC dealer finished #2 in their Region, despite being located over 800 miles from either of the major cities in the Region, with 5x less population than either city.
A CBC dealer group finished up year over year for the month at both stores. One of the stores narrowly missed another store record after setting one last month.
…..and those are just a handful of examples! CBC is proud to be a small part of our clients’ big successes…especially in these times.
A challenge like we’re currently facing doesn’t have to mean disaster for your business. People still need vehicles, even now. Vehicles remain critical for many essential workers during this time. States are beginning to open back up. And for areas where dealerships are still shut down for sales, just remember, when this is over, there will be pent up demand.
When the time is right, let’s have a conversation about your plan to navigate these rough waters, into the calmer waters ahead.
Matt Hayward is Director of Business Development and a Senior Account Manager at CBC Automotive Marketing, a Maine ad agency working across the United States with successful dealerships and dealership groups.