Will Amazon Change How We Sell Cars?

Daniel Govaer: 0:00

Most of us went to bed and Amazon wasn't in the car business and we wake up and Amazon's in our in our cart. Why? Why is this happening?

‍Michael Wood: 0:07

Because dealers are stuck on the seven most expensive words in business. We've always done it this way. And they maintain that level for as long as they can until somebody else comes along and does it for them. And they're like, oh, wow, that's a great new shiny object I want that object to instead of innovating and actually responding to how the customer wants to transact.

Daniel Govaer: 0:31

Welcome back, everyone for another episode of the wheelhouse super excited today, we've got some new cast members that wanted to step into the ring. Just to go around real quick and introduce we have Matthew Hagen, retailer principal of Otter group, prestige Auto Group, sorry, Michael Wood, gm of checkered flag Jaguar Land Rover of Virginia Beach, we have to find a shorter title for that. And then Brian Kramer EVP cars.com. Thank you guys all so much for joining us. And as usual, we take pride in being the only show on a soda that has its own set of disclaimers. So just as a reminder that the opinions and views expressed herein are those of the speakers themselves, and do not represent those of us. So do their affiliated companies for this speakers, affiliated companies. I've got 30 seconds up on the clock, I want to know how this year is going what you guys see for ending up in December and whenever your year closes, what you see that you're going to look back on and say about the year. Can you tell me that right now how you see this year winding up for you guys from a whole store perspective? And then you know, or from or from an industry perspective, I definitely would would hear that from Brian, but 30 seconds on the clock. And Michael, as the newcomer, why don't you go ahead and start us off.

Michael Wood: 1:36

Actually, it's been a great year. I mean, we're up in New Car volume and use car volumes at both our Jacqueline river story and my Volkswagen store. And I intend to see the continue to go through the rest of the year.

Daniel Govaer: 1:48

Any surprises coming? You got 20 seconds left or

Michael Wood: 1:52

sorry, here to this guy's apologies, surprises? Nothing really. I mean, the cadence of deliveries from Jacqueline river has been a little off. It's a little front loaded each quarter. But we're hoping to see that level out as the year continues.

Daniel Govaer: 2:06

All right. Matthew Aiken will load up your 30 seconds. Tony on a bicycle Detroit by here.

Matthew Haiken: 2:13

So we're definitely back to stocking them deep and selling them cheap. And in tri state, New York, New Jersey, a lot of inventory, lots of volume. margins have compressed, it's back to where it was pre pre COVID. So it's exciting. A lot of volume and you know, puts a lot of pressure on the system for for for expenses. I love

Daniel Govaer: 2:39

as we're seeing this more and more. I love this sort of like, like awkward smile like it's exciting. Listen, it is it is awesome opportunity. Brian with 30 seconds on the clock from you. What does it look like from your vantage point? What are we going to be seeing? Did I lose sound? Yeah, no,

Brian Kramer: 3:07

no sound. Sorry, that was me. So when I was in retail, everything would be spooling up for the last 45 days of the years. Like the it was the most exciting time for, you know, for everything on this side. Nobody, none of you guys want to talk to me, you know, for the next 45 days, because you're in full blown retail mode, which I would be too. So that's basically the world. So it's like infrastructure month. That cars.com Anakee trade.

Daniel Govaer: 3:31

Oh, so that still holds true. It's infrastructure month for you guys.

Brian Kramer: 3:35

We it's the perfect time for us to go back through no differently than like January in Ohio, or anywhere up north, you know, you're going to sit there and regroup. What am I going to do for the year? We do that now to plan out, you know, how are we going to structure it? How do we, you know, if we're going to grow another 1000 Plus, you know, rooftops of Accutron? For instance? What's that need to look like? It's definitely grown a dealership? Really? It's a lot of parallels? What's the staffing look like? What's the support was the technology? How does AI fit into it? All the same things that dealers are dealing with? Just on a supporting the dealers standpoint.

Daniel Govaer: 4:08

All right. First Topic On Deck we've got again, and still this Tesla pickup truck and I know it has a better name than that or a different name than that. I don't what there's people's you can see these stories, people standing in line lines to see it can't buy it. They just want to see it. And so far, correct me if I'm wrong. The only thing I know is that we don't know how much it costs, but it'll probably be fast. And if you flip it you'll get fined maybe $50,000. Why are people standing in line to see something they know so little about that's been teased for so long.

Matthew Haiken: 4:38

I mean, I don't think it's rocket science. It's totally different in a sea of everything looking the same and blending together. This is something that looks totally unlike something we've ever seen before. I mean, maybe what are you gonna say an Aztec? This is something so unique and there's so much more around it. And that's what Elon does best. It's mysterious people want to touch it. They want to know what the what it feels like what it sounds like.

Daniel Govaer: 5:05

Sound like anything I tell you that? That's alright, I'll answer that one for you now for free. Okay,

Brian Kramer: 5:09

you can download the audio, mp3.

Daniel Govaer: 5:15

It but there's other things that look different I don't see people standing in line for what what else looks

Michael Wood: 5:20

like a cyber truck. It's like it's the DeLorean of the 21st century.

Daniel Govaer: 5:26

The DeLorean in the 20th century wasn't really the DeLorean that it isn't the 21st century. But it's just, you know,

Michael Wood: 5:36

it's unique in it. And to Matt's point, it's completely different. You know, I don't think consumers have seen anything like it. And I think the brand equity that Tesla has in the marketplace is pretty strong. I think people understand Tesla to be an innovator to, to that end, they want to see what's different about it. Can I see it in person? How do those sharp edges look? And we're living in a world of round edges?

Daniel Govaer: 5:55

Is there another? Is there a manufacturer that could get that effect? The cybertruck effect with anything that's coming that they have coming out? I mean, is there is this open for anybody else?

Brian Kramer: 6:04

In the new the new deliveries?

Matthew Haiken: 6:09

I still, I still think the other OEMs they have this like box of tools. And they're like, Okay, what can we put on the G wagon? We got an extra set of wheels here we got a rack here. I mean, to do it ground up, probably not. Because to make money in in manufacturing, you have to share this this scale. So

Michael Wood: 6:30

coming from from automakers like jaguar in the near future with their new platform, and that's all that vehicle in the UK this year. And the picture pictures haven't been leaked yet. But it is. It is a it's different. It's polarizing, and it's designed

Brian Kramer: 6:43

last night with Elon Musk. And the same thing that happened with Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs rolls out, you know, the iPhone technology was already 10 years old. Same thing with the iPad, right. But he presented it in such a way that it was going to change people's lives. He did so much grassroots product placement. If you take a look at the way that Elon Musk goes to market in the way that he markets, it's so counterintuitive, I think that dealers can learn a lot from what he does with social media, what he does with with like, like, like a podcast like this, right, where it's stirring up all kinds of controversial thoughts and not trying to be everything to everybody vanilla, he's okay with people being upset with him. And he's got Joe Rogan, you know, doing a, you know, high power, you know, bow bow, and as he's shooting it into the, into the vehicle, whatever laughs off, I don't know, if he really did that just for clicks and get more media attention, because you never know with him with a baseball bat or whatever he did with busting out the window. I don't know if that was staged. If it was an accident either way, it got people talking. And I think that people underestimate the whole PT Barnum, you know, anybody, you know that all advertising, even if it's bad advertising is effective, as long as they're talking about you or your business. And I think too many people try to go too much down the center, and worry about all the things politics and all the other BS that's going on in the world today, instead of just having brick going back and having fun with like, Ludicrous Mode, and things that, you know, every else gets so sensitive about and he just, he just puts the fun back and dysfunctional.

Daniel Govaer: 8:11

I'm sure that's what they say Thanksgiving at the musk household. Also, I think, you know, I think it's also we think we care about what we care about. And Elon, you know, who's Elon, who's in 3025. Right now, we don't know what he cares about what he knows what he cares about what we think matters to us isn't what necessarily matters to Elon, but you quoted PT Barnum. So then let's also talk about not picking a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. And the FTC comes to be are are they ruining fun? Are they making things any better? So they you know, every time you know, we're against fear mongering here in the wheelhouse, so it's like, we're gonna just look at this real quick when you hear new FTC regulations concerning auto buying. This isn't a reason to run for the hills, but they want to ban fees for add on products and services that that provide no consumer benefits. So off the bat, they're making this one hard to defend and one of the things that they quote there is nitrogen filled tires that actually contain no more nitrogen than air. So anyway, the this plus a fuel really measuring that with nitrogen to air chronometer,

Matthew Haiken: 9:13

and I'm not an expert in nitrogen, but I don't think they're selling the nitrogen. I think they also have some sort of road hazard or cosmetic wheel insurance, including in that pack and that

Daniel Govaer: 9:24

green valve stem cover.

Brian Kramer: 9:26

Let's not forget that refills. That's unlimited refills, right.

Daniel Govaer: 9:29

So so right, so what they're saying So what So congressman, that's challenging, and so the rule appears to rest on thin analysis and unreliable data suffers from several procedural flaws, including violations of FTC regulations requiring advanced notice of proposed rulemaking. I mean, that was somewhat that didn't sound as clear as I thought that quote was going to be, and it's being challenged by the Alliance for automotive innovation, which rent it represents, amongst others, GM, Toyota, and Volkswagen. I've never heard of that name before, but I'm sure it's a credible organization but what what are we what is what are we seeing here? What is this

Brian Kramer: 10:01

I say it's just a statement. It's like putting more taxes on top of taxes and more fees and complexity. It's very, it reminds me of the Evie, use car tax rebates that are so complicated that everybody has to figure out on a spreadsheet to see if it qualifies. And it's, it's more complicated than a rebate and incentive, you know, decoder ring. I mean, what, why don't they go ahead and regulate tech snacks, and regulate API's so that people have to talk to each other decentralize the technology, so that anybody can make it a lot easier. So that none of that stuff can happen if that's what they if they dislike it so much. You know, that's really the problem, it starts with the software, it starts with the software not talking to each other. So you can't have a an attestation trail to go back and see what's going on if you did want to audit somebody, so shame on them.

Michael Wood: 10:50

And for me, I have a little frustration with it. Because you know, our dealer group, our unique selling proposition isn't going to go station free, and I legitimately mean negotiation free. And so for us, that's kind of an opportunity for us when our competitor at the local Volkswagen dealership is playing the games, if you will, with the consumer, it's a really easy way for us to level the playing field say, Listen, this is what they're doing. Here's what transparency looks like, it's your choice consumer, which one do you prefer? And we find that our feedback business has increased exponentially since we went to that model. That's

Brian Kramer: 11:18

powerful.

Daniel Govaer: 11:20

That's heavy. And you can and you can quantify that Michael versus versus what your competition is.

Michael Wood: 11:27

Well, I guess it'd be hard to quantify against the competition without having access to certain data. But I can just quantify from our internal data that the level of customers that come into us and then shop another dealer within our market, the rate of them returning has increased exponentially since we are since we've implemented negotiation free and even more so since we've gone to single point of contact.

Matthew Haiken: 11:48

You know, are they going after rental car companies? Are they going after the hotels? Are they going after the airlines? I mean, we all we all have the same thing in common our margins are razor razor thin, and I don't see them going after any of them you know, so I get it but there's fees everywhere everywhere you go there's a credit card fee that's not legal there's there's fees that's how people survive

Brian Kramer: 12:19

preferred fee like Southwest if somebody wants to be at the front of the line get in and out of the dealership. I pay for that. Yeah, I pay that fee or kiss my ass

Matthew Haiken: 12:29

but doc fee is is x if you don't want to speak to the finance manager.

Daniel Govaer: 12:35

Oh, now that's interesting, right like a true Fastpass. Like like SunPass. But for automotive right like, but then do you tie into there that you skate villas timeshares. But when that when the survey comes and ask you like was all your paperwork explained to you correctly? And all the features in the car? Explain You're correct, we're gonna also have to have you like, claim on there that we did do all that like, for, for 1499. You don't have to talk to anybody. But you do make sure that you say that you we did all this at the dealership. And we'll give you extra nitrogen the next time you come in for all your tires. Alright, he's awesome. credit card fees, by the way, perfectly legal as long as they're done correctly. So I didn't

Matthew Haiken: 13:12

I was referring to on the non correct ones. Most restaurants you go to it's not done the right way. Okay. There's no signs in the front window. And on this? No,

Daniel Govaer: 13:22

I mean, I just want to make sure dealers know that you are perfectly allowed to do it. There's some very reputable companies that can that you do need a third party to do it has to be an arm's length. You can't do it yourself.

Matthew Haiken: 13:30

And it depends on the state that you do, because like every state is different. But yeah, okay.

Daniel Govaer: 13:36

Tesla gets somewhat of an unusual but kind of speaking at the way it is endorsement. CEO of Mazda, in an interview basically said that the it's not an Eevee market, it's a Tesla market. Tesla's are the only EVs that are this is paraphrasing from what he gave him the interview. Tesla's are the ones that are successful in the electric market in the United States. He's talking about specifically saying that, really, it's Tesla's market, and then there's sort of everybody else doing EVs. And he's doing that sort of as to explain Mazdas position was a successful company. Also, I think they have a great niche and what they accomplish, and they've got a very performance oriented network. So I take that it's pretty interesting when it I also think is the first time we've had an automotive OEM CEO come out and say, now there's a Tesla market and then there's EVs. We're not trying to play in the Tesla space. And we're not sure yet that we want to be in that how we want to be in that other space, either. You think we're going to start seeing more of that as people segment is the market market actually segmented like that?

Matthew Haiken: 14:36

The reason they're saying that is because they cannot make money and compete. So you could either build a bunch of cars and lose even more money to get rid of them and have a price war or you can make a statement like that, that just says like, listen, we're not going to hemorrhage all this money, put all these resources and then lose more money. And I think I think just the beginning, you're gonna see a lot of people, they'll say it in different ways. I think a lot of these companies have already said it. But right now the way that we're sitting on all this inventory, and it's tying up all this incentive money from both the manufacturers, the government, our floor plans, I think you're gonna see more statements like that. This is not anti Evie. I'm driving my Eevee everyday, and I love it. But the manufacturers just can't compete with Tesla right now.

Michael Wood: 15:27

Let's because demand isn't equal to the supply either. I mean, at the end of the day, we have all of these EVs that are stacking up, and the consumer sentiment just isn't there to purchase the vehicle. So I think that they're wise to bow out. And I think that Toyota was wise to not go all in in the beginning, either. But yeah, he took a lot of backlash and stepped down after making that stance. Sir, is

Daniel Govaer: 15:45

it fair question? So Mike, so you when you're talking about EVs, primarily, you're talking about Voc from your brands? You're talking about Volkswagen, right?

Michael Wood: 15:53

To an extent, I mean, next year, we're gonna have all Jaguar platform. No, no,

Daniel Govaer: 15:56

but I mean, yes, yes, currently, we're talking right. And we're saying like the ID, fours and whatnot. And like, that's kind of what we're be. And then you also have Jaguar, like you just said, is the demand for electric Volkswagens any less than it is for your average Jaguar throughout the year?

Michael Wood: 16:13

I'd actually say it's a little bit higher. I mean, we're, our ground stock is about 25% it for right now, which is a lot higher than I'd like it to be. But we're selling about 10% of what we sell each month as EV at Volkswagen, where I've got two IPS Jaguars right now on sitting on the ground, and they'll probably have birthdays.

Daniel Govaer: 16:30

Right. So I mean, I think that's interesting, too, inside the segment that we have for EVs. That's kind of an interesting note. Let's, let's go to what I'm sure lots of people are talking about, right, we get a press release that says that there's now cars on Amazon, and then we get part of the dealer body that says they've tried that before, because we are we will stick with the steps of stagnation that we have. And the first one is we've already tried it that way. And it's this is not the same as what's happened in the past. But it's also not exactly like people are saying, like, you're gonna be able to click Buy now. And Hyundai will show up at your door. That's not it, either. But I want to first ask Brian, because Brian, as usual, posted a very insightful article on LinkedIn. If you haven't seen that, check that out on his profile. But Brian, what's your what's your highlight read on this?

Brian Kramer: 17:16

Well, I would say it the way you look at it today is not the way that it's going to be in the future. And anybody who thinks that it's just going to be static, and you know, a click through to a local, you know, tier two or tier three dealership website, and that then Amazon's gonna go, You know what, that's the end state, the same company that came up with Amazon Prime, and then Amazon now, same day delivery, that same company that was able to, after 100 years, couldn't get the US Postal Service to deliver mail on Sundays, they were able to get them to do that and deliver mail at 10 o'clock at night with for me last night. And all the get the amp the US Postal Service to do things that they never did before. And help them generate a lot more revenue in the process of doing it through service level agreements and SLAs. If they can do that, that way, what's to stop them from using those same service level agreements to get the what they consider the more progressive dealers and the more customer focused dealers, the same stuff like Mike was just talking about? That should I see that being rewarded on their marketplace to where he'll get better placement or better real estate or dealers that don't do what he's doing might not get the opportunities that they're sending out? Or however, that algorithm will comment, something similar? That

Daniel Govaer: 18:31

would be nice to think except that, you know, if I'm, if I'm reading correctly, why they're being sued by the United States right now, it's because the two sellers selling the same product don't get the same treatment on Amazon, and it doesn't have to do with what customers are reading them. And that Amazon has a PayPal pay for play system with its advertisers. It's not based off of consumer feedback, but leave that alone for did I just leave that alone for

Brian Kramer: 18:52

the time of what you just said, That's why dealers should go and do it on their own unsolicited and do what Nordstrom did in, in William Sonoma, and also companies that are emerging and say, To hell with everybody else?

Daniel Govaer: 19:05

Why is this happening? Right? Like most of us, went to bed and Amazon wasn't in the car business. And we wake up and Amazon's in our in our cart. Why? Why is this happening?

Michael Wood: 19:14

Because dealers are stuck on the seven most expensive words in business. We've always done it this way. And they maintain that level for as long as they can until somebody else comes along and does it for them. And they're like, oh, wow, that's a great new shiny object. I want that object to instead of innovating and actually responding to how the customer wants to transact. I think a lot of customers want to do a majority of the transaction online, but they still want to come in. They still want to have that experience of the good part about buying a car. They want to do all the bad part about buying a car on their couch while they're eating leaves potatoes. They want to come into the dealership and be wild with the level of experience that they get when it comes to the delivery process. And to the point you made earlier with Tesla just pressing the button and taking their car home but still having a full delivery slip still having that really Relationship with a brick and mortar that's going to be there to answer their questions and problems as they arise. Arise, excuse me throughout their ownership experience.

Daniel Govaer: 20:09

Matt, do you think they picked Hyundai? Because is it is it? Is it almost as much of a? Is it a slight like compliment but slap in the face? Is it a? Is it a backhanded compliment that they chose Hyundai for this? Or?

Matthew Haiken: 20:21

No, not at all? I think I don't think I don't know the details. But I don't think they exclusively picked Hyundai I'm sure Hyundai wooed them because they want to be in the spotlight. And it's getting a lot of impressions and people are picking it up. And we don't even know what it means. But you're associating a brand like Hyundai with a brand like Amazon. And it's a win for it's definitely a win for Honda and for Amazon to get into this automotive segment. I mean, and they've always kind of been somewhere in the segment. But yeah, at the end of the day,

Daniel Govaer: 20:55

it's like Tesla, why wouldn't Why isn't Tesla on it? Wouldn't that, you know, on the one hand, it makes the most sense. On the other hand, like what Brian's saying is Tesla wouldn't need it, because Tesla has has an easy experience already. But then they already have that platform. So why wouldn't they just be Tesla on Amazon now? So why did they go to a legacy automaker? And then why specifically 100? I do that wasn't in the boardroom. And I think it was Amazon that picked the automaker, not the other way around, nearly,

Matthew Haiken: 21:17

I don't know, I think it was probably one marketing department to the next. But I mean, this, this is all about the OEM legacy. This is says nothing about Tesla's Tesla would never go this route. I mean, Elon would rather just like, tweet, tweet out something on x with a link.

Daniel Govaer: 21:35

competitor, like gamma, it's just it's I'll show you though, it's the same thing. Like just when we're talking about like those FTC regulations, who's not who's not worried about that, who's not in the automotive Innovation Alliance of free thinkers, or whatever that one was, who's not who's not in that and who's not having a problem with those fees, because they don't have those fees and who's not having a problem with Amazon, representing a manufacturer. It is the Tesla's and the reviens. And maybe to some extent, the Fiskars of the world, those are the ones that don't do it and are not affected by it. And they already have the platform, right? I mean, it is done easy. If you really within a minute, you can spec out a Tesla and and pay your upfront and have it ordered, and I'll tell you when it arrives, and you can do it on Apple Pay. And right. I mean, that that part's there. So they don't need the Amazon for it. So is are the rest of us going to be Amazon ified? Or are we just catching up to Tesla?

Michael Wood: 22:24

I think we're catching up to Tesla.

Brian Kramer: 22:28

Yeah, and their platform, which was built by Jay Jay on Tachyon is the one who built that platform, you know, a while ago, and obviously it's more complex, and there's more moving pieces, or else they would have already been further along in their on their journey. And I think that tech yawns got got a great tech, but I think that, you know, like, cars commerce, we use AWS, AWS, taking everything into the cloud, if it's, if it's with us, if it's a dealership on their own, like a lot of dealers to deal with CDP's and data lakes. That is something that every dealer needs to make a huge priority, because if not, you'll be at the mercy of, you know, somebody else, we're trying to enable dealers to be able to do this, they might not have the capital or the resources or the size of the group to be able to do it. But I think that the biggest problem with anybody trying to do this without going into the cloud, and Amazon owns Mondale in that market, with AWS, they're like the, the Edison, Thomas Edison or the you know, the electric company, when it comes to that. They own the data sharing service and everything that comes to that. But they also by doing that don't have the tech stack issues that every legacy car dealer has. So now they can take everything up to the cloud and transact in a way that everybody else can't with a separate CRM that has a hostile API to the DMS and all the other things that that happen along the way. Everybody can go to a cloud based transactional capability. And that really is the answer. I think

Michael Wood: 23:53

there's a fear amongst the legacy dealers to you know, relinquish the control, there's this thought that we have to control every single step of the process in order to be profitable. But a lot of times when consumers are left to their, you know, their own choices, they'll spend more money. I mean, we don't have to have complete command and control of every 37 step or how many steps you have in your process. In order to be profitable. We need to listen to what the customer wants and responding in kind of a single point of contact like we do. Absolutely. We saw an increase in f&i PVR, we saw an increase in PPD and we saw about a 50% reduction from the expensive loss that we have. And we got rid of the f&i managers because of course some of that money had to go to the what we call product specialists to incentivize them but no question we you know, it's a less there's less friction in the process with the consumer and we're more about presenting the options and educating as opposed to hardline closing.

Daniel Govaer: 24:49

It seems to me the things that we hold as like this will never happen type thing or it's just too difficult for too many reasons. In the car business, something that like I've been told most of my life, that these are Now there's companies that come in and look at it with enough backing and enough people from other industries that look at a trillion dollar industry like automotive retail here and say no, actually, like, that's not, why not like that's, that's not unreasonable. You know, we can tell you what your payment will be next month when you get your car. And they'll start that.

Brian Kramer: 25:17

And Amazon that work for our company that used to work for Amazon. And as I'm asking, I'm like, Well, can we do this to do this? And some of them kind of chuckle and they said, we did this with healthcare, that Amazon 12 years ago

Matthew Haiken: 25:31

to that party, like, we've been waiting for this forever, like we embrace this we want to happen like, We're not the ones holding this up. Dealers, franchise dealers, we're not the ones

Brian Kramer: 25:43

you know, you weren't on the clubhouse call this morning.

Matthew Haiken: 25:45

I was. You guys didn't invite me. I don't even know. I don't know, if you're gonna

Daniel Govaer: 25:49

wait for an invite. There's just never gonna happen. It's funny. Some people told me today about the wheelhouse I'm like, if you went are waiting for an invite, you have a sorely mistaken for people that know what they're doing. And that's not the case. I don't know who's know it's it's it's are we waiting for it to happen? If that's the case, then we're just waiting for these other things to happen. Maybe. But look how many things right. I want you to tell me what I'm gonna get my car. How many people would be how many I ordered a car for you? Right? That's what a roomful of 100. Dealers from all different OEMs, right and say, stay in the room. If you can tell me I'll give you a 30 day window. Right? But the penalty is a million cash. When am I going to get my car that I ordered from you today? And you have a 30 day window? When am I going to get my car? Who's left in the room? Why? Do you mean why? Why? No, that's

Brian Kramer: 26:40

a great question. Why?

Matthew Haiken: 26:41

Why can anyone tell you that question? I'll tell you why. Oh, great. There's a pot of money at the end. I've never worked for manufacture. I always I always dream that one day. I you know, I could have that extra save a pot of money. And they do not give a shit from my perspective, about taking that money and fixing their legacy distributions. Programs. I don't think they can't prioritize it all. They only

Brian Kramer: 27:11

think about like with your local advertising or dealership group. When dealers argue and debate about Inbound units, not inbound units, can we display him to only ground units? What are we going to display? Nobody can agree on that. So that's what holds everything up. Because they should be able to like if you order, Volvo Evie that that OEM process is very well defined. I know for a fact that JLR is very well documented with a consumerist. If you order the new body Range Rover Sport, they're going to tell you just like a Ford Bronco, they're going to tell you every step of the way. And they're going to communicate with the consumer, in many cases better than the

Michael Wood: 27:50

JLR. I'm drinking the Kool Aid with JLR. And I'm a big fan of them. But that is actually our biggest problem. I mean, if you walk into my dealership right now, and you want to order a long wheelbase autobiography, new body style Range Rover, and you asked me hey, when is going to come in? I'm gonna be like, great.

Daniel Govaer: 28:07

And you've got customers, they'll tell you like, Michael, it's fine. If it's a year. Okay, yeah, it's fine. But telling me that a year and telling me when that's going to be, and you can't, and you still can't do that. How about how about just, here's when you're gonna get your car. And this is your lease payment? Because like, then we've already priced out what the car is that's online, we've already showed you what the rate, you know what it's going to be on either a loan or lease. We've already shown you that. There's not a debate about like, Well, do you show a lease on every pencil? No, because of course you do. It's just a slider, you just move it over. And it tells you which one you want. Why but in the car, in our industry, a lot of times we're still debating, do you show a lease with every pencil with them? It's like it's there with every pencil anyway, and the rate is good. And the payment that I show you today is going to be true when you come to pick up your car. Can BMW do this on some cars? Yes.

Matthew Haiken: 28:53

So what about the trade, like there's a trade involved. And you don't know if the car is going to be here in 120 days or 90 days.

Daniel Govaer: 29:00

That's why That's why when when you order that car, they're not asking you about your trade. They're just not even it's not even a part of the conversation. Really,

Brian Kramer: 29:07

that's not what that's not the way it's going to be with a lot of the manufacturers. And that's not a big what they have in mind. But I'll say this, because I'm heavily involved in that particular staff. We, we do it, I did the same way that I did it at at Toyota when the new tundra came out or whenever any new model came out to Sequoia. We just sent them the link and the customer to Michael's point can guide themselves through the journey. They can refresh it every three days just like they can on Carvana or they can do it on on other competitive websites like that. Keep hitting the refresh button every three days. And as you see a drop, you got two different choices. You can either watch it depreciate like a crypto account, or you can go over and you can go rent a vehicle just like I bought a car that Toyota dealership in Miami the other day the car wasn't coming in for three weeks the replacement vehicle, we said the same thing. Hey, here's the daily depreciation rate. It's about $38 a day. It's going to be three weeks. Do you recall Do you want to do that? Well, yeah, I want to take that money today. It How much is it going to be and they worked out because they had a rental car company on the on site and rented the vehicle. But I think that everybody has to realize that the depreciating assets no different than the residuals no differently than I've got a rent or not a rivian vanderhall Brawley that was supposed to be here a year and a half ago, on order that they keep on just saying that they don't and that's an AV company that should have all that together. And they can't tell me when it should have been here last Christmas. It's another year out. It might have got a DeLorean in order to pay five grand or whatever was for deposit, but it gave me an NF T. I know I'm 20 387 way What did you order? The new DeLorean. Okay, go Goldwing but so at least I know I got um, if I want to sell that my spot in line I can actually sell that for a profit because it's an NFT on a blockchain I don't have to wait until it comes in or so my slot but at least I know. Like I get it Lexus GX 550 on order that, you know, I'm told that I'm third in line at the at the dealership, but do I know that? Could they put somebody else in front of me would never know. You know how to how would I know? At least what the DeLorean at least I know that. That's what the number is and I know there's gonna be 20 And I'm okay with a 20 386 people that get one before I do well

Daniel Govaer: 31:11

total up points that I actually I didn't I didn't assign points. But Michael this is your first time so we're just gonna it was it was gonna be yours. Anyway. So congratulations. Your your award

Brian Kramer: 31:21

was the deserved all those points?

Daniel Govaer: 31:27

I've got some rapid fire questions. And when we've got when you guys see that 29 seconds or so on the screen, you just let me know Michael I'll read these as fast as I can. And, and you're gonna answer them as fast as you can. And it's gonna range from you're gonna range from all things All right, ready? Yep. All right name something else the FTC should ban an auto sales.

Michael Wood: 31:50

Showing delivery or showing destination fees. On top of the price of the vehicle on the window. Well, it'd

Daniel Govaer: 31:57

be the next company to partner with Amazon.

Michael Wood: 32:00

Probably a luxury brand like a Landrover. I can see that happening. My wife made this corn pudding like bread pudding this year that was just absolutely amazing.

Daniel Govaer: 32:15

You just stick with my wife's corn pudding that next time like it's got a holiday schedule coming up. But we've got some really cool episodes coming up and things that you're definitely going to want to tune into. Thanks for our panelists today, Matt, Michael and Brian. Really appreciate you guys. Thank you guys for coming on. Hope everyone enjoyed the listen. Drop us some comments, let us know what you'd like to hear about or more about or less about and we'll try and pay attention to them. Alright, thanks, everybody. Have a great day.

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