Today’s dealership is in the middle of a seismic shift in how they stock inventory, how they boost profits, and how they manage growth. A new crop of dealer management platforms come and go every year and it can be tough to cut through the noise to figure out which one is best for your dealership.
In this guide, we’ll take a closer look and compare a couple of the heavy hitters in the industry to see which one may be right for you: VINCUE and Max Digital.
What is VINCUE?
VINCUE is a next generation platform that provides an end-to-end, fully functional suite of tools to help your dealership handle every facet of sales operations. What started out as simply a pricing and appraisal tool has now become a powerful one-stop-shop for dealers looking for real-time market insights and data to help dealers stay ahead of competition.
What is Max Digital?
For over 10 years, Max Digital has provided dealers with a digital retailing platform designed to bring the entire process from acquisition to purchase as seamless as possible. Their platform has a customer-centric focus and is designed to offer transparency in the sales process and efficiency with appraisals, acquisition at auction, and leveraging an aggressive advertising strategy to increase sales.
Comparing VINCUE and Max Digital
VINCUE and Max Digital exist to make the front-end sales process better and more profitable. But which tool is right for your dealership?
Let’s compare VINCUE and Max Digital by features and let you decide.
Sourcing
VINCUE includes the ability to directly source, bid, and buy cars at auction right from your desktop or mobile device in real-time. You’re connected to both major and regional auctions nationwide and you will know through instant analytics exactly the cars you need to bid on.
Max Digital also offers run lists from major auctions but doesn’t have the online bidding functionality. Dealers would have to jump into the auction interface separately to execute bids.
Appraisals
VINCUE has established themselves as an industry leader in real-time, local market insights on trade-ins. Dealers can accurately run their appraisals from anywhere including the VINCUE Mobile app. One easy-to-use tool can help dealers instantly gauge demand, supply, and turn rate before assigning a value to the customer’s trade.
This puts the dealer in control of adding new inventory in a way that preserves the best possible cost while still accounting for trim-level, recon costs, and target gross. Standard pricing data from KBB, NADA are factored in, but the bulk of the data comes from local insights.
Max Digital uses their Max Trade tool to do essentially the same thing by providing industry benchmark data from KBB, NADA, etc. as well as involving the customer in the appraisal process. The theory is that customers doing a virtual walkaround with their salesperson using an app would likely be more critical of their vehicle thus allowing for a lower ACV and higher gross for turn.
Merchandising
VInCue has incorporated a rich, data-driven merchandising tool that gives dealers customizable templates to push listing immediately after cars are committed to inventory. Buy a car at the auction, get it on your site the same day with all the details your local shoppers need. Custom AI help you get the wording just right to catch a buyer’s attention.
Max Digital also uses automated listings to help increase lot traffic, though they don’t have the ability to add auction cars immediately after acquisition. They do offer a rich suite of tools such as easy uploading of pictures that can be sent direct to customers and window sticker creation.
Vehicle Marketing
VINCUE listened to dealers that were struggling with the pitfalls of using third-party listing sites like Auto Trader and Cars.com. Their answer is a precision approach to helping dealers get their inventory directly in front of buyers without the middleman. No more listings pushed to the bottom by higher paying dealers. AdCue utilizes Display and Social Media advertising to target in-market customers wherever they go on the Internet.
Max Digital uses their Max Ad/Max Syndication tools to push listings out to market through a variety of third-party listing sites as well as many of the more popular social media platforms. They currently work with over 200 retail websites and can run market analysis to help dealers sharpen their ad spend.
Inventory Lifecycle Management
VINCUE gives dealer an easy way to present their virtual storefront in a way that will make it easy for shoppers to compare cars and communicate directly with the sales staff. Dealers can also instantly compare their prices against other competitors in the market.
Additionally, DealerCue offers dealership website templates that are professionally designed, completely customizable, and optimized to drive more leads. As your first impression with a new customer, dealerships need their websites to be as user-friendly as their staff.
Max Digital uses their Digital Showroom tool with the same objective in mind…optimize inventory listings using benchmark OEM data and pricing, compatible with most CRM’s for easy customer management, and app/QR code tool to allow salespeople to send info direct to the customer via text.
Inventory Analytics
VINCUE takes a market-driven approach to inventory analytics. Real-time pricing and inventory data from the local market combined with over 40,000 additional sources give dealers the best information on what models are hot in their market.
Max Digital uses historical sales data over a 2 years span to help dealers stock the right cars at the right price for their local shoppers. Benchmark tools Like KBB, NADA, etc. are used in conjunction with a 10-point pricing guide to help make sure prices are set for the best sales performance.
Which is Better for Your Dealership?
It’s safe to say that both VINCUE and Max Digital are both looking to serve the dealership community with efficiency and business growth in mind. Their platforms offer many of the same features with a few notable exceptions.
When offering an appraisal tool, VINCUE has the edge with a model that keeps the dealer in control of setting the price rather than involving the customer in the process. Too much collaboration as seen in Max Digital’s tool can lead to unnecessary pushback when the value is given.
Dealers also have to be cautious in the placement of their inventory on third party listing sites as they can lead to your listing being pushed several pages back while your competitor gets the prime spot on top. VINCUE has the edge in helping the customer come direct to the dealer.
With studies showing that 46% of car buyers are spending more time on dealer websites, VINCUE is offering a more comprehensive tool to bring those local customers directly to you, helping you to sell more and have more control over the sales experience.
Want to see how VINCUE can help elevate your dealership above your competitors? Schedule a demo today and take VINCUE for a test drive today.
