Many of today’s dealers can sum up their current pricing strategy with one phrase: “race-to-the-bottom”. It’s obvious that this approach is bad for business, but dealership owners across the country have been using it for years. Why?
It’s because this “race-to-the-bottom” is the philosophy behind many pricing tools on the market today. They work against dealers by providing insights that encourage them to win on price — but not much else.
To thrive in today’s car market, dealers need a tool that not only helps them compete on price, but shows them how to win on value as well. This starts with having the right inventory and market data. With the right information in hand, dealers can make better buying decisions that maximize their sales, profit, and turn.
There are many tools on the market that help dealers make pricing, appraisal, and inventory decisions, but few that can help them achieve both a high-turn and high-gross. In this article, we’ll be comparing two of the most popular tools to see how they stack up: VINCUE and Autoniq.
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What is VINCUE?
VINCUE is a powerful pricing, sourcing, advertising, and inventory optimization tool for new and used cars markets. VINCUE uses real-time market data from over 40,000 dealership websites to help dealers make better decisions and grow their profits. Dealers can compare their inventory to local competitors and win more customers.
VINCUE is a data-rich platform with a ton of features. From the competitor poach report to local market sales metrics, it gives dealers all the information they need to optimize their inventory, streamline lead generation, and earn more on each vehicle.
What is Autoniq?
Autoniq is an app that aggregates pricing and market guides from sources like Black Book, KBB, and NADA. Autoniq also has its own profit guide and market report that can be used to make decisions at auction. Their VIN Scanner mobile app is a popular tool for appraising vehicles on the fly.
Autoniq is one of the more affordable pricing tools on the market, but with that comes limited functionality and fewer insights. For live market data, inventory management, and vehicle sourcing, dealers will have to use other tools.
Comparing VINCUE vs. Autoniq
VINCUE and Autoniq both help dealers make better pricing and appraisal decisions. However, they are very different in terms of scope, depth, and functionality. Let’s look at the key features of each tool and see how they compare.
Real-Time Market Data
The core of VINCUE’s platform is real-time market data that tracks over 40,000 dealership websites and 7 million vehicles. This means that dealers have the most up-to-date information available when they need it. VINCUE shows you best-sellers in your area, turn rates, local supply/demand metrics, and much more.
Autoniq relies primarily on the major pricing books for its data. It’s data is limited to weekly updates, which means it cannot tell you about your competitors’ sales activity right now. Autoniq is useful for a high-level snapshot of your market, but not in-depth analysis.
Inventory
VINCUE is an inventory management optimization platform, allowing dealers to track their sales, turn rates, pricing age, and inventory age for both new and used vehicles. It sets itself apart by not only helping dealers price competitively, but stock more profitably as well. VINCUE helps dealers identify their highest-grossing products based on their sales history and local market conditions.
Vincue also provides dealers with better syndication for their existing inventory. When you syndicate out to third-party sites, Vincue allows you to capture all of a vehicle’s features and options – not just the basics. This ensures each vehicle earns its full, authentic value.
Autoniq does not help dealers track their inventory, measure their sales performance, or syndicate out vehicles. Dealers need to use additional tools to gain this insight.
Vehicle Appraisal & Pricing
In the competitive world of auto sales, it is critical for a dealer to have a strong used car appraisal strategy. VINCUE helps dealers do this with real-time, hyper-local sales data. VINCUE’s appraisal tool gives you up-to-date wholesale and retail pricing based on similar vehicles in your market, down to the trim level. VINCUE calculates the retail market price, then factors in gross margin and reconditioning costs to give you the Wholesale Appraised Value.
Autoniq gives dealers access to pricing guides from the major pricing books. This is good baseline information, but many dealers are too beholden to book pricing. Pricing varies from book to book, and the price your customer finds through online research might not align with the book value. The only way to get pricing right every time is to base your decisions on real-time market data.
Vehicle Sourcing
As they say, you don’t make money when you sell a car – you make money when you buy it. That’s why vehicle sourcing is such an important aspect of a dealer’s business.
Auction sourcing is built right into VINCUE for a truly seamless sourcing experience. It allows dealers to find the most in-demand vehicles around the country and bid on them without ever leaving the VINCUE dashboard.
The best part: Market pricing data is just a click away. Dealers can see the wholesale and retail values of each vehicle before they make a purchase. Combined with VINCUE’s real-time inventory data, you know exactly where you need to stock up.
Autoniq gives dealers access to auction lists from the major auction houses around the country (as well as many independants). However, you can not actually bid on vehicles through the Autoniq app.
Precision Marketing
Third-party car sites are becoming more expensive and less effective at generating leads, leaving dealers stuck with inventory they can’t move.
That’s why Vincue gives dealers access to precision advertising with AdCue. Dealers can use Adcue to automatically create digital inventory ads to target customers who are ready to buy and in the market for vehicles you have in stock — sending leads straight to your website, not to a third-party.
Vincue also helps dealers build their brand with 100% customizable, world-class websites. Owners can use Vincue to create a mobile-friendly and attractive dealership page that leaves a strong first impression and helps convert visitors.
The Better Value: VINCUE or Autoniq?
Autoniq is known as a “budget” market pricing tool. With the low price, however, comes limited capabilities. Even when you buy the largest Autoniq package (at a cost of $350/month) users receive essentially the same data they can get from the pricing books.
With VINCUE, users get far more than just access to pricing books. They get proprietary, real-time data from over 40,000 dealership websites— a total of 7 million vehicles. On top of that, VINCUE let’s dealers source vehicles, optimize their inventory, and market their products—all from a single dashboard.
VINCUE’s sole purpose is to increase gross/copy and increase turn. It’s built to provide as many tools as possible to help you achieve that.
Plus, VINCUE still costs just a fraction of premium-priced tools like vAuto. (See our comparison of VINCUE and vAuto). This makes it an affordable tool for dealerships of any size.
The Final Verdict: VINCUE Wins on Features AND Value
When comparing the value of VINCUE vs. Autoniq, it’s also important to look beyond the cost. Autoniq, while affordable, offers little insight that can’t be found in the pricing books. This might help dealers sell faster by undercutting competitors, but they’ll ultimately be leaving hundreds or thousands of dollars on the table with each sale. It won’t take long for this budget option to actually start costing your dealership money.
VINCUE was developed from the ground up to help dealers remain competitive in today’s car-buying landscape. Its powerful data doesn’t just help dealers sell cars faster, but grow their front-end gross as well. Dealers will see a greater impact on their business by investing in VINCUE than spending less for other tools.
Want to see how VINCUE can help you build a better dealership? Schedule a demo today and experience the power of better insights.
