Automation can save dealers £1 million plus per year
March 11, 2025
Dealers can save £1 million per year with automation
Autofinity analysis of used car online merchandising identified costs and savings
Autofinity’s ViHUB vehicle inventory management and marketing platform automates tasks
Dealer groups can save more than £1 million per year simply by streamlining their used car online merchandising, according to our analysis working with a number of dealer groups across the UK.
We undertook an in-depth analysis to highlight the hefty price tag of marketing a used vehicle online whilst in stock. Our chief solutions officer Chris Banks crunched the numbers following discussions with a number of dealer groups.
The analysis listed the variety of tasks required by staff to merchandise a vehicle and identified 21 separate tasks including updating prices; validating the vehicle’s price in the market; amending classified portals, the dealer’s own website and the manufacturer website; review market vehicle rating; and manage inbound leads. Each task was assigned the time taken to complete which could be as little as one minute once a week.
Initial set up such as inputting the vehicle to the DMS, taking and uploading images and video, and putting a vehicle live on various websites and classified portals, was calculated to take 46 minutes. At an hourly rate of £13, it translated to £20.15 per vehicle. Ongoing weekly maintenance of 142 minutes (two hours and 22 minutes) per vehicle cost £30.77 for dealership staff to complete.
Once applied to a stock holding of 2,000 vehicles, the initial merchandising set up cost amounted to £40,300. Working on an average 45 days in stock and a turn rate of 8.11, those figures translate to an eye-watering £326,878.
Factor in ongoing updates and administration costs whilst vehicles remain in stock and marketed on websites and portals, the cost spirals to £61,533 per week (for a stock of 2,000 vehicles) or £266,644 per month. The annual cost is a whopping £3,199,733.
Chris Banks “We were conservative in our estimates of the time to complete a task and how often these are undertaken over the course of the vehicle in stock. We liaised with our dealer group partners to check the authenticity of our figures. When we showed our analysis, the feedback was almost a resigned realisation that the cost to the business both in terms of resourcing and pounds and pence was so high.
“Our intention was to show in granular detail, the expenditure on one part of the business and explain how automation can improve efficiency and therefore save costs whilst freeing up the time of employees but even we were shocked. On the positive side, automation can very quickly make an impact and using the same modelling we have calculated that a dealer group could save more than £1 million a year.”
Our ViHUB platform undertakes much of the heavy lifting such as removing the need to double key since an update in its system automatically populates integrated marketplaces whilst pooling of vehicle data boosts data efficiencies, accuracy and enhances vehicle description.
Initial set up costs when a vehicle first comes into group stock are almost halved at £18 when deploying ViHUB. Working on the same assumptions, initial set up marketing costs are reduced to £13,867. Those figures translate to £155,856 per month or £1,870,267 per year.
The potential savings amount to £26,433 on the initial marketing setup costs alone, equivalent to £214,404 per year. By integrating systems and automating updates, dealers can potentially save £13 per vehicle per week – more than £25,000 for a stock holding of 2,000 vehicles which, in turn, translates to a group-wide monthly stock management saving of £110.789 or £1,329,467 per year.
We can provide a tailored analysis of a dealership or dealer group’s potential savings by applying its modelling and overlaying specific tasks and timings.
