No rain, no snow, no holiday, no end of the month, no vacations, no bank crisis, and no market.  It feels like a two day old dead fish.  No energy, no pop, nothings hot, and I were a normal human being I would say piss on this and take a few weeks off.  I should tell the 147 employees they are not getting paid and book a nice spot in Togo, Machu Picchu, or Lago di Como.   It’s all churn and burning (money)over the past two weeks.  Our inventory is fresh however and I will be ready when the market finds its bottom.  I am not convinced we are their yet.  In my opinion, the knuckle-heads that are no-saleing today will be wishing they sold two weeks from now. 

Now more than ever my motto is “take the doe and let them go”.   Let’s reload on today’s market and let out year round customers take advantage of the new values.  We’ll get you back in the spring.  So do like the song says, “Keep on using me until you used me up”.

It’s your turn to smile. 

The 17545 sold 4400 cars this week, 44%.   Better than last week but still disgusting.   I sold 620 total for the week, 470 on the block at 89% conversion, a bit over twice the auction’s conversion rate.  Simulacast action is constantly increasing for me even though the condition report situation deteriorates.

More and more dealers have learned that a 2.2 on my car means a 4.6 at any other auction.  I have dozens of wholesalers that buy from me and sell around the country.  Without one exception they call back and laugh at me because the same car the same week gets graded one to three points higher at the sale they are selling at.  Is it a conspiracy?  It don’t matter cause there ain’t nothing nobody can do to stop me from buying more and selling more than anybody in the world.  Sick, but true.    

We are tracking 2400 units for the month of September which included a 100 year storm in Manheim (don’t worry, the units we lost in the flood all got covered by insurance, they won’t turn up at the sale).  It’s a damn pity however because just as you would expect, we lost some fat cars.  I have been in business in Manheim since 1972 and never saw anything like the rain we had last week.  It felt like I was back in Africa.

I am about two weeks away from unveiling a Universal Condition Report.  It is designed for use by any seller of a car on line.  It will be guaranteed, just like the guarantee I give in Trade in Marketplace.  The transparency it creates will explode the usability of simulcast and on line listing services like Pipe line, OVE and Craig’s list.  I can’t sleep at night it is so exciting.  I can’t wait to be able to deliver a product that will allow dealers to reap the benefits of technology that the captives have had a monopoly on for a decade.  More to come mid-week. 

One thing I promise, you will know it was developed by a car dealer that has sold a few hundred thousand cars at auction,  for a car dealer that needs to know exactly what he needs to know when he is buying a car…guaranteed. 

You gonna love it.