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| P.O. Box 431 6 Mulberry Lane Mt. Arlington, N.J. 07856 973-398-2774 Telephone 973-398-2731 Facsimile |
September 14 , 2007 |
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Letter from IARA's Executive Director
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| Matthew Marks IARA Executive Director |
Greetings:
Greetings and best regards to all IARA members. I am pleased to
report that The IARA continues to become a stronger organization
thanks to the volunteer commitment from its members. The monthly
meetings of the Board of Directors and Committees are the heart of
how the Alliance functions. Committee participation is welcome
anytime. Just contact me for information.
1. Two new Board members have been selected since our last
newsletter. Jeff Bescher, ADESA, replaces Warren Byrd, and Chuck
Novince, Manheim, replaces Nick Peluso. Welcome to both new members
and many thanks to Nick and Warren for their support.
2. New IARA members since this past spring include; HSBC; Citi
Financial; Greensboro Auto Auction; Metro Auto Auction, Phoenix; Rea
Brothers Mid South Auction; Orlando Longwood Auto Auction; and
Vehicle Donation Processing Center. The membership committee under
the leadership of Don Fowler continues its strong work. Thanks to
all committee members for their time and effort.
3. A new Meeting Site Selection Committee, chaired by Sharon
Loguidice, Tri-State AA, Cicero, NY, has been formed to locate the
2008 Summer IARA Roundtable meeting. The committee has selected
Dallas, Texas, as the next location with meeting dates of Tuesday,
August 19th to Thursday, August 21st, 2008. Mark your calendars and
watch for further meeting details.
The 2008 Winter/Spring IARA Roundtable will be held in conjunction
with CAR in Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace, Wednesday, March 26th to
the 28th. The IARA portion of the meeting will commence March 26th,
at noon, with the Circle of Excellence Award Luncheon.
4. PLEASE NOTE!! There is a “Members Only” area now active on our
redesigned and enhanced IARA website. It contains a search feature
to find contact information on members and a member’s library, which
will become a valuable resource for members. Currently the area
contains the past three months of used vehicle proprietary data
analytics from NADA. This data is not available anywhere else.
The section also contains the Salvage Vehicle presentation by
Michael Lasini at the IARA July Roundtable, and the Performance
Metrics study results conducted on behalf of IARA at the beginning
of 2007. The other presentations made at the July Roundtable will
also be added. Please let me know if you have any problems accessing
this section. We will be adding content periodically. Please send
any suggestions you may have for material that should be included in
this section.
5. Congratulations are in order for those who took the first series
of tests in the IARA Certified Automotive Remarketer (CAR) Program
while attending the IARA Roundtable in Cincinnati. Participants
were; Glenn Dykes, Wheels; Chris Wise, Charleston AA; Jill Tarallo,
Network Remarketing; Mike Antich, Bobit Media; Ricky Beggs, Black
Book; Scott Kolb, The SKI Group; and yours truly, Matt Marks. Two
others could not make the meeting and will be tested later. There
were five courses available for testing with a total of 110
questions. With 75% as the passing grade, only one person failed to
pass one test. All agreed that the total time of one and a half to
two hours of concentrated testing was a real strong examination of
the subject matter. We plan to release the next five courses within
the next thirty days and have all 25 completed by year-end. Please
continue to check the website (http://www.iaraonline.org)
for the CAR Program information and course releases.
6. The Summer Roundtable in Cincinnati was one of the best according
to the nearly one hundred attendees. The strong topic content along
with the strength of the presenters made for a very professional
education session.
The first panel was the Salvage panel led by Pat Walsh. The panel
presented ways to appraise a salvage vehicle by assessing the 10-12
most valuable items on the vehicle. It was also highly recommended
that salvage vehicles not be included in a regular vehicle sale as
this is not the right buyer audience. A used car dealer may pay only
one hundred or two hundred dollars at a regular auction, but a parts
dealer may pay over a thousand dollars for the same vehicle at a
salvage auction. Thanks to panel participants Mike Lasini; Doug
Jensen; Kevin Heersink; and Doug Mellette.
The Used Car Dealer Centric panel followed with Layne Weber of Citi
Financial leading the panel discussion about what used car dealers
look for when buying vehicles. All agreed that better photos are a
must when using the internet. Auction promotions are nice but do not
influence buying decisions. Certifications and warranties are not
that important. The biggest factor in influencing a positive outcome
of a sale is the consignor’s willingness to sell the “first” vehicle
in the run sequence regardless of the price. If this happens, then
the buyers know the consignor is here to “sell” and not just stick
to the floor price on all their vehicles. This will prompt more
aggressive bidding, otherwise a “hard price” position on the first
offered vehicle will dampen buyer enthusiasm. Thanks and
appreciation to the dealer panelists; Mike Schwab of ACRA Automotive
Group; Doug Turner, of J. D. Byrider; Rick Slanker, of Voss Auto
Group.
7. The Performance Metrics Roundtable led by Dave Sutton, VW Credit,
and Jill Tarallo, Network Remarketing, focused on what groups and
subgroups should be defined before a metrics study takes place. Any
data collected would be presented so you can compare yourself to the
group or subgroup. Subgroups may be defined as daily rentals; lease;
balloon; company vehicles; repos; theft; salvage (as defined by
title). A geography overlay would be included as per the 6 regions
listed in the Black Book.
The Grading Scale and Inspections Roundtable led by Bob Graham, ARI
Fleet, and Jay Fahrendorf, ABC Minneapolis, discussed the issues
involved with the use and adoption of the NAAA Vehicle Grading
Scale. Most agreed that there are too many Grade 3 vehicles.
Inspectors tend to rate most vehicles as average. One suggestion to
improve the scale’s consistency, was to have the CR’s system produce
the grade automatically. IARA will continue to explore ways to
facilitate the grading scale.
8. The last two panels featured discussions on Data Mining, and
Specialty Sales. Lynn Morgan, Manheim Consulting, led the Data
Mining panel. The discussion centered on using data mining
techniques to drive remarketing decisions. Standardization of the
data is a must. Black Book’s terms definition was recommended.
Panelists presented examples of how they use data mining. Panelists
included Don Meadows, Auto IMS; David Lever. NMAC; Ty Brewer,
Servnet Auction Pipeline; Tom Kontos, ADESA.
Karen Braddy, Manheim, led the final panel on Specialty
Equipment/Boats/Motorcycles/RV’s. This classification includes all
non-vehicles. Most sales are online sales with a heavy use of photos
and videos. Some items such as large RV’s can be certified with an
intensive inspection. There is also a large overseas buyer audience
for these types of assets.
Ricky Beggs from Black Book stated that Black Book has been
licensing data on these types of assets since 1998. They now publish
data 12 times per year including classifications for condition.
David Woods of Harley-Davidson, stated that used bikes are not that
popular with new H/D Dealers. Need for more education on potential
for profits on used bikes. He indicated that the Fall and Winter
months are high repo months for bikes and that there is a huge
seasonality swing for bike sales. In addition to Woods and Beggs on
the panel were; Tom Thornton, M&T Bank; Mark Melton, Brashers
Auctions.
9. In closing, I want to mention that there is on going discussions
with AFLA, Automotive Fleet Leasing Association, on the prospect of
a partnership between our two organizations.
Finally, it is a pleasure to work with so many fine professionals in
this industry on common goals to enhance the remarketing business
segment. Please contact me any time with ideas, suggestions,
complaints, or items of interest. Looking forward to seeing as many
as possible at upcoming Industry Conferences.
Have a safe Winter Season.
Best regards,
Matthew Marks
Executive Director
International Automotive Remarketers Alliance