incentives Archives

Tight New-Vehicle Inventory in 2021 Drops Incentive Program Volume to Five-Year Low 12/29/2021 A general shortage of new-vehicle inventory has been the auto industry’s leading story of 2021. Tight inventory shifted the dynamics, turning the buyer's market of 2019 into an unprecedented seller's market in 2021. Average transaction prices (ATPs) for new vehicles increased month after month in 2021, according to an analysis from our Kelley Blue Book team. November marked a fresh high-water mark for ATPs at $46,329.… Read Article

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Strategic Inventory Management a Must in Low-Inventory Market 12/01/2021 November new-vehicle sales are forecast by our team to be modestly better than October, but down significantly from November 2020 and well off the 16-to-17 million sales pace the industry enjoyed prior to the global pandemic. Supply chain disruptions and the well-documented microchip shortages have had an enormous impact on both consumers and dealers. On-the-ground inventories are in some cases 15-to-20% of pre-pandemic levels, transaction prices… Read Article

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Is There Such Thing as a Good Labor Day Deal in Today’s New Car Market? 08/30/2021 It wasn’t that long ago when shoppers were overwhelmed with advertisements for incredible deals and offers on new cars: loyalty cash, conquest cash, retail cash, holiday bonus cash, dealer cash, lease cash … cash, cash, cash and more cash! Car companies used to celebrate more holidays than Hallmark has greeting cards. But all that cash was no cause for celebration as OEM incentives and dealer markdowns… Read Article

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In Q2, Ford Was Living The Toyota Life And Loving It. 07/30/2021 In this summer of low incentives, consumers are facing record-high vehicle prices. Inventories are low and many vehicles are being sold at or above the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). While interest rates remain favorable and help the bottom line of most deals, incentive spending has dropped off notably in 2021, putting pressure on vehicle affordability. June incentive spending by the automakers was at a year-to-date… Read Article

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Incentive Spending and Program Count Remains Low, Even as a Holiday Approaches 06/30/2021 With an Independence Day holiday fast approaching, industry observers might rightly expect a new round of special, can’t-pass-up Fourth of July incentives at dealerships across the U.S. But according to an analysis of June program data by the Cox Automotive Rates & Incentives team, consumer cash – the guaranteed cash-back money that any buyer qualifies for and is often the fodder of headline advertising – has… Read Article

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Auto Sales Remain Healthy Even With Incentive Spending at 5-Year Low 04/30/2021 Cox Automotive is forecasting healthy auto sales in April, despite tight new-vehicle inventory limiting consumer choice. The forecast calls for sales of 1,360,000 vehicles in the month, a 90% jump from the pandemic-stricken sales volume of last year and up more than 2% from April 2019. Volume of 1.36 million will push the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of sales to a healthy 16.5 million. Charlie… Read Article

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Never Waste a Crisis: Nissan Attacks Incentive Complexity 11/11/2020 Measured by sales, Nissan has had a pretty terrible year so far. Across their portfolio of cars, trucks and SUVs, there’s hardly a bright spot, and at the end of the third quarter, Nissan sales were off 37.6% year to date. Enough said. Companies can handle hard times in myriad ways. One option: Never waste a crisis, fix the foundation. In the past few years, Nissan has… Read Article

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Incentive Spend Is Up in 2020, but Not For Everyone 08/03/2020 Almost immediately after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, automakers pulled out their playbook from the Great Recession and quickly put in place aggressive incentives like zero-percent financing for 84 months to buoy sales. Now, as vehicle sales are recovering and production can’t keep up with demand, automakers and dealers are dialing back the spiffs. By sheer volume of programs, the number of incentives offered is… Read Article

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The New Incentive Playbook 04/24/2020 As COVID-19 restrictions continue, automotive retailing is experiencing guarded consumer activity that has manifested itself in avoiding dealerships – whether shopping, taking test drives or processing paperwork on site. During the last six weeks, automakers and their dealer networks have moved aggressively to shift from incentives that promote option/trim convenience packages (the vehicle) to incentives that help the in-market shoppers feel more confident physically and economically.… Read Article

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