The playing field is set at LiftedVehicles.com. Who wants to pick up the ball?

 

The new and used lifted vehicle market is fragmented. Whenever you have a fragmented market, there's an opportunity —and in this case, a massive one. On the used side, Lifted Trucks is the largest dealer in the country for used lifted vehicles. They have a lock with their dealership name and website, which is a product category itself. There are many other used-lifted-vehicle dealers across the country that regularly retail lifted vehicles. LiftedVehicles.com provides a platform for other dealers to accomplish two goals: one is to list their lifted vehicle inventory on an online vehicle marketplace exclusively for new and used lifted vehicles for sale to get their inventory in front of buyers looking specifically for a lifted vehicle to purchase, and the second is to separate their dealership from the thousands of others that retail stock vehicles.

With new lifted vehicles, two things are happening. One is the bailment upfitter companies and dealers who do their own upfitting and have an upfit business as an add-on to their dealership. Bailment upfitters are companies that have a bailment pool with the manufacturers. New vehicles are shipped directly from the factory to them so they can have them on hand for dealer orders that require the upfitters package. New dealers that do their own upfitting use vehicles from their current inventory. Some of the bailment companies are Waldoch, Sherrod, American Luxury Coach, and the FOX Factory upfitting division, consisting of Rocky Ridge, SCA Performance, and Tuscany.

The issue and opportunity are that no one has any brand awareness with consumers. Publicly traded company Fox Factory, which would be the largest in terms of resources despite having an upfitter division for 8 years, has done nothing to move the needle with its upfit brands and consumer awareness. For dealers, their most significant pain point in carrying new lifted vehicles is the turn time, which is a direct result of consumer awareness. Depending on the dealer's floorplan agreement, their floorplan financing will only extend credit for a specific number of days for a new unit. If that unit doesn't sell, the dealer has to tie up hard cash in it. In addition, dealer marketing territories are defined on a map, and dealers are not allowed to market outside their territory. Actual scenario, two Ford dealers on either side of the Hudson River, one stocks new lifted vehicles. The one stocking new lifted vehicles can't promote on the other side of the river that they have a different product on their lot, and consumers think both Ford dealers have the same new stock.

Titles up for grabs nationwide, and these titles equal $

The Largest Lifted Vehicle Dealer in The Country.

The Largest New Lifted Vehicle Dealer in The Country

The Largest New Lifted Vehicle Dealer in (state).

The Largest Used Lifted Vehicle Dealer in (state).

The Largest New Lifted (OEM) Dealer

The Largest Used Lifted Vehicle Dealer in The Country. - currently held by used dealer Lifted Trucks, and with the recent announcement of a $150M credit line, their position is solid.

Titles that transcend all other title names AND have mass consumer awareness

(Brand) Lifted Trucks (Vehicles)

If I were a used-lifted-vehicle dealer, I would create names for different packages for your lifted vehicles. This starts the branding process. If the used dealer, Lifted Trucks, really wanted to further establish its market dominance, it would do this.

If I were a new lifted vehicle dealer, due to the lack of consumer awareness of the bailment pool company brands and the overall new lifted vehicle market, I would contact the companies that have a bailment pool for your brand(s) and have them white-label upfit the vehicles for you. When you receive the vehicles, you can apply your own branding. This covers one issue for the new dealers that use their allotment stock vehicles and upfit them. If you start selling too many of your allotted vehicles out of your market area, OEMs don't like that. Vehicles in an upfitters bailment pool are wild-card vehicles. Any dealer in the US can claim those from the upfitter with a package added and add them to their inventory. The OEM knows they are bailment vehicles; you can sell them out of your market, and you're not selling upfitted allotment vehicles. Keeping the OEMs happy, and for GM dealers, a bailment vehicle counts as half a credit towards your allotment. You can literally expand your stock inventory and revenue from your bailment allotment credits.

What makes this a game-changer for new dealers is the OEM allotment. You can only replace inventory based on a previous sales period. This is why you have many dealer groups with multiple locations of the same OEM brand: the inventory size of a single-location dealership is controlled by OEM allotments. The current largest new lifted Chevy vehicle dealership retails 100 units a year. If I were them, I would leverage their numbers with one or more of the bailment pool upfitters and only get white-label vehicles. Come up with names for the different model packages, and leverage my liftedvehicles.com to push their own brand out to consumers. I operate with total freedom to market wherever I want. Currently, there's no new inventory on the site. So, I've set the playing field, and whatever dealers and upfit brand packages are there are what the consumers are not only going to see but also become aware of. The best price doesn't win, the best product doesn't win, the best known always wins! If consumers don't know you and your products exist, they can't do business with you. Especially for new dealers, there's no difference between you and the OEM dealer down the road selling the same thing to the consumer. My site elevates new and used dealers and brands them with consumers as lifted-vehicle dealers.