How Many Units Should You Have Sold? Here’s How to Figure It Out
How many units should a dealership sell from the traffic it saw last month?
That question has been the single most difficult puzzle for dealership owners and general managers to solve in the motorcycle industry. Unfortunately it remains a mystery for many, meaning dealerships are making critical business decisions, like staffing levels and unit inventory, based on historic data vs. current-day retail demand.
That reality, however, is starting to change.
Today, dealerships can identify - down to the exact unit count - how many vehicles they should have sold based off their in-store traffic. To calculate this, powersports and motorcycle dealers use ratios based off data from their dealer management and lead management/CRM systems.
How do the ratios work? Dealers take their total number of parts and service transactions and then divide those by significant lead management metrics, like greets, sit-downs and deliveries. Ultimately, dealers seek to get as close as possible to hitting the ratio of sold units, which varies depending on the industry segment. For metric operators, top performing dealers are delivering one used or new unit for every 12 in-store parts and service transactions. For Harley-Davidson operators, that ratio is one sold used or new unit for every 25 in-store parts, motorclothes and service transactions.
In general, the ratios mean top-performing metric dealers are selling 83 units for every 1,000 transactions whereas Harley-Davidson dealers are selling 40 units. (Why the difference? Because Harley-Davidson dealers have more transactions due to increased accessory and apparel offerings.) Have more questions on these transaction ratios? Contact Garage Composites’ Neil Pascale at neil@garagecomposites.com for more info.