Treasure Valley Subaru in Nampa, Idaho, sells it all – including trucks, even though the automaker doesn’t offer one in its lineup these days. General manager Rob Studebaker saw a need, though, and created a healthy used-truck inventory to fill it.
For context: The dealership sits along a row of dealerships selling trucks. “We try to capitalize on that,” Studebaker told Daily Dealer Live hosts Sam D’ Arc and Uli De’ Martino. “And then the campaign is really to buy a used truck for half the price of a new one, and load this lot with lots of used trucks.”
Perfecting the price: Studebaker said his group found a need for discounted trucks in the market.
He said some people may find a $100,000 price tag for a new truck to be painful.
“We’re not in the deep subprime; that’s not what Subaru is,” Studebaker said. “And so it made sense for us to head into a prime buyer and try to compete somewhere in that $20,000 to $50,000 level.”
By the numbers: Treasure Valley sells about 230 vehicles a month, with about 45 of those being used trucks, Studebaker shared.
But he hopes to more than double that average.
“The goal would be 100 additional units a year,” Studebaker said. “And so we'd like to average 300 this year, 400 the following year…”
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Acquiring the trucks: Studebaker said the group prefers to buy the used trucks off the street rather than at auction.
They’ve also started an internal acquisition department and an acquisition section on its website.
When they do buy a truck from auction, they must be clean, Studebaker stressed.
Must love dogs: Studebaker, who has sold Subaru for 20 years, credited the automaker for excelling at marketing.
“One thing that Subaru gets right, is they know how to market and who they're talking to,” Studebaker said. “A lot of OEMs haven't quite figured out who they're talking to.”
That includes using the adorable “Barkleys” dogs in its commercials – a practice Studebaker duplicates at the dealership, where a visit to its webpage is dotted with dogs – and used trucks, of course.
Bottom line: No seat at the table? Make your own. That’s what Studebaker did as a dealer for an OEM that doesn’t sell trucks in a sea of truck dealers – he found his own way to add that offering to the lineup.
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