How to Carry the Right Inventory at the Right Time [and Keep it Turning!]

Jason Carlin knows a thing or two about successfully managing inventory for his store. As the #1 Polaris Dealership in the Northeast, Edge Performance Sports in Ontario, Oregon is also one PSXDigitals' more progressive dealers.

In his eight years with the dealership, Jason started on the salesfloor before moving into Internet sales and then advancing into sales management, giving him great insight into how to move more vehicles for greater return on investment. 

CHALLENGES WITH INVENTORY UPKEEP

Simply put, the biggest challenge in maintaining inventory and inventory upkeep really just boils down to stocking the right inventory and then moving that inventory.

It's a huge investment to a dealer to keep all of these machines in stock, both in terms of physical space and in monetary value. So you want to make sure that you're not buying inventory that is sitting around doing nothing; not being productive from a financial standpoint and in becoming stagnant in moving them off the lot. It can be tough.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS

We use PSXDigital's +Inventory Management within the CXMAi platform. It allows us the ability to look at everything from an overall view and down to the detail with dashboard views that are in your face all the time. It's created to be very specific to Powersports and give you the best view for whatever you're looking for.

Every scenario is covered in the data with PSXDigital.

Whether it be an old unit, whether it be a recalled unit, whether it be what's not in stock, what is in stock, what's been selling in the past, how fast you're moving it, what your profitability is on that, what values are of that machine, and more.

If it's an aged vehicle, you've got NADA values, and you've got Kelly Blue Book values, and everything in between right in front of you to guide decisions in managing inventory. Pair that with data regarding website views and leads you're getting on certain machines for a broader understanding.

Provided with all of that information and as the dealership's Inventory Manager, I feel that I'm lucky to have it.

I have to use it, and I have to use it wisely. It's my job to be creative and come up with things that are going to make sure that our inventory moving us in a profitable direction.

So the hardest thing for upkeep and maintaining inventory is that it's an art but through the technology provided in PSXDigital's system, it's made into a science. The machines are stocked to work hard for our dealership. Our inventory is there to work hard for our customers.