Running a used car business can be difficult, and there is a lot of competition. You will need to set yourself apart from the others. There are many ways you can differentiate yourself. For example, you can focus on offering the best price, or you can get creative with your marketing to reach people more effectively. Once you decide how you will differentiate yourself from your competition, you need really push that difference.

Here are some tips to help you run a successful used car business.

1. Throw out the traditional playbook. Most used car lots follow the same formula. You buy or rent a lot, fill it with cars you buy at auctions, and do your best to sell people on what you have available. However, what if you were the one selling cars at the auction? What if you could move a dozen or more vehicles in a week utilizing a Copart car auction, which attracts countless bidders to their website. You can be moving cars from the comfort of your home by allowing the auction site to do the work for you.
2. Get creative with your marketing. Traditionally, used car lots rely on newspaper ads, inserts, and radio commercials. More modern places may even utilize Google or Facebook ads. However, you can fully leverage modern mobile media by using mobile geofencing marketing. Geofencing marketing directs ads to individuals in a specific geographic area to ensure they are within your target audience. Imagine a geographical fence drawn around your target region. This type of mobile marketing will go out to those within your fence.
3. Offer your financing. If you do operate your car lot with your business, you can attract more customers by self-financing. Offering financing will open your business up to those that have a steady income but bad credit and can’t get a traditional car loan. While more significant risks are offering your financing, you also have the control to repossess vehicles when loan payments get missed, so you retain the car, which can be resold.
4. Keep a steady stream of new, used vehicles. If people drive by your lot and see the same cars in the same spots day after day, they are going to stop seeing your lot all together. They will drive by assuming nothing has changed because they have seen the same vehicles so many times. There are two ways to prevent this from happening. The first is to keep a stream of new cars coming onto your property. If you are selling cars quickly at auction, you will have space and money to bring in new vehicles continually. The second thing you can do is regularly rotate the cars on your lot, and where they are parked, so it looks like there are new cars. Each week, the vehicles parked closest to the road should be moved.
5. Make sure you are in a high traffic area. When operating a used car lot, you need to be somewhere that everyone is going to see you. You want to attract impulse shoppers, the ones that are thinking about maybe one day buying a car, so they stop and look. You want to have people looking at what’s new as they pass your lot. Cars are not an everyday purchase, which means when people are looking to buy a car, they quickly think of you.

While a used car lot is a competitive business, it can also a highly successful and profitable one. Follow these tips, learn from those that have already found success in the business, and don’t be afraid to take risks. The most significant risks also have some of the greatest rewards.