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MARYLAND
Bob Lawrence, owner, Bob Lawrence Pre-Owned Cars and Trucks, Salisbury, Md.:
“The market is nothing to brag about. It’s been holding about the same lately, but it’s off from what we did last year. It’s not getting any worse and that’s a good sign.
“The economy is not that good around here. The housing industry is terrible here, like it is everywhere.
“Painters, all those folks, can’t get work. And those are the people I sell cars to.
“And the ones that aren’t out of work are reluctant to spend any money now because they’re uncertain if they’re going to keep their jobs.
“If the car they’re in now can make it, they’re going to stay in it until they get through this mess. People are just making do with what they’ve got.
“Our demand for cars isn’t near what it was. But our ability to get cars isn’t what it used to be, either. We’ve scaled back on the amount of vehicles we keep on the lot by 10 to 20 percent.
“Our average car is an economy car and even those are expensive. I saw a Ford Focus the other day that was worth the same money today that it was two years ago. It was $13,700 then in the Kelley Blue Book and now it’s $13,600. And in ‘07 that market was way off.
“We rely a lot on word of mouth. I’m not spending much money on the papers or TV.
“I’ve found those are a waste of money if people aren’t out. Advertising won’t bring people out. Once they’re out, you should do a lot of advertising.
“But no amount of advertising, no amount of deals will bring them out.
“A lot of my customers come with their own financing.
“The rest of them I get financed through the banks. It’s all local banks. That’s still tough.
“I recently sold a 2007 Chrysler 300C for $21,800.”
UTAH
Jackie Anderson, owner, Crazy Lady Auto, Richfield, Utah:
“We’re the only used-car business still open in our little town. We have a town of about 8,000. There were three or four other stores. They’re all gone now.
“That should increase our business, but people are still holding back. And supply keeps the cars hard to buy at a decent price for us to sell. The new-car lots are featuring used cars on their front-lines. So even though we’re the only used-car store in town, they’re all trying to get into it, too.
“We still go to the auctions. We also have a buyer we’ve worked with for 13 years. We’ve bought a few from individuals when we know the history of the vehicles. We’re trying to be more diversified on where we get our inventory from.
“We don’t advertise at all. We just depend on our main-street frontage and our reputation. That serves us really well. We’ve tried advertising and gone over the top on that a few times. It just hasn’t panned out for us enough to make it work for us. Our best advertisement is ourselves.
“The name does help a lot. When I first started in the car business, I had never sold a car. I never spent a day in a car dealership my whole life. We had bought one car from a dealership during our entire marriage. My husband came up with the name when we started the business.
“My son is a part owner in the business now. I’ve lived in this community my whole life, so people know us well. We’re very involved.
“Our slogan is ‘Integrity and affordability in used cars.’ We usually have them priced between wholesale and retail. When I first started in the business, I tried to price everything exactly to the dime of what I had to have for the car. Then I found people wanted you to go down in price so they can feel like they got a deal. So now we mark them up a little bit.
“The word spreads that we’re good to people and we take care of our customers.
“The banks have tightened up, but we’ve been able to still get most people financed, especially if they have a down payment. We have pretty good working relationships with the banks.
“We have cars from $20,000 to $2,995. We try to have a wide variety. We usually keep a couple of trailers on the lot this time of year because it helps with the inventory.”
VIRGINIA
Gail Davis, co-owner, Davis Auto Sales, Richmond, Va.:
“We’ve been in business for 33 years.
“We keep about 50 to 70 vehicles on our lot.
“The number of units we’ve been selling varies from month to month. During the recession, we dropped to about half the sales we normally had.
“Things are picking back up. March sales exceeded any other month we’ve had - ever.
“But we don’t know what April will bring.
“We carry 99 percent trucks. We always carry a majority of trucks.
“Most of our trucks are domestic, probably 95 percent. We might have a Toyota here or there.
“Our business is straight retail. Getting lenders is always tough.
“But in the past couple of years, everyone has very little money for a down payment and banks want more money down.
“We get our cars from a variety of sources. Primarily, it’s been auctions or individuals.
“We also have a customization shop for trucks (off-road equipment, etc.).
“Although we tried (online classifieds), we stopped doing that and it hasn’t seemed to hurt our sales.
“We get a lot of repeat/referral business.
“Our vehicles retail in the range of $10,000 to $20,000, which is about the same as last year.
“We sell a lot of Ford F-250s and a lot of diesels. Recently, we sold a 2000 F-250 with 59,000 miles.”
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