Acquiring a good used car inventory is vital to the profitability of most dealerships. However, with consumers and fleets keeping cars longer, many dealers report difficulty locating quality sources of used stock.

Now is the perfect time to employ a crisscross selling process to build a virtual inventory and improve your used car supply. With this process in place, you'll increase your inventory through hundreds of potential trade-ins and improve your chances of finding or selling a car without investing any money.

Here's how to start this practice in your dealership:

1. Enter trade-in details, particularly color, mileage, and condition, into Sales Prospect Control or Customer Relationship Management as you evaluate trades. If you are using POWER's Used Vehicle Management, this will happen automatically.
2. Make sure your crisscross report is turned on. You can find out by looking at a daily work plan summary in report management. Contact customer support if it isn't active.
3. Once added, POWER automatically matches your virtual inventory to potential trade-ins.
4. Implement a new process with your sales force. Customers with potential trades should be contacted first to see if they're ready to trade. If you can match up a visit with a "wants" prospect, you'll be in position to sell two cars. Even if you can't sell both, you'll create another opportunity to sell a car.

Bonus tip: Salesmen can search your current inventory and potential trades from the "Prospect Wants" screen. Managers can also search potential trade-ins from the functions menu in Vehicle Inventory.

By taking these steps, you'll build a larger inventory and be well on your way to matching customer wants and needs, as well as moving more new and used inventory.