Black Book Introduces Daily Updates

Black Book now publishes daily updates of our used vehicle valuation products. These daily updates are available in our full range of electronic offerings, including PDAs, Smart Phones, Blackberry devices, micro browsers, web enabled cell phones, Internet Xpress suite, data feeds, custom applications, and online trade appraisal services.

Tom Cross, president of Black Book, commented: “Everyone knows that the economy has softened dramatically and that the automobile industry has been one of the hardest hit sectors. Franchised dealers have begun to shift their focus more toward their used vehicle operations as their sales and profit margins on the new car side of the business have come under increased pressure. While used cars generally represent better profit opportunities, margins in all areas of automotive retailing have grown razor thin, and it has become more important than ever to know exactly what a vehicle is worth on any given day. Successful dealers are becoming more and more sophisticated – just as Wall Street investment bankers wouldn’t rely on old financial data, dealers now have the option to receive our timely, independent, and accurate information updated on a daily basis.”

Cross continued: “Let’s look at a concrete example: a particular vehicle, say a full sized SUV, might be worth $20,000 on Monday, but a spike in gasoline prices on Tuesday might make it worth only $19,300 by Wednesday morning. Now that Black Book updates its values daily, our editors can adjust the value of this vehicle by Wednesday afternoon, and electronically provide dealers with this fresh information almost immediately, so they don’t go into an auction Thursday relying on data that could be off by as much as $700. If an uninformed dealer buys four of these vehicles at what he mistakenly thinks is “book value”, he’s looking at a $2,800 loss before he even gets back to his dealership.”

Ricky Beggs, vice president and managing editor added: “Black Book has been known for providing timely, independent, and accurate used vehicle values for more than fifty years. It used to be that getting updated values once a week was good enough, but as the industry is beginning to see margins erode and wholesale prices change more frequently, many dealers have begun to ask for more timely guidance. Making our values available on a daily basis is the next logical step in our efforts to keep our customers armed with the best information we can provide. The thing that sets Black Book Daily apart is that the values are determined using our time-tested methodology – it’s much, much more than just a raw data feed or an aggregation of sale prices that have been run through a statistical model.”

To find out more call (800) 554-1026