Average days in stock is a comfortable number. It's also a misleading one.
It tells you the lot is "fine on average" while a handful of cars quietly bleed your gross every single day.
The fix is to stop ranking by days. Rank by margin-at-risk.
Here's a version you can try on a spreadsheet this afternoon:
For each car: (days in stock ÷ typical days-to-sell for that model) × expected gross.
That's it.
A car sitting 90 days with a thin €600 margin is a different problem than a car sitting 90 days with €3,000 on the line. Days-in-stock treats them the same. Margin-at-risk doesn't.
Sort that column descending and your worst offenders stop hiding behind the average. Usually it's a short list. Often it's the cars nobody wants to be the one to discount.
Then the decisions get easier:
→ Top of the list: act now. Reprice, move it, or wholesale it before the gross is gone.
→ Middle: watch closely, set a date.
→ Bottom: leave it alone and stop worrying about it.
The point isn't the exact formula. It's the shift in question - from "how long has this been here?" to "how much money is this specific car about to cost me?"
That second question is the one that protects your gross.
Try it on your current stock and tell me how short your danger list is. I'd bet shorter than you'd guess - and more expensive.
This is exactly the kind of ranking VehIQ does automatically, so the list finds you instead of the other way around.
#Automotive #Inventory #CarDealers