Used-car Web Sales
Date: Jan 26, 2005
Contributor: Clinton Garduno
Used-car Web sales revving up
When Len Critcher and Brett Stacy look around North Texas, they see a good number of luxury auto dealerships and parking lots clogged with Jaguars, Land Rovers and Mercedes-Benzes.
Dallas-Fort Worth's vibrant upscale auto scene is one of several factors driving Internet sales at the duo's online used-car dealership.
In 2001 Critcher and Stacy started CarLink.com, a used-car dealership that's selling about 100 high-end vehicles over the Internet every month. That adds up to about $3.5 million in monthly revenue.
ECarLink is just one of a growing number of successful online used-car dealers in the Metroplex that owe at least part of their success to the favorable auto-industry climate in North Texas.
"Dallas as a whole makes a lot of sense for this business," Critcher said. "There are a lot of issues that go into Dallas being exceptionally good."
In 2004, eCarLink was ranked 13th by Auto Dealer Monthly magazine in its ranking of the top 50 Internet used-car dealers nationwide, according to the number of cars sold in 2003.
The magazine ranked Dallas-based TexasCarsDirect.com 10th; Texas Auto Group in Fort Worth was 26th; Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine was 35th; Texas Vehicle Exchange in Carrollton was 46th; and Burleson-based Lynn Smith Chevrolet came in 50th.
Peter Bulban, president of TexasCarsDirect.com Ltd., says his traditional dealership, also called TexasCarsDirect.com, has a growing Internet presence. It sold 1,496 used cars through the Internet in 2004, up from 1,339 vehicles in 2003.
Like Bulban, many online auto dealers are traditional dealers selling cars primarily at brick-and- mortar lots. Now many are grabbing a piece of the online business through in-house Internet divisions.
For Bulban, the Internet was "an evolution. The Internet is such a good business application," he said. "Before it used to be faxes; now our inventory is online 24 hours a day."
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