Trade to trade · not retail
Written for independent dealers, wholesalers and small-lot operators.
Four long guides covering how the wholesale lanes actually behave, what reconditioning really returns, how floor plan interest eats a deal, and how to write a used vehicle description that does the selling before anyone calls.
Guided match
Answer up to three questions and we will point you at the guide that fits where you actually are. Nothing is sent anywhere — this runs entirely in your browser, and you can read all four guides regardless.
The four levers
Retail sites talk about picking a car. The trade talks about the gap between what you paid, what you put into it, what it cost you to hold, and what the market will actually pay. Close that gap and the lot works. Miss on any one of the four and the other three cannot save it.
Wholesale lanes are a live market with their own etiquette, condition grading, announcement rules and arbitration windows. Knowing which lights you are bidding under, and what an announcement legally obliges the seller to stand behind, is the difference between a fair unit and a problem you now own.
How auctions workReconditioning is the easiest place on a small lot to bury money. Some work is non-negotiable, some pays back at retail, and some is pure ego. The useful skill is sorting the three fast — and counting the days the car sat in the shop as part of the cost, because that is where the real bill hides.
Recon spend vs returnFloor plan turns inventory into a daily meter. Curtailments, advance rates, audit schedules and per-unit fees decide how long you can afford to be wrong about a car. Understanding the structure changes how you bid long before it changes how you pay.
Floor plan mechanicsA used vehicle description is not ad copy, it is a disclosure document that happens to sell. Specific, honest, scannable descriptions cut tyre-kicker calls, pre-answer objections and reduce the number of buyers who walk when they see the car in person.
Write the descriptionHow it works
There is no funnel here. The guides are the product, they are free to read, and the only thing we ask for is a correction when we get something wrong.
Use the guided match above, or just start at the buy. The four guides were written in sequence and each one stands alone.
Full explanations with the caveats left in, not listicles. Nothing is behind an email address, a download or a sign-up.
Auction policy, licensing and credit terms vary by state and provider. Verify yours, then tell us what we should cover next.
Written for the trade
Most automotive writing online is aimed at consumers shopping for a car, and the small amount aimed at dealers is usually a brochure for software. This is neither. It is the operational middle — the parts of the business a new lot owner learns the expensive way in their first two years.
Reading order
Each guide stands alone, but they were written in sequence. If you are opening a lot or taking over one, read them in this order.
| Stage | Guide | What it settles |
|---|---|---|
| 01 — Buy | How wholesale auctions actually work | Lights, announcements, arbitration, buy fees, digital vs physical lanes |
| 02 — Recon | Reconditioning spend vs return | Safety floor, retail-visible work, cosmetic ceiling, days in shop |
| 03 — Carry | Floor plan financing for small lots | Advance rate, curtailment, audits, per-day carry, covenant traps |
| 04 — Sell | Writing a description that sells | Structure, disclosure, photography order, what to never write |
Straight answers
If yours is not here, the contact form goes to a person who reads everything.
An independent trade publication. We write long explanations of four parts of the independent dealer's job — buying at wholesale, reconditioning, inventory finance and merchandising — and publish them free. That is the entire operation.
No to both. There is no paywall, no account, no email capture and no download gate. Every guide is fully readable the moment you land on it, and there is nothing to unlock.
Most wholesale sales are dealer-only and require registration with a valid licence, which is why the room feels closed from the outside. Licensing is set state by state, with different classes, bonding, premises and record-keeping requirements. Some sales also run public lanes under separate rules. Check your own state's requirements and the individual auction's registration policy — we cannot tell you what applies where you are.
No. We do not sell, rent or share reader data, we do not run an advertising network, and we take no commission or referral fee on anything described on this site. The contact form exists so operators can send corrections and topic requests; messages are stored so we can reply and nothing more.
No. We are not a dealer, an auction house, a lender or a floor plan provider, and nothing here is financial, legal or tax advice. Auction policy, arbitration windows, licensing requirements and credit terms differ by state, by sale and by provider — confirm the specifics with your own counsel, your own lender and the sale itself before you act.
Mostly they do not, and that is deliberate. We do not publish statistics we cannot source. Where a figure genuinely depends on your market, your provider or your state — which is most of them — we describe the mechanism and tell you to work out your own number rather than quoting one that would be wrong for you.
Use the contact form and pick "Correction" or "Topic request". Corrections get read first. If something here is wrong or has gone out of date we would rather hear it from an operator than leave it up.
Get in touch
We take topic requests from operators. If there is a corner of the trade that nobody explains properly — a fee structure, a title problem, a transport headache — tell us and it goes on the list.