I believe there is a “black hole” at many dealerships due to a lack of understanding around the statistics that measure whether or not a store’s online merchandising of used vehicle inventory is hitting the mark.

I have dug into the performance of many velocity-minded dealerships in order to come up with some reliable benchmarks that will help answer the “How do we know we’re doing a good job?” question I hear from decision makers who rely on third-party sites like AutoTrader.com and Cars.com to help them retail their used vehicle inventories.

I selected a sample of over 100 dealerships across the country that retail around 100 vehicles a month. I limited my analysis to their performance on AutoTrader.com because the investments made on this site are typically larger than those made on Cars.com. I then evaluated the number of Search Results Pages (SRPs) and Vehicle Detail Pages (VDPs) each of these stores achieved over a three-month period.

Out of the gate, I noticed some big differences across the sample set. The reasons for these disparities suggest that, despite the ubiquity of the Internet and its role in online shopping for used vehicles, the playing field varies from market to market as well as from store to store. Here are some of the reasons for the variances:

• The number of “active shoppers” in a market. In metro markets, this number can reach seven figures, while smaller markets may only have 25,000 active shoppers. The average in my sample: 120,000. This baseline is important for dealers and used vehicle managers to understand as it represents the “pool” in which they are competing against other dealers for the attention of online shoppers.

• The size of a store’s inventory. It stands to reason: More vehicles translate to a greater number of opportunities for consumers to see and click on a store’s online listings. Of course, the “right” inventory stands a better chance of triggering a shopper’s decision to click on a listing. In my sample, I found stores with a roughly 50/50 mix of franchise brand and off-brand vehicles tended to achieve more VDPs than those that carried a greater share (60 to 80 percent) of single franchise vehicles.

• The size of a store’s “e-real estate.” I compared the numbers of VDPs against the size of the investments made on AutoTrader.com’s platform (i.e., its “Partner” and “Alpha” programs). Indeed, stores that “paid up” tended to have higher VDPs. This is not an implicit recommendation to simply spend more. In my sample, the stores that tended to pay more also invested additional time and energy into tweaking the fundamentals that drive merchandising success including their vehicle descriptions, photos and videos—put another way, they’re investing in their initial investment to achieve better ROI.

• A store’s inventory profile. The stores in my sample that follow metrics like market days supply to optimize their inventory around supply/demand dynamics in their respective markets showed better SRP and VDP results. In addition, stores that manage their pricing profile by consistently making relevant price changes logged a greater number of SRPs and VDPs than those that are less attuned to market pricing dynamics. To me, this is a testament to the pricing knowledge that today’s used vehicle shoppers amass as they troll web sites looking for vehicles that fit their budgets and lifestyles. Simply put, they know a fair deal when they see one and they respond to dealerships that ensure their vehicles are priced right against the competition.

These are among the biggest factors that drive metrics like SRPs and VDPs. And there are measurable benchmarks. For example, the top performing stores in my sample saw a consistent 3 to 4 percent conversion rate of SRPs to VDPs (essentially the click-throughs to specific vehicles from the search results page an online shopper selects). To me, this is the “money number.” If the conversion rate falls below this benchmark, it signals that something is amiss—the “right” inventory, competitive pricing, compelling photos, descriptions—all of which play key roles in catching an online shopper’s interest. Likewise, if the conversion rate is higher, it suggests a store has achieved what I like to call “pixel proficiency” with its online inventory listings.

I would encourage every dealer and used vehicle manager to do a review of his or her own SRPs, VDPs and VDP conversion rates. This is a daily exercise at some of the stores in my sample set as they seek to gain the highest ROI from their investments in third-party listing sites.

There’s another reason this “How are we doing?” exercise is important: Industry data suggests that as many as 60 percent of shoppers who visit third-party sites never call or e-mail a store that has a vehicle they like. Instead, they just show up. This suggests that dealers and used vehicle managers who only pay attention to phone calls and e-mails as they evaluate their online merchandising efforts may not be getting the most complete picture of their online performance and impact.

Drawing from 13 years experience as a dealer principal and eight years as a successful high technology executive serving the automotive retail industry, Dale Pollak is an authority on maximizing dealership profits from pre-owned vehicle operations. Pollak is the founder and chairman of the board of vAuto, Inc. a pre-owned inventory management solutions company.