Optical disks eliminate lots of paperwork woes

Dealerships generate a lot of paper requiring banks of file cabinets and long-term storage, file clerks and aspirin for headaches that come on when documents are lost or misfiled.

Dealers hate this paper chase and customers haven't the patience for it when their paperwork isn't ready.

Dealers who have done away with it report significant savings, better staff utilization and improved customer satisfaction. Their solution? DSDA document storage and data archiving, notes ADP Dealer Services, provider of computing and e-business solutions for auto and truck retailers.

DSDA interfaces with the dealer's business system to put paperwork, including signature documents, on-line where they can be indexed and located from desktops throughout the dealership.

Three million stored documents and up to 60,000 scanned documents fit on a 5-1/4 inch optical disk.

When it comes to buying cars on-line, men aren't the only ones in the driver seat.

Fletcher Research Co. says 82% of women feel dealers treat them as if they are uneducated about buying cars.

As a result, women are more likely to research, price shop and buy cars on-line than men. Also, with women influencing 80% of automobile purchases, the Internet is increasingly becoming the place women feel comfortable shopping for cars.

Information and ease of use are only two of the things women look for when it comes to purchasing a used car.

In a study conducted by AutoTrader.com and Morpace International Market Research and Consulting, women are far more likely to consider price in their car search.

In fact, more than a third of car buyers surveyed said that low budget/low cost was their main reason for buying a used car.

Auto Auction Services Corp., the Internet arm of the nation's auto auctions, says it is changing the name of its website, formerly aascend.com, to autoIMS.com, to better reflect the company's focus.

AutoIMS.com provides inventory management for consignors including electronic condition reports with digital photos, the ability to track vehicles through the stages of liquidation and the ability to submit repair authorizations and set floor prices online.

In addition to autoIMS.com, AASC offers livelane.com, a competitive bidding site where dealers can buy vehicles at online auctions or purchase vehicles for a fixed price, and liveCRwriter, free downloadable software that allows auctions to post vehicle information to the Internet quickly.

AutoIMS.com has over 650,000 vehicles in active inventory and that number could reach 1.5 million by the first of next year, says Don Meadows, vice president of AASC.