KBB Instant Cash Offer Alternative for Car Dealerships

Buy cars from local owners who asked your store to contact them: opt in seller leads delivered to you and only you, with the texting, calling and desking to turn them into inventory.

Kelley Blue Book is one of the best known names in vehicle values, and its Instant Cash Offer program carries that brand into acquisition. An owner enters the vehicle, its options and its condition, receives an offer, and takes the car to a participating dealership, which inspects it and completes the purchase. Stores enroll to be the place those owners redeem their offers, and many also place the offer tool on their own websites so their visitors can use it.

The appeal to a dealer is easy to see. Owners already recognize the name, the offer gives them a reason to come in, and the used car department gets a conversation that starts with a number instead of a cold call. For a store that wants trade traffic from its own site visitors, it is a familiar widget to hang on the page.

Program rules, territories, fees and terms change over time, so confirm current pricing and terms with the vendor directly before you plan around any of it.

Most used car managers who search for an alternative like the idea of an instant offer just fine. What they want is more of the conversation belonging to their store. When an owner starts on a national brand's page, the first relationship is with that brand, and the first number came from a model that has never seen the car. The dealership meets the owner at the inspection, which is exactly the moment the number gets tested.

A seller supply line of your own puts those steps in a better order. The owner raises a hand to be contacted by a local dealership, your salesperson makes the first call, and the conversation about condition, payoff and timing happens before anyone quotes a figure. Your appraiser sets the number after seeing the car, and your store is the name the owner remembers when a friend asks where they sold it.

The other reason is reach. A widget on your website serves the traffic your site already has. Opt in seller leads come from campaigns our team runs inside the zone you draw, which puts your store in front of owners who have never visited your site at all.

Leave your number and a lead specialist calls you back to answer your questions about pricing, coverage, and setup. Mon - Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.

Features change on both sides. Verify anything that will drive your decision with each vendor directly.

The first gain is owning the relationship from the first touch. On the Marketplace Acquisitions plan, local owners who filled out a vehicle offer request and asked to be contacted by a dealership arrive in your CRM as leads from your own store's campaigns. Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you choose, and backed by a replacement review through Quality Control Requests, so a bad lead costs you nothing.

The second gain is control of the campaign without the campaign work. In Leads Manager you draw the zone in the zone editor, choose the campaign type and the prescreening questions an owner answers, such as mileage, payoff or timeframe, and add Custom Offers, while See Samples previews the ads before anything runs. Our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network, included with every plan.

The third gain is the number itself. Your appraiser sets it after the conversation and the walkaround, using the book and market tools your used car department already trusts, so the figure the owner hears is the figure your store stands behind. The consumer vehicle acquisition software page covers the full toolset for buying from the public.

An owner who asks for an offer is usually asking more than one place, so the first real conversation wins more often than the highest early number. When the request lands, round robin assignment or your distribution rules put it in front of a buyer or salesperson, Manager Lead Copies put it in front of your used car manager at the same moment, and the Automated Templates for the seller feed can send the first text within moments.

RCS messaging with automatic SMS fallback carries photos both ways, so the owner can send the odometer, the tires and the rear quarter panel before anyone drives anywhere. Click to call runs through the browser softphone or the LeadLocate app, calls are recorded and transcribed, and Call Alerts flag the ones where words like payoff or lien come up. Up to five vehicles of interest plus trade in lines sit on the lead record, so a seller who mentions a second car in the driveway is captured on the spot.

When the car arrives, the DealTracker trade in form captures photos and a trade VIN scan, document AI reads the VIN and the paperwork, and the identity scanner reads the driver license into the customer record. The trade in appraisal software page covers that step in depth.

Plenty of owners who start with sell my car finish the week in a replacement vehicle, and that is the most profitable version of the transaction: an acquisition at a local landed cost and a retail deal on the same day. LeadLocate keeps both halves on one customer record. The same lead moves into EZ Desking with cash, finance and lease structures, the 50 state tax matrix, trade credit caps and three lease tax methods, and the customer deal page puts the numbers on the owner's phone with PIN access and e-signature.

When financing is part of the deal, a SecureWebX apply link goes out by text, the five step application comes back into the secure console, and Send to Lender shares it with the lender your store chooses as a code gated, expiring, watermarked share. The desking tool page shows the structures side by side.

The Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan runs buyer leads and seller leads in one account, so the units you buy from local owners land on a lot where shoppers are already asking for that kind of vehicle. Inventory Link puts those units on your inventory sites, and the inventory insert button drops any of them into a text or email with photos and price.

The move requires no gap in acquisitions. In the first week, the account is set up for you, usually the same day. Import your contacts, set your zone, campaign type and prescreening questions in Leads Manager, and review the sample ads in See Samples. Training is included with every plan through the video library, Live Training and Schedule Training on the top bar.

In the second week, connect your website forms so any trade or offer request from your own site lands in the same inbox with the fields mapped, turn on Follow Up Processes for seller leads, and set Call Alerts for the words your used car manager wants to hear about. Owners who are months away from selling go on a longer drip, and scheduled sends let a rep write a message today for the week the owner said they would decide.

From the third week, tag every unit bought from a local owner and compare its landed cost against units bought at auction with fees and transport included. The vehicle acquisition ROI calculator helps set that comparison up, and the reports keep seller leads, website trades and service drive buys counted as separate sources.

The Marketplace Acquisitions plan for seller leads starts at $999 a month, and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan runs buyer and seller leads together from $1,599. Every plan with leads includes the CRM, because the platform is what receives and delivers the leads, and every plan is month to month with no long term contract. Current details are on the pricing page.

Judge it on the numbers the used car department already lives by: owners reached, appraisal appointments set and shown, cars bought, and landed cost per unit against a comparable auction purchase. Read the activity, company and management reports by source, and look at days to front line on units bought from local owners, because a car that comes in clean from one owner usually reaches the line faster.

We cannot guarantee how many owners will request an offer, how many cars you will buy or what they will retail for, and no vendor can, because that depends on your market, your appraisal numbers and how quickly your people call. What you get is a steady supply of owners who asked for your call and the tools to answer it first. Call 844-376-2274 and we will map a zone around your store.

Who sets the offer amount on a LeadLocate seller lead?

Your store does. The owner asked to be contacted about selling, your salesperson learns the condition and payoff, and your appraiser sets the number after seeing the car, using the book and market tools your used car department already trusts.

Where do the seller leads come from?

From local owners who filled out a vehicle offer request and asked to be contacted by a dealership. Our team runs the campaigns from the zone, campaign type and prescreening questions you choose in Leads Manager.

Are seller leads shared with other dealers?

Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you. Leads are prescreened at capture with the questions you choose and backed by a replacement review, so a bad lead costs you nothing.

Can we still take trade requests from our own website?

Yes. Connect your website forms so every trade or offer request lands in the CRM with the fields mapped, or build a dedicated offer request page with lead pages, the landing page builder inside the CRM.

Can a buyer work offer requests from a phone?

Yes. The LeadLocate app carries the lead inbox, texting, the VoIP dialer, call logs, VIN lookup, driver license scan and DealTracker desking, so an offer request can be answered from the lot, the service drive or the sale.

What does the seller side cost?

Marketplace Acquisitions starts at $999 a month and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan, which adds inbound buyer leads, starts at $1,599. Both include the CRM and are month to month with no long term contract.

We will map a zone around your store, set the questions every owner answers, and show you seller leads arriving in a working inbox. Month to month, no long term contract.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.