How to reduce stock ageing without destroying margin
Cutting prices reduces ageing. It also reduces gross. The skill is knowing which cars to cut, when, and by how much — and that decision is available to you whether or not you run Omnetic.
By the end you will be able to
- Read an ageing profile and say which cars are a problem this week rather than eventually.
- Calculate what a car costs you per week it stays, including the money it is holding still.
- Choose between a price cut, a spend on preparation, and a trade exit — with a reason.
- Set a review rhythm your buyers will actually keep.
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A car standing still is not free
Most dealers price ageing as an emotion — the car feels old, so it gets cut. The number is more useful. A vehicle holds capital, occupies space, depreciates against a moving market, and costs interest if it was funded. Add those together per week and the cut you were dreading is usually smaller than the wait.
Funding
Your actual rate on the landed cost, per week — not an annual figure you never divide.
Depreciation
Market movement for that specification, which is not the same as your ageing policy.
Space
What the pitch is worth if a faster car stood there instead.
Attention
Uncounted and real: the car everybody has stopped mentioning is the one nobody is selling.
What a week costs is specific to your funding, your market and your pitch, and a generic number would be worse than none.
Reading an ageing profile properly
An average age tells you almost nothing. What matters is the shape: how many units sit past your policy, whether they cluster in one specification, and whether the tail is growing week on week. A stable tail is a pricing decision; a growing tail is a buying problem.
| 0–30 days | 31–60 | 61–90 | 90+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | 13 | 8 | 3 |
In Omnetic: Stock Report holds this profile live. Without Omnetic: a weekly export with days-in-stock and specification gets you the same shape, as long as everyone agrees what day zero is.
One car, three options, one decision
An Octavia 2.0 TDI Style bought in Vienna and prepared in Prague. Landed cost 508 400 CZK, preparation 4 000, total cost 512 400. It has been on the pitch for 71 days at 589 000 with four enquiries and no offer.
| Decision | Cut 15 000 | Spend 9 000 on prep | Exit to trade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price after | 574 000 | 589 000 | trade bid |
| Gross if it sells | 61 600 | 67 600 | lower, immediate |
| Likely to move | yes, weeks | unknown | yes, days |
| The real question | Is 15 000 less than what four more weeks costs? | Do the four enquiries say the car is wrong, or the price? | Would you buy this car again at all? |
There is no correct answer printed here on purpose. The lesson teaches the comparison, not our preference — and a dealer who cuts because a course told them to has learned nothing. Figures are illustrative and reconcile with the worked examples elsewhere on this site.
A weekly review that survives a busy Monday
Checklist · twenty minutes
- Anything that crossed your policy age this week — decide, do not defer.
- Enquiries per unit on the 60+ group: interest without offers is a price signal.
- Two units of the same specification ageing together — stop buying it before repricing it.
- Every decision recorded with its reason, so next month you can tell luck from judgement.
- One person owns the list. A review that belongs to everybody happens to nobody.
Weekly ageing review sheet
A one-page template with the four cost inputs and a decision column. Works in any spreadsheet; no account needed.
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Knowledge check
Two units of the same specification have both passed 60 days, while the rest of your stock is turning normally. What is the first action?
- Cut both prices by the same amount.
- Review whether you should be buying that specification at all.
- Spend on preparation to make them stand out.
- Move both to trade immediately.
Show the source answer
Correct: Review whether you should be buying that specification at all.
Repricing treats the symptom one car at a time. Two of the same specification ageing together is a buying signal, and cutting both without changing what you buy guarantees a third next month.
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Landed cost, without the optimism
What a cross-border purchase actually costs once transport, VAT and paperwork are counted.
If you want the software to do it
Stock Report and Price Report: the profile live, and market evidence next to the decision. The lesson works without them — this is the shortcut, not the point.