Selling to car dealerships: who decides, how they buy and where to find them

This guide is for companies that sell products and services to car dealerships: dealer software and CRM, digital marketing and websites, service-lane tools, finance and insurance (F&I) products, reconditioning, signage, staffing and training. (If you want to sell your own car to a dealer, this isn't that guide.) It covers how many dealerships there are, how they make money, who decides, the rules that shape vendor deals, where to get a list, and a worked example.

How many car dealerships there are

Two sources count dealerships differently.

Franchised dealers are big businesses. NADA reports that they sold 16.2 million light vehicles in 2025, with total sales of $1.30 trillion: $76.6 million for the average dealership. They employed 1.12 million people, about 65 per store. Independent used car dealers are much smaller: 69% of the 25,147 used dealer establishments in County Business Patterns have fewer than five employees.

Franchised dealerships are concentrated where people are. California has 1,334, Texas 1,285, Florida 953, Pennsylvania 861 and New York 860.

Ownership is consolidating but still local. In 2025, 90.5% of dealership owners ran one to five stores, down from 94.4% in 2016. The share running six or more has grown every year since, and 0.2% of owners now run more than 50.

How a dealership makes and spends money

Every department is a profit center with its own manager, and each one buys different things.

The advertising split tells you where dealers already spend: search engine marketing 21.1%, third-party listing sites 20.0%, SEO 19.5%, social media 14.2%, TV 10.5%, radio 6.9%, direct mail 5.6% and newspapers 2.1%. Dealers spent $739 on advertising for every new vehicle sold in 2025, the highest in NADA's chart going back to 2018. A marketing vendor needs to show cost per sale against that number.

Service is the steadiest budget. Sales swing with inventory and interest rates, but repair orders keep coming. The average store has 16 technicians and an $186 customer labor rate, so anything that adds billed hours is easy to value.

Who decides

At a single store, the department manager is your champion and the general manager or owner signs. At a group with six or more stores, look for a director who buys for every store: one fixed operations director can roll out a service tool to 20 rooftops.

Check the manufacturer too. Many brands run endorsed vendor programs for websites and digital advertising, sometimes tied to co-op advertising reimbursement, and some tools need to integrate with the dealer management system (DMS) the store runs. Ask early which DMS they use and whether the brand requires an approved vendor.

The rules that shape vendor deals

This is general information, not legal advice.

• The FTC Safeguards Rule. A dealership that finances or leases vehicles is a financial institution under the rule, which uses a leasing dealership as an example. Dealers must select service providers that can protect customer information, spell out security expectations in contracts, and reassess providers periodically. Since May 2024, they must also tell the FTC within 30 days of discovering a breach of unencrypted information about at least 500 consumers. If your product touches customer data, have a security summary and contract language ready.
• The CARS Rule is gone, for now. The Fifth Circuit vacated the FTC's Combating Auto Retail Scams Rule on 27 January 2025, before it took effect. F&I and advertising compliance still matter, because federal and state law on deceptive pricing and add-ons still applies.
• CAN-SPAM applies to business email. Every commercial email to a dealership needs an honest subject line, your postal address and an opt-out you honor.

Where to get a list of car dealerships

License data and locators give you stores, not people. Finding the service director or marketing director at each store, and working out which stores share an owner, is the slow part. Bebop finds the contacts and researches each account in the list. The guide to finding decision makers covers the general method.

Segment before you reach out

• Franchised or independent. Franchised stores have more departments, bigger budgets and manufacturer rules. Independents are mostly small.
• Group size. Single store, small group (2 to 5) or larger group, which tells you whether the decision is at the store or headquarters.
• Brand. Brands differ in their endorsed vendors, co-op programs and customers.
• Volume. NADA's 2025 split: 19.1% of dealerships sold fewer than 150 new units, 17.6% sold 150 to 299, 16.8% sold 300 to 499, 15.4% sold 500 to 749, 20.9% sold 750 to 1,499 and 10.2% sold 1,500 or more.
• Systems. The DMS and CRM they run, if your product integrates.

Timing

• Avoid the last week of the month and quarter. Sales managers are chasing volume targets and manufacturer incentives. The first two weeks are better.
• Call mid-morning on weekdays, before the showroom and service drive get busy.
• Ask about the budget cycle. If the store budgets by calendar year, new marketing and software contracts are often decided in the fourth quarter.
• Watch for change. A buy-sell (a store changing hands), a new general manager, a facility remodel or a new franchise added are the moments dealers change vendors.

Worked example: a service-lane tool sells in Ohio

Illustrative example. The vendor and dealer group are fictional; dealership figures come from NADA Data 2025.

The seller: Bayline (bayline.example) sells two-way texting and appointment reminders for service departments at an illustrative $6,000 a year per store. The territory: Ohio, which has 714 franchised dealerships, averaging $65.8 million in sales each.

1. Prove the value in service numbers. The average dealership writes 16,252 repair orders a year at $494 per customer repair order. If reminders keep an illustrative 2% more appointments, that's about 325 more repair orders and roughly $160,500 more service and parts sales per store per year, against a $6,000 price.
2. Start with groups. Groups of six or more stores have a fixed operations director who can approve every store at once. Use group websites to find Ohio groups and their store counts.
3. Pick the angle. Ridgeway Auto Group (ridgeway-auto.example) runs nine stores, added a franchise in August, and is hiring service advisors at three locations.

Subject: Service no-shows across [group]'s [number] stores

Hi [first name],

I saw [group] added [franchise] in [month] and is hiring service advisors at [stores]. When the drive gets busier, missed appointments cost more, because each one is an empty bay and an idle technician.

[Product] sends two-way texts and reminders from the advisor's own number, and integrates with [their DMS]. At the average store's 16,000 repair orders a year, keeping 2% more appointments is about 325 more repair orders.

Could I show you the numbers for one of your stores? Twenty minutes, any morning in the first half of next month.

[Your name]
[Company, postal address]
Reply "stop" and I won't email again.

The email uses the group's own news, translates the product into repair orders, and avoids month-end.

Checklist before you contact a dealership

• You know whether it's franchised or independent, its brands and whether it belongs to a group.
• You've named the department that owns your problem and its manager.
• You can state your value in that department's numbers: repair orders, units, cost per sale.
• You have a security summary and contract language ready for the Safeguards Rule.
• You know whether you need DMS integration or manufacturer approval.

Common mistakes

• Pitching the owner first at a group. Owners send vendors to the department or group director anyway.
• Calling in the last week of the month. Nobody in sales will take it.
• Ignoring service. It's the steadiest budget and the least crowded with vendors.
• Selling marketing without cost per sale. Dealers already measure it against $739 per new vehicle.

Next step: profile your first ten stores or groups with the account research template, starting with brands, group size, DMS and one dated reason to call. For the email itself, see how to write a cold email.