How to get more used cars from your own customers' trade-ins.
Many of the used cars a store wants are already in its service drive and its customer list. You get more of them by making a trade-in request easy to start from a phone, doing the inspection groundwork before anyone walks the car, and answering every request quickly with a manager's offer. With AUTONOMi, that is RELAY: the store's own white-label trade-in app, with guided photos and an AI condition report for the used-car manager, and the offer always left to the store.
Why is it hard to get more used inventory from your own customers?
Because asking for a trade-in still mostly means asking the customer to come in. A customer who is curious what their car is worth will not book an appraisal visit to find out, and a used-car manager cannot price a car from a phone call. The store also needs to know which trades it actually wants, so it is not filling the lot with cars that sit. The answer is a request a customer can finish from their phone, with enough photos and answers for a manager to make an offer, coming in through every place the store already talks to its customers.
How do you get more used cars from trade-ins, step by step?
Six steps: decide what you want to buy, give customers a way to send their car, put that way everywhere, collect the inspection groundwork, read it, and answer fast.
- Step 1AEGIS Week 1
Decide which cars you want to take on trade
Start from what actually sells. Upload the store's sold-log and AEGIS reads actual deliveries against the live inventory: what to order more of, what to slow down, and what to stop taking on trade. The used-desk analysis is brand-agnostic, so it covers off-brand trades too — which makes to take on trade, pay up for, or avoid — and it states its own confidence rather than inventing economics it cannot see.
- Step 2Trade-in Week 1
Give customers the store's own trade-in app
RELAY is a phone app in the store's own look, not AUTONOMi's: one link, a QR code staff can print, and a short dealer code on a sign for anyone who cannot scan. As of 2026, RELAY is switched on store by store; AUTONOMi runs the backend and the RELAY console the store's staff work in.
- Step 3Your team Week 1–2
Put the trade-in link everywhere you already talk to customers
A request nobody sees is not a request. Put the link on the website, the QR code in the service drive and the showroom, and the link in the emails and texts your own team already sends to owners. The app itself never texts or emails customers, so where the link appears is the store's decision — and the biggest lever in this playbook.
- Step 4Trade-in Ongoing
Let the customer do the inspection groundwork
In the app, the customer identifies the car by its VIN, which is decoded for year, make, model and trim; a photo of the license plate can be read by AI for the customer to confirm. They answer the condition questions and take seventeen guided photos — eight exterior angles, each tire with a coin in the tread, the engine bay, the trunk, both cabin rows and the odometer — and a quick check asks for a retake when a photo is unusable. Any estimate the app shows is labelled an estimate, never an offer.
- Step 5AEGIS Ongoing
Read the AI condition report before you price
For each request, AEGIS prepares a condition report for the used-car manager: photo-cited damage by panel, tread per tire with a replace flag, a likely-brake-service flag per wheel, interior findings, the odometer reading and warning lights, and where the photos disagree with the customer's answers. Code checks that every finding cites a real photo. The report reads only what the photos show and says what it could not see; the customer never sees it.
- Step 6Trade-in Ongoing
Answer every request fast and record your offer
Every request lands in the store's RELAY console with the photos, the answers and the condition report. The offer is always the manager's decision: the store records its status and its offer on the request, and the console shows how quickly the store responded during its open hours. A fast, specific answer is what turns a curious owner into a car on the lot.
What should you measure to know trade-ins are bringing in more used cars?
Trade-in requests received
The top of the funnel. Count it by week after the link goes on each surface — website, service drive, showroom, your team's emails — to see which placement brings requests in.
Time to the store's first response
The RELAY console shows how fast the store responded, counted in open hours. A customer who sent seventeen photos expects an answer; a slow reply hands the car to whoever answered first.
Share of requests that get an offer
Requests that never receive an offer are wasted interest. If the share is low, find out whether the photos were not enough, the car was not one you want, or the request simply sat.
Trades acquired against your sold-log
More cars only helps if they are cars that sell. Compare what you acquired with what the sold-log analysis says to take on trade, pay up for, or avoid.
Does the trade-in app give customers an instant cash offer?
No. As of 2026, RELAY never makes an offer: any estimate the customer sees is labelled an estimate, and the offer is always the store's manager's decision. RELAY uses no book-value guide data and reads no vehicle history report, so it never presents either. That keeps the price in the hands of the person who will own the car.
What are the common mistakes when chasing more trade-ins?
Launching the app and never putting the link where customers actually are — the service drive and the store's own emails matter most.
Letting requests sit: a customer who did the work of seventeen photos and gets no answer will not send the next car.
Treating the customer's estimate as an offer. It is an estimate; the manager's offer is the one that counts.
Buying every trade offered instead of the ones the sold-log says the store can retail.
Pricing from the photos alone without reading what the condition report says it could not see.
Getting more used inventory from trade-ins, answered
How can a dealership get more used cars from trade-ins?
Make a trade-in request easy to start from a phone, put the link everywhere the store already talks to customers, collect guided photos and condition answers before anyone walks the car, and answer every request quickly with a manager's offer. AUTONOMi's RELAY app does the request, photos and condition report; the store decides the offer.
What does the customer do in the trade-in app?
They open the store's link, scan the QR code or type the store's dealer code, identify the car by its VIN, answer the condition questions and take seventeen guided photos. The app asks for a retake when a photo is unusable, and it shows any estimate as an estimate, not an offer.
Does RELAY use book values or a vehicle history report?
No. RELAY uses no book-value guide data and reads no vehicle history report. The condition report works only from the customer's photos and answers, and it says what the photos could not show.
Do trade-in requests go into PRISM or my CRM?
Not today. As of 2026, RELAY requests are worked in the store's RELAY console; they are not filed into PRISM or handed to AI follow-up, and the app sends no email. The store's team follows up with the customers who agreed to be contacted.
Is the condition report a guarantee of the car's condition?
No. It reads only what the customer's photos show, cites the photo behind every finding, and says what it could not see. It is groundwork for the used-car manager, not a replacement for the manager's own look at the car.
Recommended reading
See how your store could take in more trades
Talk to the team about RELAY for your store: your own trade-in app in your own look, guided photos and an AI condition report for your used-car manager, and every offer still yours to make.
