Age Buckets Aren't Enough. Manage These 5 Too

Five things to take from this tip.

Bucket math is two-week sales times two versus stock. Thirty units in the 16 to 30 bucket, 10 sold from it in the last two weeks, is a pace of 20. You are 10 units off, and those 10 will bleed into the 31 to 45 bucket unless the sale rate on that group goes up.

Segment tells you what to fix and what to buy. Thirty large pickups on a pace of 20 is 10 heavy. Twenty compact SUVs on a pace of 30 means you are outselling what you own and need to buy 10 more. Same math, opposite action.

Model year and price point are buckets too. Late models carry the risk: 30 2023s on a pace of 20 versus 20 2019s on a pace of 30. Same story when $50,000 to $55,000 cars sit while $25,000 to $30,000 cars sell.

Make and mileage catch what the buyer brought home. A buyer who needed 15 units and grabbed 12 Nissans at the auction left the store four heavy when the pace came in at eight. And Jasen's warning about low-mile pride: the car you are proudest of is often the one you are too long on.

Point your leads at the same buckets. If you are heavy in trucks, raise the contact ratio on truck leads whether the lead is two days or 50 days old. Lead age says nothing about the buyer's timeline. Inventory buckets say exactly where you need the sale.

What Jasen covers in ten minutes.

Age buckets are the default, and they are where most managers stop

Jasen recorded this one in December 2024 after a LotTalk episode on bucket management, because the phrase had come to mean one thing: age. Zero to 15, 16 to 30, 31 to 45. He is not against that. He can spend an entire inventory meeting inside a store's age buckets and find enough to fix. His argument is that age is the first bucket, not the only one.

The math is the same one he uses everywhere. Take the 16 to 30 day bucket. Thirty units in it. Ten sold out of it in the last two weeks. Doubled, that is a pace of 20 against 30 in stock, so you are 10 units off pace in that bucket. If nothing changes, those 10 cars become 31 to 45 day cars. That is the first line of attack, and it is the same discipline behind finding the aging problem before it shows up in the 61+ bucket.

Segment: the bucket that tells you what to buy

The first bucket beyond age is segment. Thirty large pickup trucks in stock, 10 sold in the last two weeks, pace of 20: you are 10 trucks heavy. Now compact SUVs: 20 in stock but on pace to sell 30. You are outselling what you own. Jasen's point is that segment buckets cut both ways. The truck bucket tells you where to raise your sale rate. The SUV bucket tells you to go buy 10 more. If you want to build that into your acquisition plan, our stocking strategy guide covers how to size each segment to its sale rate.

He also introduces the idea he calls doubling down. A large pickup truck that is also sitting in the 16 to 30 bucket is two problems on one car. Keep adding buckets and the stack gets taller.

Model year, price point, make, and mileage

Model year comes next, because late models are where the risk is. Thirty 2023s on a pace of 20 is 10 heavy. Twenty 2019s on a pace of 30 means you need 10 more of them. Then price point: $50,000 to $55,000 cars sitting while $25,000 to $30,000 cars sell means you isolate the expensive bucket and attack it, and you go buy more of the cheaper one.

Make is the bucket that catches the buyer. Maybe you are a Ford store and 30 Fords on a pace of 20 is the issue. Or maybe your buyer went to the auction needing 15 units, saw 12 Nissans available, and bought them. Twelve in stock, on pace to sell eight, four units heavy in a make you never planned to stock. And mileage, where Jasen makes a point most managers recognize: we get too proud of low-mile cars and hold them too long, while the high-mile cars we priced aggressively are the ones actually leaving. Sometimes the answer is to buy more of the miley cars and get honest about the low-mile ones.

Put it all together and you get his example: a low-mile 2023 large pickup truck priced $50,000 to $55,000 sitting in the 16 to 30 bucket. That is one car showing up in four or five heavy buckets at once. As Jasen puts it, that is all factual data, and it is all inside your control. It has nothing to do with the auction, MMR, or the book. For a practical way to run this every week, see aged used inventory control.

Manage leads by inventory bucket, not by lead age

The last third of the tip is where he connects inventory to the BDC. Every bucket you isolate on the lot should have a matching list of leads. Heavy in large pickups? Pull the open leads on large pickups and raise the contact ratio, so you do not have to touch the price. Problem with 2023s? Call and email every 2023 lead, whether it is two days old or 50.

Managing leads by the age of the lead is irrelevant to the customer's buying cycle and irrelevant to the bucket management I'm doing on my lot.Jasen Rice, LotParty Quick Tip

His reasoning is that lead age is a bad proxy for anything. When a lead comes in you do not know whether the customer is two days from buying or two months, so a cadence built on lead age is disconnected from both the buyer and the lot. Inventory buckets tell you exactly where you need the next sale. And when a car in a hot bucket sells, somebody who wanted the $50,000 truck that just left is your best lead for the $50,000 truck still sitting. That is the switch, the same idea behind recovering leads on sold vehicles.

Jasen is explicit that you can do all of this by hand, out of vAuto, VinCue, DealersLink, or ACV MAX. It takes digging, but the data is already there. In a normal, depreciating market, his read is that dealers who bucket manage both inventory and leads control their own economy regardless of rates or headlines.

Three moves for Monday morning.

Build a six-cut bucket sheet

One tab each for age, segment, model year, price band, make, and mileage band. For every bucket, three columns: in stock, sold in the last 14 days, and pace (sold times two). The gap between stock and pace is your heavy or short count. Fifteen minutes with your inventory tool export gets you there.

Find the stacked cars

Take every unit sitting in a heavy bucket and count how many other heavy buckets it also falls in. The car that shows up in four (say, a late model, large pickup, $50,000+, 16 to 30 days) is your first pricing and merchandising conversation. The short buckets go straight to your buyer as a shopping list.

Re-sort the BDC call list by bucket

Hand the BDC the heavy buckets, not the lead-age report. Every open lead on a car in a heavy bucket that is still in stock gets contacted this week regardless of lead age. Any lead on a car from that bucket that already sold gets switched to the comparable unit still on the lot.

Where LotWalk fits.

You can run this on a spreadsheet, and this tip is Jasen showing you how. LotWalk puts the buckets on one desktop screen. The At Risk view shows sale rate by age bucket and by segment (Total, Franchise, Non-Franchise, Trade, Purchase) against your monthly goal, and the Scoreboard tracks days supply by body style so the short buckets are as visible as the heavy ones. LotStock turns the "buy 10 more compact SUVs" half into a stocking recommendation built on what is turning at your price point, and Switch Leads does the last step automatically: when a unit sells, the open leads on it are matched to the comparable cars still in stock, so the BDC works the bucket instead of the lead-age report.

Read the whole tip.

Show transcript (lightly edited for readability)

Age buckets are the default, and they are where most managers stop

My team just did a LotTalk, our podcast, going over lot issues, and one of the things we've been talking about a lot heading into 2025 is bucket management. It helps you eliminate aging problems. When we talk about bucket management, that's typically managing your age buckets, 0 to 15, 16 to 30, how to get the used car inventory moving. I wanted to dig deeper into it, because I think the default is managing your age buckets. If you've got 30 units sitting in your 16 to 30 age bucket, what's your sale rate on that? That's the area we focus on most when we talk to our dealers. I can spend a whole meeting digging through your age buckets finding issues to eliminate an aging problem.

Here's how I'd look at it. Look at how many units are in the 16 to 30 age bucket, say 30 units. Then look at what you sold out of that bucket in the last two weeks, say 10. If you want to turn your inventory each month, and I've only sold 10 in two weeks, times two puts me on pace to sell 20 in a month. I want to sell all 30. I've got 30 in that bucket and I'm only on pace to sell 20, so I'm 10 units off pace. That's what I talk about in my book, Work the Facts. Go to workthefacts.com or Amazon, it's like $12.95, and all these metrics are in there. It's a factual problem on your lot. Do you want to fix it? You should know this.

Go look at what you're selling in a two-week window in each age bucket. I've got 30 in stock and I'm on pace to sell 20. If I don't increase my sale rate on that 16 to 30 bucket, a lot of those cars are going to bleed through and become 31 to 45 days old. I need 10 more units out of that bucket. That's the first line of attack.

Segment, model year, and price point

But like I titled this, there are more buckets to manage than age buckets. You have to expand your inventory management. The first area we look at is segment. Take large pickup trucks. Same math. Say I have 30 large pickup trucks in inventory and I've only sold 10 in the last two weeks. That puts me on pace to sell 20 with 30 in stock. I'm 10 units off pace in large pickup trucks. If you start digging into that you start seeing doubling down, where you've got a large pickup truck sitting in that 16 to 30 age bucket. That's bucket management: isolate the large pickup trucks and manage that bucket. Now maybe compact SUVs: you've got 20 in stock but you're on pace to sell 30. That means I need to buy 10 more compact SUVs, because I'm outselling what's sitting there. I need to increase what I have in stock to match my sale rate. And I need to increase my sales on trucks or those are going to bleed through and age.

Next, look at model years. We know late model cars are riskier, the 2023s and 2024s. Maybe your 2019s are selling at a good rate. I've got 20 in stock and I'm on pace to sell 30, so I need 10 more 2019s. But my 2023s, I've got 30 in stock and I'm only on pace to sell 20. I'm 10 units off pace in 2023s. Now we're talking a double or triple whammy: what if you happen to have a 2023 large pickup truck sitting in your 16 to 30?

So I'd be looking at not just age. I'd look at segment, at year, and at price point. Maybe your $50,000 to $55,000 cars are sitting but your $25,000 to $30,000 cars are selling. Same math. I've got a $50,000 to $55,000 issue, so isolate that bucket and attack it, and I need to go buy more $25,000 to $30,000 cars. That's an actionable game plan. Now you're talking three issues at once: a large pickup truck, a 2023, sitting in your 16 to 30, priced at $50,000 to $55,000. By isolating all these different areas, not just age, you start seeing the big problems in your inventory.

Make and mileage

I'd also look at makes. Maybe you're a Ford store and your Fords are the issue: 30 Fords in stock and only on pace to sell 20. Or the opposite, maybe it's your non-Fords. Maybe your buyer went to the auction, needed 15 units, and bought 12 Nissans because they were available. If I look at my Nissans, I have 12 in stock and I'm only on pace to sell eight. I'm four units heavy in Nissans, and maybe one of them is a 2023 sitting in that 16 to 30 bucket.

You can do the same thing with miles. Sometimes we're too proud of a low-mile car and we hold on to it. Maybe your high-mile cars are slowing down your sale rate, or maybe you're really aggressive on your high-mile cars and they're selling fast, so you need more of them, and it's your low-mile cars you're too proud of and too long on. Those are areas of attack too. So maybe you have a low-mile 2023 large pickup truck at $50,000 to $55,000 sitting in your 16 to 30 bucket. That's all factual data you can control.

On our Friday morning used car Clubhouse somebody was talking about managing the controllables. Control what you control and do something about it. You can isolate trucks and attack that bucket. You can isolate 2023s and attack that bucket. Go after the 2019s and acquire more. Attack the high-mile cars, attack the Nissans, attack the 16 to 30. That has nothing to do with what's happening in the market data, at the auction, MMR, the book value, or anything else. That data is important, but control your controllables. Manage not just your age bucket. Segment, years, price point. You get the point.

Point your leads at the same buckets

Let's talk about the other controllable, and I'll end here. As you manage these buckets, lead management should match. I've mentioned this in all my different talks but I'm putting it together here. If I'm heavy in large pickup trucks, isolate the large pickup truck leads and increase contact ratios on those, so I don't have to drop my pricing. If I have a problem with 2023s, isolate my leads on 2023s and start calling and emailing those leads, regardless of whether the lead is 50 days old or two days old. If I'm heavy in $50,000 to $55,000 cars, I've got leads on some of them, so increase the contact ratio, figure out which ones don't have leads and what we have to do to get leads on them. Is there a switch? Somebody had a lead on a $50,000 truck that sold. Can I put them on this truck?

All this bucket management is great for a used car manager, but that manager also needs to flip it to the sales staff or BDC managing leads, and start bucket managing leads based on inventory issues, not based on the age of the lead. You've heard me say this before: when I get a lead, I don't know if they're two days out or two months out. Managing leads by the age of the lead is irrelevant to the customer's buying cycle and irrelevant to the bucket management I'm doing on my lot. So manage leads based on situations I can control and where I have issues. If I need more 2019s because they're selling fast, I go buy 10 and put them in inventory. I happen to have leads that were on the ones that sold. Try to switch them to the ones I've got in stock.

Don't just look at age buckets because that's the default. Look at all these little areas you can tweak. That's what we specialize in: finding this data out of your inventory management tool, whether it's vAuto, VinCue, DealersLink, or ACV MAX, and isolating those leads for you so you can make those attacks. You can do this manually. You have to dig through it, and that's why I'm sharing this. It's stuff you can do yourself today. But this is what you need to be looking at going into 2025, because we're back to a normal market. Cars are depreciating. You have to stay ahead of this market. Like our Friday morning Clubhouse host always says, you control your own economy. You control how that inventory moves regardless of whether interest rates go up or down or the economy is good or bad. If you keep up bucket management in both inventory and leads, you can control the traffic on your inventory and how it sells.

Hope this was helpful. If you'd like a demo and want to see how we can help you stay on top of this and give you actionable game plans every day, go to lotwalk.com. Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate, and have a great New Year.

Transcript lightly edited for readability from the live stream. Watch the video above for Jasen's screen share.

Questions dealers ask about bucket management.

What is bucket management in used car inventory?

Bucket management is grouping your inventory into categories, measuring the sale pace of each group, and acting on the gap. Jasen's math: count the units in the bucket, count what you sold from that bucket in the last two weeks, double it for a monthly pace, and compare to stock. Thirty units on a pace of 20 means you are 10 heavy in that bucket. Most dealers only do this by age; Jasen argues you should do it by segment, model year, price point, make, and mileage as well.

What buckets should a used car manager track besides age?

In this tip Jasen lists five: segment (large pickup trucks, compact SUVs), model year (2019s versus 2023s), price point ($25,000 to $30,000 versus $50,000 to $55,000), make (your franchise brand versus what the buyer brought back from the auction), and mileage (low-mile cars you are too proud of versus high-mile cars that are actually selling). Each one gets the same two-week pace math, and one car can sit in several heavy buckets at once.

How do I know if I need to buy more of a segment?

When the pace is higher than the stock. If you have 20 compact SUVs and sold 15 in the last two weeks, your pace is 30 and you are outselling what you own by 10 units. Jasen's rule is to increase what you stock to match your current sale rate, so that bucket becomes a shopping list of 10 for your buyer. The same test works on model year and price point: 20 2019s on a pace of 30 means buy 10 more 2019s.

Should the BDC work leads by lead age or by inventory issue?

By inventory issue. Jasen's reasoning is that lead age tells you nothing about the buyer, who might be two days or two months from a purchase, and nothing about the lot. If you are heavy in large pickup trucks, every open lead on a large pickup still in stock gets a higher contact ratio this week, whether the lead is two days old or 50. And when a car in that bucket sells, the leads on it get switched to the comparable unit still on the lot.

You manage age buckets. What about the other five?

Five things to take from this tip.

What Jasen covers in ten minutes.

Age buckets are the default, and they are where most managers stop

Segment: the bucket that tells you what to buy

Model year, price point, make, and mileage

Manage leads by inventory bucket, not by lead age

Three moves for Monday morning.

Build a six-cut bucket sheet

Find the stacked cars

Re-sort the BDC call list by bucket

Where LotWalk fits.

Read the whole tip.

Age buckets are the default, and they are where most managers stop

Segment, model year, and price point

Make and mileage

Point your leads at the same buckets

Questions dealers ask about bucket management.

More Quick Tips

Why is your inventory "turn" going up while sales go down?

Are you managing a $20K car or $2 million in inventory?

Why is dropping the price the wrong first move when sales slow down?

Want someone to walk your lot with you?