VIN Details Report: Where to Find It and How to Use It

The VIN Details Report is one of the most valuable tools Ford makes available to dealers — and one of the least used. Like the Fast Turn Report, it gives you direct insight into your own sales history, but unlike the Fast Turn Report, it shows your sales and inventory at the configuration level.

Our analysts reference the VIN Details Report every time they order a unit, because knowing how your dealership has sold specific configurations is essential to creating the optimal inventory.

The VIN Details Report is particularly helpful in the following two cases:

1.      Getting retail units delivered early

2.      Optimizing inventory strategy

What is the VIN Details Report?

The VIN Details Reports detail specific configurations on incoming, on the ground, traded in, sold, and traded out units. Ford provides two model years for each vehicle line and updates them weekly.

Where to download VIN Details Report?

To download the VIN Details Reports, navigate to the Dashboard on WBDO. Click Download VIN Details Reports for all Vehicle Lines under the Useful Links section to automatically download the reports as a ZIP file.

Using VIN Details Report for Retail Orders

The VIN Details Report can be used to get retail units delivered faster. First, find a scheduled unit that is close to the customer’s specifications, then submit a Scheduled Order Amendment. If the plant accepts the Scheduled Order Amendment, the unit will be built, shipped, and delivered faster than simply placing a retail order in WBDO. That means a shorter lead time and a happier customer.

Read more about Scheduled Order Amendments here.

Using VIN Details Report to Optimize Inventory Strategy

There are two ways to use the VIN data to optimize your inventory. The first is to analyze your own sales, and the second is to diversify your lot.

Analyze Sales

Look at the vehicles you've sold to see what performed well. Your sales team probably asks for more of certain configurations all the time, but it's worth checking the data to see if those builds truly sold well.

Volume is only part of the story. Just because you sold a configuration doesn't mean you should order another one. Look at how long it took to sell as well. The Days on Lot (DOL) for sold units tells you how quickly each configuration moved, helping you identify the builds that sold fast instead of those that simply sold eventually.

Diversify Your Lot

To keep your inventory diversified, you need a clear picture of what you have on the ground and what's already on the way. Your VIN report gives you that visibility.

For example, if you're building an F-150 XLT and decide to add a moonroof, check which units already have one. What colors are they? Which appearance packages and engines do they have? You don't want your moonroof-equipped XLTs to be identical.

Use the VIN report to track your inventory and incoming orders so you can build a balanced selection that gives customers more choices and helps you stay ahead of the competition.

Considerations for Using the VIN Details Report

The VIN Details report is a valuable tool, but it does not tell the full story. You can only sell what you have on your lot, so if the market is doing well on a configuration that you don’t have on your lot, you will not see it unless you look at the Fast Turn Report.

Insufficient sales volume is also a concern. Unless your dealership is a high-volume store, your sales won’t be statistically relevant. You need volume to find patterns and have statistical strength.

Conclusion

Gut feelings about your inventory can only take you so far; using the VIN Details Report, you can confirm or contradict your intuitions using your own sales data. The VIN Details Report, as well as the Order Guide and Fast Turns Report, need to be a part of your inventory strategy to ensure your incoming mix is optimized for your customers’ needs.

Does analyzing the VIN Details Report, Fast Turns Report, and Order Guide every week sound like a lot of work? That’s where we can help. Precision Inventory Management has worked with more than 300 dealers over more than 20 years—our specialized data analysts have looked at a lot of data.

We use those reports and other proprietary data resources to make sure we build the right mix units and get them scheduled faster than the other guys—all on top of getting our dealerships an unfair share of the good stuff. Book a demo today to see the difference we can make to your inventory strategy.