What Golf Cart Dealers Told Me in Charleston

TL;DR: I spent three days at the GolfCarting Expo in Charleston and talked with more than 150 dealers. The industry has slowed a little and is still growing, and the mood on the floor was optimistic. The complaint I heard most was that dealers are running their businesses across too many disconnected tools. What surprised me was the price: dealers described paying as much as $2,000 a month for systems that manage a fraction of their operation, often on five-year agreements. Nearly every conversation touched AI search. Rentals came up as the growth opportunity so consistently that we changed our own build order because of it. And the most common structural problem is that most dealers do not control their own website.

In this post

1. Thank you, and why I am writing this
2. The mood: an industry growing up
3. The complaint I heard most: too many tools
4. What surprised me: the price and the contract
5. The website black box
6. AI search came up in almost every conversation
7. Where the growth is: rentals, and what we did about it
8. The conversation I keep thinking about
9. What I would do with this winter
10. FAQs

Thank you, and why I am writing this

If you stopped by Booth 106 in Charleston, thank you. We came to the GolfCarting Expo in stealth mode. Nobody knew who PowerDash was, which turned out to be the best thing that could have happened, because every conversation started with a dealer telling me about his business instead of me pitching mine.

Over three days we talked with more than 150 dealers. Most were single-store operators. The multi-location groups were there too, and several of them are actively expanding. What follows is what they told me. I am writing it down because the dealer who could not get away from his store deserves to hear what the room sounded like.

The mood: an industry growing up

Business has slowed a step from the last few years. Nobody I spoke with seemed shaken by that, and the optimism in the room was real.

Here is my read on why. This industry is growing up. For a long time golf cart dealers were served by whatever happened to be nearby: software built for car dealers, software built for powersports, general small business tools bent into shape. That is changing. Vendors are finally building for golf cart dealers specifically, and dealers can feel it. When an industry gets its own tools, it stops being a side market and starts being a market. The people on that floor know it.

The complaint I heard most: too many tools

I heard this so many times it became the soundtrack of the show. Dealers are running their businesses across a pile of systems that do not talk to each other.

Inventory lives in one place. Accounting lives in another, and the two do not connect, so somebody re-keys numbers every month. Rentals live in a third system, and some of those are good products, but they sit off to the side of everything else. The website is a fourth, usually run by an outside vendor. Service is wherever the shop decided to put it.

Every one of those seams costs a dealer the same three things: time somebody spends moving data by hand, errors that come from moving data by hand, and the inability to see his own business in one place. The dealer with five systems does not have five problems. He has one problem five times a day.

What surprised me: the price and the contract

We did our homework before the show, so I thought I knew what dealers were paying. The reality was worse.

Dealers described paying up to $2,000 a month for a dealership management system that manages a fraction of what their business actually does. Several told me they had signed five-year agreements to get there.

Read that again if you are a dealer. Five years, at those numbers, for software you are already working around. That is not a software purchase, it is a mortgage on a tool you do not fully use. And the part that bothers me most is what dealers traded away to get it. They gave up flexibility in exchange for the hope that things would work out, and in an industry moving as fast as this one, flexibility is the thing you need most.

I am not neutral here, so weigh that accordingly. PowerDash is $599 a month, flat, with no contract. We built a true golf cart dealer DMS with the dealer in mind, not the dealer and a snowmobile dealer, and it is ready to install in a dealership today. Here is the part that stuck with me though. The dealers at that show were not asking for a cheaper version of what they already have. They were describing something nobody had bothered to build for them. We left Charleston with a revised feature build list, written by the dealers.

The website black box

Inventory, most dealers handle well. The principles are consistent and some are sharper than others, but it is a solved problem.

Websites are a different story. For a lot of dealers the website is a black box. They cannot change it themselves. They file a request with a vendor and wait. The sites lack creativity and, more importantly, they lack basic functionality a cart buyer expects in 2026. Dealers are captive to their providers, and they know it.

Which leads to a question I asked more than once: if you do not control your site, can you really know where your leads come from? Most dealers could tell me roughly how many leads they got. Far fewer could tell me which page, which campaign, which source. You cannot fix what you cannot see, and you cannot see what somebody else owns.

AI search came up in almost every conversation

This one surprised me in scale. Dealers are feeling the shift in how buyers search, and almost every conversation touched it. They are watching customers arrive already informed, with answers that came from somewhere other than a search results page, and they are trying to figure out how to be the dealer those answers name.

Here is the harder truth underneath it. A dealer stuck in an old, rigid DMS cannot move with this. Those platforms are not built to be changed quickly, and the companies behind them are not investing in the kind of updates this shift requires. By the time those systems catch up, the dealers using them will have spent two years being invisible in the places buyers are actually asking.

Where the growth is: rentals, and what we did about it

If there was one growth story on that floor, it was rentals. Nearly every dealer I spoke with mentioned growing a rental fleet. They want rental inventory on their website, they want reservations arriving the same way sales leads do, and they want all of it inside the system they already use rather than bolted on the side.

We went to Charleston with a build order. We came home and changed it.

Rentals moved to the front, and it is live in PowerDash now. We are giving dealers the power to control rentals from 1 system, customers can book, reserve and pay online in one flow. and dealers reporting insight into the health of their business in a couple of clicks.

Being straight about the rest of the board: service and parts are projected for Q1 2027. Dealers who sign on now get those modules as they ship, at the same price they are paying today.

I am telling you we changed our roadmap because of three days of conversations, which should tell you something about how we intend to build this. If you have the kind of rental operation nobody has built for, I would rather hear about it than guess.

The conversation I keep thinking about

A mid-market dealer walked me through his setup. New cart sales in QuickBooks. Rentals in a spreadsheet. Service on a whiteboard.

So I asked him: besides you, who knows what is going on in that store day to day?

He shrugged and said, "Nobody. That's why I closed the store to attend the show."

He closed his dealership for three days because the business could not run without him in the building. He was not complaining. He said it the way you say something you have long since accepted. There are a lot of dealers in exactly that position, and that conversation did more to sharpen my commitment to this industry than anything else that happened in Charleston.

What I would do with this winter

Spring comes fast. Here is the one piece of advice I would give every dealer reading this.

Use the slow months to take inventory of your tools, not just your carts. Write down every system you pay for. Next to each one, write what it actually does for your business and what it costs per year. Then cut the ones that do not earn their line. Replace the ones that keep you from seeing your own numbers.

Look for partners who build for golf cart dealers specifically, rather than for everybody. Ask what happens to your data if you leave. Ask who can change your prices on your website and how long it takes. Ask for the contract term before you ask for the demo.

Do that in January and you spend spring selling carts instead of fighting your software.

FAQs

What is the GolfCarting Expo?

An annual trade show for golf cart dealers, manufacturers and industry suppliers, held in North Charleston, South Carolina. The 2026 show ran October 1 through 3.

What are golf cart dealers paying for dealership management software?

Based on conversations with more than 150 dealers at the 2026 show, pricing ranges widely, and some dealers reported paying as much as $2,000 a month for a DMS, in several cases on five-year agreements. PowerDash is $599 a month flat with no contract.

Why do golf cart dealers use so many separate systems?

Because until recently nothing was built for this industry. Dealers assembled what they could find: accounting software built for small businesses generally, rental software from another category, a website from an outside vendor, and a DMS adapted from auto or powersports. Each one works on its own. None of them talk to each other.

Are long contracts normal for dealership software?

Multi-year agreements are common in this category, and dealers at the show described terms as long as five years. Read the term and the exit cost before signing, and ask what happens to your data if you leave.

How is AI search changing how buyers find golf cart dealers?

Buyers increasingly get answers from AI assistants before they reach a search results page or a dealer website. Those answers are assembled from a dealership's website structure, its Google Business Profile, directory listings and the text of its reviews. Dealers on rigid platforms they cannot update are at a disadvantage, because the work that influences those answers lives on their own site.

Why are golf cart dealers expanding into rentals?

Rental fleets generate revenue from inventory a dealer already owns, smooth out seasonal swings, and introduce buyers to carts before they purchase. The dealers I spoke with want rental booking connected to their website and their existing systems rather than run as a separate business. Rentals is live in PowerDash today.

What should a dealer do in the off-season?

Audit the tools. List every system you pay for, what it does, and what it costs annually. Cut what does not earn its place, and replace anything that prevents you from seeing your own numbers. Make changes in the slow months rather than during selling season.

What is PowerDash?

A dealership management platform built for golf cart dealers, where the storefront website and the inventory system are one platform the dealer controls. It is $599 a month flat, unlimited users, no contract, with a 60-day trial. Website, inventory, content tools and rentals are live today. Service and parts are projected for Q1 2027, and dealers who sign on now receive new modules at the same price as they ship.

If any of this sounded like your dealership, I would rather talk than pitch. Ask me what PowerDash does today and what it does not, and I will tell you straight. Start a 60-day trial, or reply and tell me what you are running now.