June 10, 2011 - (Burlingame, CA) – CarWoo!, the only true online marketplace for car buyers and sellers released results from their MarketPlace data, which consists of both real time transactional data and behavioral data which occurred during the course of a car purchase, showing that 54.6% of the time the lowest price offer was not the one selected by the buyer (if the cases where buyers received only a single offer are eliminated, the rate of acceptance of an offer not the lowest increases to 57.5%).

In addition to the offer specific data, behavioral data based on reviews by buyers also supports the fact that price is not what drives a buyers opinion.  When buyers were highly satisfied and gave Five Star reviews, they ranked professionalism of the dealer as the most important factor 47% of the time and competitiveness or price only 14% of the time.  When buyers were highly dissatisfied and gave dealers One Star reviews they gave Unprofessionalism as the reason 44% of the time and blamed price only19% of the time.

Only in the case where buyers gave “neutral” Three Star reviews did price become the driving factor, being ranked as the primary factor for the rating 52% of the time.  These reviews, while being assigned Three Stars, were actually negative in tone, much more akin to a grade of a D than of a C.

A complete analysis of all available data shows that there are four major elements that go into the buying decision for a car.  In order of importance, these are:

•       Professionalism of the dealer – Engagement, responsiveness
•       Fit of the vehicle – How close the offered vehicle is to the buyer’s specifications
•       Price – Competitive in the market
•       Distance to the dealership

The CarWoo! MarketPlace data demonstrates conclusively that the behavior of the dealer is the primary determinant of the outcome of the transaction.

About CarWoo.com
CarWoo!, the only online marketplace for car buyers and sellers, was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young. It is the only online marketplace where buyers remain anonymous and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within two weeks 80% of the time. With early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Int

Many dealership in the country have something they hang their hat on. Something they feel separates them from the competition. These are known as unique selling propositions or USP’s. While most dealers use conventional methods to promote their USP’s, many ignore the digital element for making consumers aware of their exceptional offer.

Your dealership may offer free car washes or loaner cars with service. You probably have some kind of service rewards or points program, either set up by the manufacturer or a third party. In most cases these offers are posted in the service area, on the website and perhaps in your newspaper ads, but they can become stagnant. When your USP becomes part of the furniture, it becomes less effective.

Do you have a well optimized web page on your dealership site dedicated to each of your USP’s?

At our store we feature a Nationwide Lifetime Warranty. We have plenty of point of sale collateral around the store and on the cars, but we also make sure that we maintain an online presence that keeps it front and center.

One area that is often overlooked are your new and used car custom comments. Your dealers USP’s should always be highlighted in your custom comments. For example; If you have a used car Lifetime Warranty, Lead off your comments with **LIFETIME WARRANTY** you will also want to be sure to have your USP’s added to all of the marketing areas in Autotrader, Cars.com, and any other third party inventory hosting site you use.

One easy way for a dealer to digitally promote their USP is through online press releases.  Free press release sites like PRLog.org and Free-press-release.com are great for marketing your USP’s as well as SEO. Another effective method is by posting articles about your USP on your dealer’s blog, add to that the social media aspect and you have an ideal way to keep your dealers USP top of mind. Here is an example of a recent press release I did for our Lifetime Warranty.

Many of you may have done this already, but have you done it lately? It’s like what we tell our sales people, if you talk about it and the competition doesn’t, then we have it and they don’t. So take the opportunity to take a fresh look at the USP that has been gathering dust and write a new press release about it.

Another great way to promote your dealerships USP’s digitally is with video.

We recently produced a video showcasing our pick-up and delivery service at our luxury import store. You can really bring your USP’s to life with sight, sound and motion. These videos are a great asset on your website and can be optimized online for branding and SEO.

If you don’t have the ability to produce good videos in-house, some vendors like Titan Dealer Solutions; the company that we use for our lifetime warranty can provide you with good promotional video content.  We also use a video search optimization company called Car-Mercial. We have our sales and service USP’s added to our videos so that we can maximize the exposure and branding opportunities.

Finally, get your sales and service teams talking about your dealerships unique selling propositions again. Treat them like they are new and breathe life back into your USP’s making them as effective as you wanted them to be at the start.

What are you doing to showcase your dealership Unique Selling Proposition?