Vochi said:

The dealership website is competing with the entire ecosystem the customer uses to make the decision.

1. Cars.com
2. CarGurus
3. Autotrader
4. Google
5. OEM sites
6. YouTube
7. Reddit
8. AI
9. Amazon

All of them have taken a piece of the car-buying journey away from the dealership.

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"All of them have taken a piece of the car-buying journey away from the dealership."

huh?

Without KAYAK, shopping for a flight and a car rental would SUCK. Does UNited Airlines think KAYAK is taking away the travel shopping journey from the air traveler?

Dude, stick to code, that's your domain.

Vochi said:

I'm saying people walk into dealerships not knowing what car they want and I'm showing the data to support this and your saying that in the history of the world it has never happened and to even think it I must be an AI.

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Your DealerRefresh tone has always elicited a combative response. I don't know if you're a keyboard warrior or like this in real life. I hope it's the latter. Truth is, your tone is turning you into our main troll of the day.

Yes, I think you're using AI to write your posts.

If you keep failing to listen to people with experience, you will fail to provide the kind of products you seem to be striving to build.

Alex Snyder said:

Weeeeeell.... that assumes Cox actually merges the software and the core FullPath people hang around the FullPath product. Neither has been demonstrated in Cox's history.

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No one knows this better than Alex. Hard stop.

Vochi said:

Your saying we need to build for multiple types of customers!

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UI architects are often mega-nerds and...
1. they build to solve their needs (i.e. they think all shoppers are power users).
2. are unaware of the spectrum of user's expectations.
3. have NO idea how complex car shopping is.
4. UNiversally agree that car dealers suck
5. Are unaware that shoppers find MORE value in talking to the dealer becuase...
6. They have no idea that the websites they build... suck.

Fact:

The survey is 5 yrs old and our sites are basically unchanged since DealerRefresh was a babe (read: Decades).



The "Dead Zone" and "The Jump", two of the most under explored areas in our space.



AutoMagic Labs is a merchandising research lab. We go deeeep into car shopping friction using 1st principles, then map it back to the UI.

DISC?

dealerdata1 said:

But the Cox/Fullpath merger may change how that looks. Well on the front side at least, we all know the back side will just be spaghetti code nightmare crossing paths

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Weeeeeell.... that assumes Cox actually merges the software and the core FullPath people hang around the FullPath product. Neither has been demonstrated in Cox's history.

Vochi said:

Unless I am reading this wrong the current industry data actually argues against what your saying, not saying how it is at your store, maybe your customers are more educated however, Cox Automotive's June 2026 research, developed with NIADA, found that 83% of independent-dealer buyers begin shopping without knowing which vehicle they want. They visited more than five websites and spent an average of 16.5 hours researching online.

Cox's 2025 Car Buyer Journey Study found essentially the same thing across the broader market: only 29% of buyers knew what vehicle they wanted when they started shopping, meaning 71% did not.

New Cox Automotive Research Reveals Independent Dealership Buyers Are Driven by Necessity—Not Aspiration - Cox Automotive Inc.

Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey Study Finds Efficiency, Digital Tools and AI Drive Record Satisfaction - Cox Automotive Inc.

I agree that dealership websites are generally later in the funnel. In fact, Cox has shown dealer websites are particularly important toward the end of the online journey.

However “I'm ready to buy” and “I know exactly which vehicle I should buy.”

Seems to be more of what's happening??

A customer can be very close to buying while still trying to answer:

“I have three kids, what's the best fit for us?”

“I need something reliable for my daughter.”

“I tow a camper twice a year, but don't want to drive a truck every day.”

“I need to stay around $500 a month.”

That's exactly what a good salesperson does in the showroom: they start with the customer's objective and work backward toward the vehicle.

Cox's 2025 Drivers of Car Shopping Satisfaction research identified four major drivers of satisfaction:

1. knowledgeable/supportive staff
2. transparency
3. feeling well-informed
4. and being in control

Their top stress points included determining what the buyer could afford, trade-in, financing, F&I, and finalizing deal terms.

While I'm not saying your dealership isn't different however the data doesn't show customers only want price and availability, at least not at the average dealership.

It shows something closer to they want to make the right decision with as little friction and as possible.

Of course price and availability are critical once they've narrowed the vehicle down.

However I believe there is a huge opportunity: That the dealerships have skipped.

Click to expand...

This sounds like an AI response. Which is annoying because they're so damn wordy... and completely lack instinct.

Let me start with what AI cannot account for: Experience.

Ask any car dealer how many customers have walked on the lot and said: "I have no idea what I want; since you're a car dealer, you can help me figure it out." Every customer either wants a brand, a model, something extremely specific, or is a get-me-done when they approach the dealership. When they're hitting the dealership website, they have landed there from a different research experience telling them that dealership has that car. That could be Cars.com, Autotrader, Google search, or AI pointing at that dealership. The direct traffic reason is usually a repeat customer or someone who has driven past the store. In both those cases, those are still customers who have a good idea of what they want.

Customers come to dealers with a mission. All others show up on Sunday.

Now, the studies you chose are gold to me. Cox Automotive Studies.

Your AI didn't realize that I used to work there. I spent nearly 8 years at Dealer.com building product. I was deep into how research is conducted.

News flash: we were always guessing at what motivated shoppers. We had no great intelligence. Cox liked to do surveys, but those had their flaws. Our bias was lead gen. It was the only thing dealers measured us on. We had zero insight into what happened after a lead was submitted. And no technology or study will ever tell you what psychology happens when a customer is sitting in front of a salesman. You have to be an asphalt-hitting commission-earner to get it.

Your first study was with NIADA about Independent shoppers. Well, that's a different animal entirely. Those people want a payment, and the actual car they want is secondary. They don't have the income or credit to qualify for a loan at a franchised store, so their options are limited, and they know it.

TLDR

"This ain't a bus stop" is what my first used car manager used to say in a gruff voice every time a customer was walking the lot without being upped. Those of us who have paid our bills on commissions from selling cars know that no customer comes to a dealership for the sheer joy of it (unless you're a Ferrari store). They come with a purpose, a mission, and the website is where they go to collect a little information to determine whether they're going to visit that dealership. It isn't a tool to decide whether they want an SUV or a Sedan.

joe.pistell said:

Alex, how automated is and can be your process? With the dealers I talk to, the great burden is time and tenacity required to work the lanes. Any visibility on this?

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Time is always a burden! It is especially tough to mine service because the sales team is not wired to farm. They are hunters. Hunters want the kill today.

That is why we built VehicleLyfe as a farming tool that brings ready customers to the hunters. That is also why we don't stop at talking to customers only about their equity position. We help them schedule their next service, explore warranty options, and save money on car insurance. It keeps them open to trading/selling their car when they are ready. Everyone else stops when the customer says they are not interested in trading or selling their car today. We are built to farm forever and keep your customers loyal! The bonus is that they do eventually trade that car.

How?

100% automation, with a human able to jump in if they wish. The automations are dynamic emails and text messages written for each customer's specific situation. They drive the customer to their personalized VehicleLyfe page, where that customer can explore everything about their car. It is a very strong value to them. It's also a reason those customers keep working with your store. If they go down the street, they lose their VehicleLyfe platform/concierge for guidance on what to do next with their car.

So, VehicleLyfe helps dealers increase the number of cars they pull out of service for the used front line while getting the bonus of more warranty sales, more services scheduled, and extra revenue from insurance conversions with their partners + more on the horizon

Not all car shoppers think alike.
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Slide 3 is a secret weapon to see into the behaviors of shopping audience and this fires off creative, fresh, new merchandising experiences, all focused on the shoppers JTBD.

KennySmithAutoUnite said:

Looking at this from the store side, I wouldn’t solve it by having customers email or text pictures of their license and then relying on everyone to delete them afterward.

There are just too many places that image can end up. Inbox, text thread, employee phone, downloads folder, backups, forwarded messages, etc.

The cleanest process to me is a secure upload link. Customer gets the link, uploads the front and back of the DL, and it goes straight into a restricted customer record or document vault. The salesperson should be able to see that it was received without needing to download the actual image to their phone or computer.

I’d want the link to expire, access controlled by role, an audit trail showing who accessed it, and a clear retention/deletion policy.

I also wouldn’t really use HIPAA as the measuring stick here. If that customer’s information is tied into financing or leasing, I’d be looking at the FTC Safeguards Rule and making sure whatever process we’re using fits inside the dealership’s information security program.

Whether the upload piece comes from the CRM, DMS, Microsoft, Zoom or another vendor matters less to me than where the document actually ends up and who can touch it.

Dan’s secure-send option could absolutely work. My preference would just be to avoid creating another separate place for customer documents to live if we can send them directly into the system the store already controls.

Going paperless should mean fewer copies of sensitive information floating around the dealership, not taking something that used to sit in one locked file and spreading it across five different digital places.

Click to expand...

You are describing exactly what I use. I referenced HIPPA Level Compliance because it is viewed as a much higher level of security than what a document of this nature would really require. The Documents loaded into the Portal arrive directly in the CRM attached to the Document Tab for the customer that the documents belong to. There is not an extra storage vault. The CRM Contact Record IS the storage vault.

Alex Snyder said:

We can help you get there. And that would more than pay for VehicleLyfe

Click to expand...

Alex, how automated is and can be your process? With the dealers I talk to, the great burden is time and tenacity required to work the lanes. Any visibility on this?

Be on the lookout for some highlights of this week's top posters and the top most liked member of the week in tomorrow's newsletter.

I think most dealership website shoppers know EXACTLY what they're after on a dealership website. They're much further down the funnel than website companies give them credit for. This is why leads from dealership websites are "the best" and leads from OEMs are "the worst."

I also believe AI is going to move my opinion closer to fact.

Get out of cars for a minute. Amazon is a weird example as it serves as an Autotrader and a dealer website. But if you think of something like B&H or Best Buy you're usually going there for a specific product and may be tempted into something else by reviews. You already decided you wanted an Apple laptop or a new Android phone. Now, you're just checking inventory to see how soon you can get it.

Dealership customers only have two questions: How much is it? And how soon can I get it? (Service = how soon can I get my car in?)

We can help you get there. And that would more than pay for VehicleLyfe

I don’t think AI has to replace the dealership to change the business in a big way.

The bigger shift may happen before the customer ever talks to us.

If a shopper is using AI to compare vehicles, trims, pricing, payments, trade values, dealer reviews and financing before they submit a lead, they may already have 80% of the decision made before we even know they exist.

That changes what the dealership has to be good at.

We still have to earn the business, solve problems, explain the deal, handle the trade, get financing done and take care of the customer when something gets complicated. I don’t see that going away anytime soon.

But I do think customers are going to show up more informed, with better questions and less patience for bad information.

The stores that make their inventory, pricing and information easy to understand are going to have an advantage.

To me, that’s where this gets interesting. AI doesn’t have to buy the car for the customer. It just has to become part of how they decide where to buy it.

Looking at this from the store side, I wouldn’t solve it by having customers email or text pictures of their license and then relying on everyone to delete them afterward.

There are just too many places that image can end up. Inbox, text thread, employee phone, downloads folder, backups, forwarded messages, etc.

The cleanest process to me is a secure upload link. Customer gets the link, uploads the front and back of the DL, and it goes straight into a restricted customer record or document vault. The salesperson should be able to see that it was received without needing to download the actual image to their phone or computer.

I’d want the link to expire, access controlled by role, an audit trail showing who accessed it, and a clear retention/deletion policy.

I also wouldn’t really use HIPAA as the measuring stick here. If that customer’s information is tied into financing or leasing, I’d be looking at the FTC Safeguards Rule and making sure whatever process we’re using fits inside the dealership’s information security program.

Whether the upload piece comes from the CRM, DMS, Microsoft, Zoom or another vendor matters less to me than where the document actually ends up and who can touch it.

Dan’s secure-send option could absolutely work. My preference would just be to avoid creating another separate place for customer documents to live if we can send them directly into the system the store already controls.

Going paperless should mean fewer copies of sensitive information floating around the dealership, not taking something that used to sit in one locked file and spreading it across five different digital places.

Makai and Joe are hitting the part that matters most to me. From the dealer side, the customer doesn’t care which vendor built the bot. If it lies, gives bad information, or pretends to be a person, my store owns that experience.

My line would be pretty simple. AI can help the customer, but it can’t fake being one of my people. If the customer asks what it is, answer clearly. No dodging it. No fake identity. No doubling down.

I also think the guardrails have to go beyond just telling someone it’s AI. Research, comparisons, features, basic questions, helping somebody narrow down what they need, those are all good uses for it.

But when it gets into a specific vehicle, price, availability, incentives, payments, trade value, financing, or anything else that can cost the customer or the dealership money, it either needs verified information or a person needs to step in.

I would much rather have a bot say, “I don’t know, let me get someone,” than confidently make something up. One bad answer can undo a lot of trust very quickly.

I don’t think dealers should run from AI. Customers are already using it every day. We just need to be smart about where we use it and what authority we give it.

That’s how I look at it. Use AI to make the customer’s experience easier, but keep the accountability with the store.

I think you’re onto something here.

Most dealership websites are built around one question: “Which vehicle are you looking for?”

But a lot of customers haven’t figured that out yet.

They know they have two kids, a dog, a long commute, need room for road trips, want something good in bad weather, and have a budget they’re trying to stay within.

They may have no idea if that means a Pilot, Telluride, Traverse, Grand Highlander, or something they haven’t even looked at yet.

That’s where I think we make the customer do too much work.

We send them somewhere else to research, compare vehicles, figure out trims, learn the differences, and then hope they come back when they’re finally ready to look at inventory.

Inventory still matters. Price matters. Availability matters. The exact VIN matters.

I just think there’s a step before all of that that dealership websites could be much better at.

Help me figure out what fits my life first.

Then show me the vehicles that make sense.

Then show me the inventory.

If somebody already knows they want a Wrangler Rubicon, great. Get them there fast.

But if they only know what they need the vehicle to do, we should be able to help with that too.

We’ve gotten really good at helping people find cars.

I think the bigger opportunity is getting better at helping people decide which car they should be looking for in the first place.

Joe, this is the part I think dealers really need to see in plain English.

From the dealer side, I don’t care whether somebody calls it bot protection, a rendering decision or an accident. If I’m paying for a website that looks fine in a browser but the vehicle and dealership content isn’t actually readable by the systems people are increasingly using to research, that’s a problem — especially if the dealer has no idea it’s happening.

I’d actually like to see the report separate a few things: what comes back in a plain no-JS fetch, whether the major crawlers are specifically allowed or blocked, and whether the important content on the homepage and VDP is available without relying on JavaScript.

One thing I would be careful about is assuming a generic 403 automatically means every named crawler gets the exact same response. Vendors can treat user agents and traffic differently, so I’d rather test that directly and let the data say who can actually read what.

But I completely agree on breaking it out by website vendor. That’s where this becomes useful for a dealer. Don’t just tell me my score is bad; show me whether it’s my store, my website setup or something the vendor needs to fix.

If Jake can get enough rooftops behind it to make the comparison fair, that becomes a report I’d absolutely use in a vendor conversation. I’d be happy to help pressure-test it from the dealer side when you guys get closer.

Matt, don't take it down. I bet u all are doing amazing work, Reconfigure it, give it a tweak.

Does it sell cars? D.I.S.C.?
If so, how so?

MattCopley said:

680+ builders who have created with us

Click to expand...

Matt,
This looks interesting, plz consider opening a DR thread to display examples of your users outputs from your platform. I'd love to see before vs after. My brother in law sells 30 nissans a month and hes so proud of his SM posts, yet they're sooo geocities, so garish. Is this what your platform does?

MattCopley said:

Today, we are officially releasing

Click to expand...

Matt, dude, you got to tone down your AI slop generator. You're turning dealer refresh posts into lead gen. The "Hey, look at me, and look at my products" gets old. We need best practices, ideas, then toss on some humble brag.

Get more creative, please embrace the DR spirit.

P.S. This pissed me off, I signed your ptition and you used it for lead gen.
***URGENT*** Call to the industry builder community - It's time for interoperability Please sign the petition!

carguyfiles said:

The craft beer line is right about the build. I think it understates what happens after.

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Ahhhh... you've uncovered the 'magic variable' in AI, the POV (Point of View) of the user.

Joe, you went into the intricacy of the building blocks and the technical connectors, the architecture of the system, the surfaces, etc. I was seeing an executive's view of disruption coming to a legacy enterprise, where employees create new products, new solutions, new ideas that the enterprise legacy system can't se -or- create on its own.

@Alex Snyder recruited me to come to Burlington Vermont, back in the day when craft beer was a baby. I saw firsthand how brewmasters would peel off and start their own company, creating craft beer that nobody else could make.

In 2026, the luckiest dealerships will have the resident nerd, the brainiac, finally having the resources, the tools through AI, to see problems and fix them on the fly, fast. The framework is the same: you have a master system, and then an employee inside the master system sees problems and can't get it fixed until AI shows up. Then, voila, a fix is made, a solution is created, and a new product is born.

For 2 decades, Dealer Refresh has a magnet for the smartest and brightest people in the dealership world. Look at our roster of amazing minds.

If you're new to DR and you want to know if this is the right place, Read this statement:

"Why isn't there a fucking API?"

If circa 2005 architecture makes your blood boil, then welcome aboard! A tidal wave of disruption is about to playout in real time, and DR will be the best seat to watch it play out in real time.

-Uncle Joe

Dan_PrintSent said:

DealerTrack (and possibiy other older apps that “require Lexmark printers”) forces a physical print job to get the right logos and forms on things like statements of account and tech cards.

Click to expand...

Here it comes ppl.

From inside the stores, AI will power waves of disruption. Every software system you use, created by giant companies, will have new competition coming from little places, popping up everywhere.

AI is to Legacy Software
as
Craft Beer is to Budwiser.

An unstoppable wave of innovation that Budwiser could not copy.