- Apr 20, 2009
- 690
- 692
- Awards
- 8
- First Name
- Ryan
In my new role at CarStory I've spent a ton of time on dealer's VDPs the last few weeks. I wonder if the average consumer would be surprised to hear what "VDP" means. Based on their shopping experience, would they have a different set of words for the acronym?
Are we delivering engaging Vehicle Details Pages or creating Very Disappointed People with Virtually Disconnected Purchase-Experiences (I cheated on the last one)?
How much time is spent propping hoods, hanging balloons, sweeping lots, inflating the purple gorilla and positioning the wavy arms guy every day? Those things are important, but are we investing a similar amount of time walking the virtual lot? I know I'm preaching to the choir here on Refresh, but every study I've seen for the last 10 years has pointed to the fact that online interaction and engagement leads to offline sales. It sure seems to me that merchandising the virtual lot should logically take precedence over merchandising the physical lot in an order of priorities.
Why the rant? Consider this...
Really though, who needs peace of mind to plunk down $32k on a 4 year old car with 73k on the odometer?
The peace of mind story line almost writes itself in this instance if someone takes the time to copy and paste it into the VDP, it is a CPO car! If we suggest that there should be additional information required to put the mind at ease, we'd better supply that information.
Rant over, this was intended to be an encouragement to look critically at the merchandising of your vehicles on your VDP. Every car on your virtual lot needs to be digitally frontline ready. If you haven't walked your virtual lot today take a stroll and see what your prospects see. Are there opportunities to better tell each car's story?
Are we delivering engaging Vehicle Details Pages or creating Very Disappointed People with Virtually Disconnected Purchase-Experiences (I cheated on the last one)?
How much time is spent propping hoods, hanging balloons, sweeping lots, inflating the purple gorilla and positioning the wavy arms guy every day? Those things are important, but are we investing a similar amount of time walking the virtual lot? I know I'm preaching to the choir here on Refresh, but every study I've seen for the last 10 years has pointed to the fact that online interaction and engagement leads to offline sales. It sure seems to me that merchandising the virtual lot should logically take precedence over merchandising the physical lot in an order of priorities.
Why the rant? Consider this...
Really though, who needs peace of mind to plunk down $32k on a 4 year old car with 73k on the odometer?
The peace of mind story line almost writes itself in this instance if someone takes the time to copy and paste it into the VDP, it is a CPO car! If we suggest that there should be additional information required to put the mind at ease, we'd better supply that information.
Rant over, this was intended to be an encouragement to look critically at the merchandising of your vehicles on your VDP. Every car on your virtual lot needs to be digitally frontline ready. If you haven't walked your virtual lot today take a stroll and see what your prospects see. Are there opportunities to better tell each car's story?