Dealer Website Trade-in Tools; is it KBB Leaddriver OR Black Book Online?

[Guest Poster]

Does anyone have any comments on the effectiveness of online trade-in value tools?

As far as I know, there are only really 2 available.

Black Book Online (Activator)

vs

KBB Lead Driver

I'm sure at one point or another, almost every Internet sales manager has used one or even both of these online trade evaluation tools for your dealers website. I have read a few studies that show adding the an online trade appraisal tool to your dealers website could increase conversion rates another 1-2%.

We just started with one of the above trade tools, but it was a tough decision on which one to go with.

Kelly Blue Book has such a reputable name on the consumers eye BUT I always fear that the consumer has already been there. According to KBB and several other studies, it's one of the most consumer visited websites. If the customer has already been there, than does my chances of converting lessen? OR since I have the KBB Trade-in value logo on my site, does that give our dealer more validity?

What about the actual car values? There are many times a large difference between the two companies values.

Are there other trade-in tools that I'm not aware of?

What has been your experience?

Stephanie Hudmeyer
Internet Sales Manager

 

[John Hayden]

I have worked at dealerships that have both and or one they made. (That is the worst). My last dealership used both and the BB rep always wanted to know the lead numbers were and we never discussed them. I do know that customers would ask us if we made up BB as they had never heard of. I also had good closing ratios with both products. But if you are looking for a product consumers know it is not even a close conversation. Blue Book was easier. I do suggest you only ask for a few questions from the consumer as they are more often going to fill it out that way. First name and email. Also make sure you put the logo next to all of your used cars and impliment it on your site! We are also sewnding the logo out to all of our custoemrs on the news letters this is working great!

I do not know what has happened the last few months but Blue Books numbers are very very close! Are they doing something different on the way they get values? Does anyone out there know the answer to that?

 

[umer.autojini]

From my experience at this point only these two trade-in tools are available for Dealer websites. You can plug in NADA but It's not really a lead driver. From the dealer sites we run... 3 to 1 are on Black Book vs KBB... might have to do with cost structure... I would personally love to see Edmunds.com TMV as a lead driver tool... now number of leads vs KBB or BB tool to a generic form... that is debatable... as a generic form converts at 1.67% rate (data taken across 10 dealerships)... I don't have conversion stats on KBB or BB tool as those go directly to CRM and are not hosted by us... although website heatmaps don't register a blimp in reports form KBB or BB buttons.

 

[John Hayden]

What you just said was as starnge as your name! What do you mean by cost structure? We pay more for Black Book than Blue Book although its close. Both go into your CRM so how can you not get closing ratios? Thats the purpose of your tool. But then again if you are only closing 1.67% of your leads from homegrown leads on your site. It totally explains why you would not want to report your closing percentages. Your trying to talk over our heads and I am sure thats what you do to your customers. I just looked at our CRM tool here is what we did last month.

BB online 298 leads closed 14
Kelley Blue Book 223 leads closed 31
Mailer leads using Blue Book 31 closd 7

I pulled all of this from my CRM tool!

 

[John Hayden]

I meant as STRANGE

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

I've been trying to push vAuto to build one of these. But instead of giving a trade figure, show X number of results from the auction, how many are currently in the marketplace, and some other data that is more on the money. Something also like the average time it takes to sell that particular model. Then pitch it to the customer like "find out what is happening with your car right now". This way they're not locked into a number from you.

With the way the used car market is right now, values drop substantially in a day and the KBB's, Black Books, etc cannot keep up. At least with a product like vAuto, things are being scrubbed more frequently and would give your customer a more honest picture. If you give more information, it would make you seem more transparent too.

I know that doesn't answer the initial question, so...

I have tried numerous products and ways for handling appraisals online and found they all lead to the same thing: pissed customers. A lot of the time the numbers coming from Black Book or KBB were not congruent with the appraisals at the store (for various reasons). Yes, there was probably some training issues in how a salesperson handled things, but since I took all trade forms down our "Internet Sales" numbers have stayed the same.

 

[Brian in Etown]

Great idea Alex! Any feed back from v-auto on the suggestion?

 

[Ross Havner]

ok, i have only been in the car biz for 9 months. before that i was in the mortgage biz...went from one struggling industry to another but i like this one better. before i worked at this dealership i never even heard of black book. we use kelly, its a good brand name and it flat out converts! my ucm says that toyota started using them since they went to weekly values. i have to agree with john hayden on the keepin it simple...the less info the better. we dont ask for a phone number or a last name. just a first name and e-mail.

 

[Ross Havner]

umer farooq - whats your dealership web address? i would like to check this out

 

[umer.autojini]

John, your name may seem strange to many. you should get out more... By cost structure I meant may be BB is cheaper then KBB... being that KBB has such a powerful brand... it may be that BB has a good rep in the area... Now regarding why I don't have Stats on the KBB or BB conversion... because the other stat I gave was for dealer websites we HOST... where BB/KBB forms are hosted by them and are framed in mostly... also that number only represents... website form conversion (visitors/trade-in info) submit, across 10 different dealerships... 4 OEM and 6 Used... it does not represent the close ratio... or leads from other forms on the dealer websites.

Ross, simply click on my name and then view portfolio link to see few of the dealer sites hosted/designed by us.

Alex have you thought about pulling this data from Vast, Oddle & Google Base. I believe Oddle or Vast have a graph on average time... not 100% though...