DealerRefresh Top100

[BillKVMotorCo]

...franchise dealers are willing to give vendors a chance to prove themselves and sign up for a few months. OEM's would never do that.

This is so important for outsiders to understand. It's one of the reasons dealers can adapt so well. The ability to be less rigid and try and fail is a big part of how we always seem to roll with the punches and why the death of the dealership model continues to be delayed.

 

[Carsten]

Carsten, I believe you are a vendor starting a company that will sell services to dealers. That is a challenging endeavor, however franchise dealers are willing to give vendors a chance to prove themselves and sign up for a few months. OEM's would never do that.

I would also caution that dealers will quickly sniff out vendors who they may perceive as having an anti-dealer mentality, why would they want to partner with someone that they feel is rooting against them? Not saying you are, but just something to be cognizant of.

Over the years, dealers have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of vendors enter the automotive retail space with a technology background and venture capital $ looking to disrupt how business is done. The vast majority fail. The ones that succeed are the ones that bring in talent with dealership experience.

It has to be a blend of technology + automotive retail experience. Tekion is a great example. Their CEO, Jay Vijayan, came from Tesla. He has created an absolute innovative disruptor in automotive retail, but they are adapting their business to fit dealerships' needs. He even bought 2 stores of his own to learn first hand. This is the formula for success.

Ryan thanks for all the replies.

I'm not anti-dealer.
I'm the exact opposite.

As I learn from every one here, I'm trying to give back in my own way. I'm honestly sharing my experiences and stating my opinions in the hope that some one will take a notice and try to make changes to reflect that in what they are offering to their customers. While in developer mode, I try to give constructive feedback on what I see.

I'm probably rubbing some people wrong here, and If I am, sorry about that. But I'm not trying to be malicious or anything.

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

I'm probably rubbing some people wrong here, and If I am, sorry about that. But I'm not trying to be malicious or anything.

You're good, dude! Glad you're here. Nothing wrong with a little constructive friction. Nothing gets accomplished if we all just agree. I'm sure Ryan agrees and is just stating his position as openly and directly as you are. All good!

 

[Ryan Everson]

You're good, dude! Glad you're here. Nothing wrong with a little constructive friction. Nothing gets accomplished if we all just agree. I'm sure Ryan agrees and is just stating his position as openly and directly as you are. All good!

Agreed!

Which is why in my post I said "I'm not saying you are anti-dealer, but just something to be cognizant of."

It was intended as advice for any new vendor entering the space that may have a tainted perception.

You wouldn't believe how some vendors will have slide after slide bashing the way car dealers currently do business and then pitch their solution as the answer to fix everything wrong with the franchise model. Treating the car buyer as the victim and characterizing dealers as the bad guy.

There are certainly bad actors out there, like there is in any industry, but the vast majority of car dealers are the most honest and good-hearted people you could think of.

 

[Carsten]

Thanks y'all!

I just can't help posting opinions at times

 

[DanMorgan]

Buying a car is an emotional decision. If it weren't, there would only be one kind of car. Everybody needs a pat on the butt to say they're doing the right thing. And over 80% of people will switch to a different car at the time of purchase.

People will always buy cars from other people. This is why so few go through the full digital retailing tunnel.

I do agree that dealers prefer to negotiate more so than customers. But customers are on guard because they're so concerned about being ripped off.

I feel like I bring up Ebay motors in 2005 as an example, almost weekly, that as much as they said back then you won't need to go into a dealership again, and then how the emotional attachment to buying a car is still so very true to this day, just says so much of hiring the right people to take care of the guest.

 

[DanMorgan]

Some good stuff going on here since I brought up Tekion last week. We've done some more training with them and I just want my hands on it. I'm excited about everything it has and I can tell that they have some smart folks on "the nerd side" putting it all together. I'm a pre-owned director/problem solver/tech nerd as well so having the service and sales all working together under it will be amazing. I'll keep watching this thread and will update ya'll on the journey as we get into April (go live May).

I just wanted to put another thought out about the dealer still being an integral part in the sales process.....I've been UCD since pre-VID. I've been seeing for some time the blow back still to the fully buy a car from home deal with websites. Toyota Smartpath and other similar things are a good tool but that's all they are. (Plus we get no Google Analytics from what happens when they go into the tool but that's for another day). It's absolutely nuts how as much as we try to change "and make it easy for the customer" they don't adapt as quickly or want to for the most part so then we just drop it or stop using it (I could go on but maybe later). I'm in Maryland so it's a more old school aggressive area between NoVA and up 95 to NJ/NY but I see the same stuff we had pre-VID. Aggressive and volume driven. Just getting a car pictured up well with a price that's accurate to the market reaps sometimes almost instant rewards. Just good 'ole marketing 101 stuff. Having the tools on the website of course helps but the emotional attachment and just plain building value hasn't left and will never leave and is more important now than ever.

 

[Carsten]

What are your thoughts on why customers don't want to buy online?
They have gotten used to Amazon delivering to their door.