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Dealership Mobile Website - Who are you using?

... also a chart of my total dealership visits for the year.

View attachment 550

If my total visitors look light compared to your store, I am a single point used car dealer without a new car franchise here. I also have a Toyota service center, parts department, and body shop.

Bill,

I was looking at your home site stats, I saw your "Time on Site" and about freaked. 5 mins per visit! Woa! That's a lot. I have a loose rule that for every 100units on the site, you get 1 min per visitor. You gave me the impression you have a small store, so I was thinking you have some web marketing magic I don't know about, so I raced off to your site: Richmond, VA Haley Certified Vehicle Search Midlothian, VA Short Pump, VA


Uncle Joe's "Cars are Ad Units theory" still standing
--527 units for sale.
--1 min per 100 cars = 5 Mins on site.

Next.
 
As we have been looking at mobile websites I thought that two companies that are creating great designs and interfaces are DealerFire and Clickmotive.

Joe Pistell's mobile site Cortland, Chittenango, Cicero New York Chevrolet Dealer | Used Car King | New Chevrolet, Used Cars, Trucks, SUVs in NY is DealerFire and here is an example from Clickmotive: DCH Freehold Toyota | Toyota Dealer | Freehold, New Jersey

eCarlist has video on their mobile sites but just not as elegant as I would have wanted. You can add your thought after viewing: Dallas Chevrolet Dealer | New & Used Auto Sales & Service
 
Joe, your math formula nails it!! I do have a smaller dealership. The 527 cars listed on my website are the entire used car inventory for our 6 store group. I stock anywhere from 75 to 100 units actually here at my store. We did see a bump in time on site when we went to the shared inventory feed in February. Prior to that time on site was in the 3 1/2 minute range. Our other 5 stores do not like the shared feed at all. I love it because it gives me another 300 to 400 units to sell. And boy, do we take advantage of it!!
 
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Jeff,

Do you think that the increase of traffic comes from smart phones or the recent increase in tablets?

For example, I used to use a PC around the house (I have 3 full PCs and 2 laptops at home) and now I installed IPADS with docking stations in places I didnt have a PC like the library for example and I find myself using that more often. When I use an IPAD I prefer the regular site instead of the mobile site.

Does the IPAD register as a mobile user then when I click regular website it does not?

So besides my first question something to think about is; it looks like these mobile sites are built for smart phones when perhaps more and more customers are coming from tablet devices that prefer the main site anyway?

The increase in traffic is holistic - tablets are selling, smart phones are selling, but even non-android/iphone users are starting to purchase mobile data plans and using their not-so-smart phones to check email or do local searches.

About how a device registers, surely it is important the context that the device is actually being used, i.e. an iPad on the go or at home, but at the same time you have people who are browsing websites on Firefox on a laptop, using internet tethering through their cell phone or a wireless access card, i.e. on the go. In terms of analytics to answer "how many people are on my website while on the go", I think full device on the go and mobile device at home balance out, so you do get a fairly clear picture of what your mobile analytics really are.

Logically speaking, the tracking of device should have nothing to do with whether you're viewing the full version or mobile version of a site. What about an iPad user at home who is using the full version, how should that be counted? If you think it shouldn't be counted as a mobile view, what about an iPad user on the go who is viewing the full version, which is just as likely to happen; should that be counted as a full view? What about an iPad user at home using the mobile version? Do you count them as mobile even though they're at home? In other words, viewing full-size or viewing mobile-size are not very telling as to the physical context of the user.

DealerOn's mobile sites are built to be phone and location agnostic. You can tell because even if you view the mobile version a full sized screen in a standard browser e.g. Firefox it looks great and you get all the localized content you need. On the other hand there are some companies who have mobile dealer websites that are purely iPhone based, or purely Android based in theme and navigation. Dealers should stay away from this, because it will alienate Android users with your all iPhone navigation, or vice versa.

You can see an example of our mobile site in full version by going here:
http://www.coastalnissanboston.com/mobi

For people who want to see how any website looks in mobile version, you can download this plugin for Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/
 
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The more I read about mobile growth, social link syndication, I think mobile websites are dead. Life just got simpler for car dealers, one Adaptive or Responsive website that works on any device. With so many screen sizes today and coming, I don't see how any other strategy is feasible.
 
The more I read about mobile growth, social link syndication, I think mobile websites are dead. Life just got simpler for car dealers, one Adaptive or Responsive website that works on any device. With so many screen sizes today and coming, I don't see how any other strategy is feasible.

I totally agree. This places a big challenge on the industries website providers.

I would assume this would be a platform change all together?
 
Smart phone and tablet sales are quickly rising. The day where tablets outsell PCs will be here soon. I think many people will replace their traditional desktop computer or laptop with some type of tablet. The tasks people generally do on a personal computer can be done on a tablet. Having a website that can work on multiple devices is a must, imo.
 
Smart phone and tablet sales are quickly rising. The day where tablets outsell PCs will be here soon. I think many people will replace their traditional desktop computer or laptop with some type of tablet. The tasks people generally do on a personal computer can be done on a tablet. Having a website that can work on multiple devices is a must, imo.

Microsoft: Tablets Will Outsell Desktop PCs in 2013

No matter how many tablets I have, I still need a PC to do much of my work.