Digital Retailing for Dealers - What are your results?

[Jeff Kershner]

Be sure to join myself and Alex tomorrow for RefreshFriday...

**If you're a dealership that has experience in DR and would like to join in tomorrow (1pm EST,) direct message myself or Alex.

It is time to let the cat out of the bag: Digital Retailing doesn’t work.

On top of that D.R. stands for DealerRefresh and we want our letters back! So Digital Retailing is getting delegated to some other letters. 4 letters come to mind.

Jeff and Alex will explore why digital retailing isn’t all it was promised to be and are going to ask the question: do you need it at all?

 

[ed.brooks]

I listened to the great RefreshFriday. Nice Job @Jeff Kershner @Alex Snyder and Kevin Fry!

It prompted me to go back and look at a prediction I made almost exactly five years ago on DrivingSales;
"My sense is the winners and losers in the business, five years from now, will be predicated by how well they assist buyers slipping from the online experience into the physical experience – and perhaps back again. For instance, one buyer may have a question about his credit; traditionally, a dealership will do everything in their power to get him into the store and start them down the “Road to the Sale.” The winning stores five years from now (or sooner) will be able to step in to not just answer the question, but to also update the customer’s deal information online, allowing the customer more control over their individual process."

My question today is, how close did I come?

 

[Tarry Shebesta]

I listened to the great RefreshFriday. Nice Job @Jeff Kershner @Alex Snyder and Kevin Fry!

It prompted me to go back and look at a prediction I made almost exactly five years ago on DrivingSales;
"My sense is the winners and losers in the business, five years from now, will be predicated by how well they assist buyers slipping from the online experience into the physical experience – and perhaps back again. For instance, one buyer may have a question about his credit; traditionally, a dealership will do everything in their power to get him into the store and start them down the “Road to the Sale.” The winning stores five years from now (or sooner) will be able to step in to not just answer the question, but to also update the customer’s deal information online, allowing the customer more control over their individual process."

My question today is, how close did I come?

Well, 9 years ago (2010) DriveItNow (truPayments) was calculating and updating deal information based on real credit, in real time. To date, it's still the only solution to do so. I talk about it extensively when doing presentations on Credit First vs Credit Last. Tomorrow, Nov 12, I'm speaking again about it at Used Car Week's FinCon: ( Digital Retailing and the role of FinTech: Credit First vs Credit Last)

 

[Rick Buffkin]

 

[JamieS]

Hah, you're in love with that meme @Rick Buffkin

 

[Alexander Lau]

I've heard great things about https://www.tagrail.com.

 

[Alex Snyder]

I listened to the great RefreshFriday. Nice Job @Jeff Kershner @Alex Snyder and Kevin Fry!

Thanks Ed! :thumbup:

"My sense is the winners and losers in the business, five years from now, will be predicated by how well they assist buyers slipping from the online experience into the physical experience – and perhaps back again. For instance, one buyer may have a question about his credit; traditionally, a dealership will do everything in their power to get him into the store and start them down the “Road to the Sale.” The winning stores five years from now (or sooner) will be able to step in to not just answer the question, but to also update the customer’s deal information online, allowing the customer more control over their individual process."

My question today is, how close did I come?

One major thing we talked about on the show was that people don't like to follow a perfectly linear process. People have different needs/motivations that arise in varying ways at various times. Your credit-questioning individual may want to find out if they qualify before visiting the dealership and that should be an entry point. Another person may be skeptical about a trade figure and that should be another entry-point.

If digital retailing tools would allow the customer to work through motivations/issues first and exit at any time then there could be a better formula for success. As it stands today, too many solutions pump the customer for lead info or force them to land on a car first. So, what we were talking about doesn't exist in a straight-forward application at the moment (or could it ).

Also, the dealer's actual sales process is seldom taken into account by these online tools. I believe we exposed that is the larger issue at the moment.

 

[Tarry Shebesta]

I've heard great things about https://www.tagrail.com.

Other than UX/UI differences, it's still a Credit Last model. Submit and wait

 

[orkidehouston]

It just shouldn't have to be this hard. I think the problem lies with the DR tools coming from one company and nobody at the website providers really knowing how they work.

What do you consider to be KPIs for measuring success with digital retailing (other than sold cars)?

 

[Tarry Shebesta]

What do you consider to be KPIs for measuring success with digital retailing (other than sold cars)?

Here is the response from a certain DR solution provider when I asked: "how does traffic relate to actual lead volume?"

"Within the platform, we don't look at leads, we look at prospective buyers since they are doing some kind of deal-making activity. With that said, we are seeing Prospects up about 44% nationwide, while order starts, the volume of people who click "buy this car" is up closer to 50%."

There are some "key" metrics stated and one of them is NOT leads.

For comparison, attached is actual credit qualified lead volume increases from the GRAIL® DXP platform after the national quarantine went into effect.

This highlights the huge difference between Credit-First vs Credit-Last Digital Retailing.