Examples of New-Car Ordering website forms/processes?

[George Nenni]

With some manufacturers pointing dealers toward customer sold orders, the need to create a solid process flow and information capture seems to be increasingly important for dealer websites.

Any solid examples of dealers either building something themselves, or vendor tech out there that solves this problem? I stumbled onto some sweet workflows from @Ryan Everson for his group site www.garberpreorder.com , anyone doing something similar?

Thank you for the help!
-George

 

[Ryan Everson]

With some manufacturers pointing dealers toward customer sold orders, the need to create a solid process flow and information capture seems to be increasingly important for dealer websites.

Any solid examples of dealers either building something themselves, or vendor tech out there that solves this problem? I stumbled onto some sweet workflows from @Ryan Everson for his group site www.garberpreorder.com , anyone doing something similar?

Thank you for the help!
-George

Thanks, George!

We created GarberPreOrder.com because all of our manufacturers were pushing us to link to the model configurator / order form on the OEM website.

We didn't want to do that.

Why?

Once the customer lands on the OEM website and builds their desired vehicle they are forced to select a dealer near them. Since our stores are often located outside the main metro area, we are often not the first choice presented. This means we'd be helping drive business to our competitors.

Ultimately, all of the OEM's are going to have to step up and create a solution that guarantees if I send a customer to the model configurator / order form on the OEM website, that they stay my customer.

Should be easy enough for them to implement with a simple URL variable containing our dealership code like - chevrolet.com/order?bac=1234

I know OEM's are alluding they want to start shifting to this business model and keep day supply lower than it has been in the past. If they want to have any chance of dealers embracing it, this is one thing they'll have to implement immediately.

Until that happens, we'll keep rolling with our in-house solution.


For those interested, we built the website on Wordpress and used Gravity Forms + Jet Sloth to build the pre-order form. Each of our dealerships has their own "micro-site" that we link to from our dealership website.

Example: https://www.garberpreorder.com/garber-buick/

The goal of the pre-order website is to make sure if someone ends up on our main dealership website and can't find the car they want, that we capture their info before they bounce and try to find the vehicle at a competitor.

So we place these banners on our dealership website VDP's:


So far we've received hundreds of leads and sold quite a few cars off it. All referral traffic from our dealership websites.

 

[Ryan Everson]

With some manufacturers pointing dealers toward customer sold orders, the need to create a solid process flow and information capture seems to be increasingly important for dealer websites.

Any solid examples of dealers either building something themselves, or vendor tech out there that solves this problem? I stumbled onto some sweet workflows from @Ryan Everson for his group site www.garberpreorder.com , anyone doing something similar?

Thank you for the help!
-George

I also ran across this dealer using a Typeform order form which would be easier for the average dealer to implement:

Order Your Honda at Smail Honda in Greensburg PA

Smail Honda provides a free ordering service for all of our customers. Are you looking for a specific vehicle? Let us find it and order it for you!

smailauto.typeform.com

 

[Ryan Everson]

Here's the video overview of our solution:

[Video] Ryan Everson ⚡ on LinkedIn: #cardealers #inventoryshortage | 13 comments

What do you do when you only have 10 new cars on your website, but hundreds are on the way? Don't let the customer bounce and visit competitors’ websites… | 13 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

 

[Brad Burlingham]

Thanks, George!

We created GarberPreOrder.com because all of our manufacturers were pushing us to link to the model configurator / order form on the OEM website.

We didn't want to do that.

Why?

Once the customer lands on the OEM website and builds their desired vehicle they are forced to select a dealer near them. Since our stores are often located outside the main metro area, we are often not the first choice presented. This means we'd be helping drive business to our competitors.

Ultimately, all of the OEM's are going to have to step up and create a solution that guarantees if I send a customer to the model configurator / order form on the OEM website, that they stay my customer.

Should be easy enough for them to implement with a simple URL variable containing our dealership code like - chevrolet.com/order?bac=1234

I know OEM's are alluding they want to start shifting to this business model and keep day supply lower than it has been in the past. If they want to have any chance of dealers embracing it, this is one thing they'll have to implement immediately.

Until that happens, we'll keep rolling with our in-house solution.


For those interested, we built the website on Wordpress and used Gravity Forms + Jet Sloth to build the pre-order form. Each of our dealerships has their own "micro-site" that we link to from our dealership website.

Example: https://www.garberpreorder.com/garber-buick/

The goal of the pre-order website is to make sure if someone ends up on our main dealership website and can't find the car they want, that we capture their info before they bounce and try to find the vehicle at a competitor.

So we place these banners on our dealership website VDP's:
View attachment 5637

So far we've received hundreds of leads and sold quite a few cars off it. All referral traffic from our dealership websites.

really great job ryan. I've been putting together some ideas with in-transit cars, etc and was looking for a pre-order page as well. this will help us dial ours in.

 

[John V.]

Looks very clean! Nice work.

How is this working lead gen wise? It seems like it would take a fair amount of ad dollars plus website costs to generate the needed lead volume to justify the cost. Interested to hear your results.

 

[Richard_Lloyd]

I've had a lot of positive response on something we've built (several top 10 dealers live and pending). Happy to show anybody interested in seeing it.