I Wonder if Dealership Websites Are Solving the Wrong Problem?

[Vochi]

Dealerships treat car buying like an inventory problem, when it’s actually a lifestyle problem.​

Car sites force potential clients to become experts in the different automotive lineups for each year make, model, and trim, just to find the car that fits their needs. And to make it worse, a lot of times people will buy a car because of the cars color, wheels, or design and never consider rather the car is the best fit for the job.

When you land on a dealership website or a 3rd party site like cargurus or cars.com (that dealerships are forced to use, because their sites can't compete) you will notice everything is about make, model, and year.

Which makes the consumers job to educate themselves on information they will never need again about each make, model, and trim, so they can determine which car best fits their needs.

I guess what I’m trying to ask is, could dealership websites be answering the wrong questions and solving the wrong problems?

 

[KennySmithAutoUnite]

I think you’re onto something here.

Most dealership websites are built around one question: “Which vehicle are you looking for?”

But a lot of customers haven’t figured that out yet.

They know they have two kids, a dog, a long commute, need room for road trips, want something good in bad weather, and have a budget they’re trying to stay within.

They may have no idea if that means a Pilot, Telluride, Traverse, Grand Highlander, or something they haven’t even looked at yet.

That’s where I think we make the customer do too much work.

We send them somewhere else to research, compare vehicles, figure out trims, learn the differences, and then hope they come back when they’re finally ready to look at inventory.

Inventory still matters. Price matters. Availability matters. The exact VIN matters.

I just think there’s a step before all of that that dealership websites could be much better at.

Help me figure out what fits my life first.

Then show me the vehicles that make sense.

Then show me the inventory.

If somebody already knows they want a Wrangler Rubicon, great. Get them there fast.

But if they only know what they need the vehicle to do, we should be able to help with that too.

We’ve gotten really good at helping people find cars.

I think the bigger opportunity is getting better at helping people decide which car they should be looking for in the first place.