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Letting customers see into the future

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CFrentzen

CFrentzen

Boss
Apr 24, 2009
172
0
First Name
Chris
#1
I have implemented a new idea for our site in order to entice customers to return to our site on, ideally, a daily basis. The idea is to post on the site in a non-inventory page all New and Used vehicles that are coming in.

I've put basic info - make/model/year, engine, transmission, and color. For new vehicles I link to the appropriate site so they can see a picture of it. Also slapped a submission form on the page.

Is there anyone else doing this or has done this who has any suggestions, tips, or pitfalls to avoid? Comments are welcome on the idea of course.
 
#2
CFrentzen said:
I have implemented a new idea for our site in order to entice customers to return to our site on, ideally, a daily basis. The idea is to post on the site in a non-inventory page all New and Used vehicles that are coming in.

I've put basic info - make/model/year, engine, transmission, and color. For new vehicles I link to the appropriate site so they can see a picture of it. Also slapped a submission form on the page.

Is there anyone else doing this or has done this who has any suggestions, tips, or pitfalls to avoid? Comments are welcome on the idea of course.
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Link? Want to see what it looks like.
 
#3
JohnScott said:
Link? Want to see what it looks like.
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I have been doing this for about 6 months now and the results have been tremendous. The lead image is a photo of the front of our store with Coming Soon on the bottom. It sticks out big time on our inventory listings as well as on sites like AutoTrader. As a matter of fact, I listed an incoming used car last week. Got a lead two days later. I shot the photos of it yesterday, deposit taken this morning. It gives us on average 4 days of additional selling time.
 
#6
Alex Snyder said:
I see Cash for Clunkers was good for you: 17 new cars and 52 used in stock :thumbup: I bet you almost want to turn the inventory feed off and just show all new Dodge models.
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Yeah - we spent the past month wishing we had had more new inventory. Unfortunate timing with the bankruptcy but I'm definitely not complaining about an easy 10 New vehicle sales. :)
 
#9
aguyler said:
What are your thoughts on letting customers see into the past? I have seen a lot of sites that show recently sold inventory. What does this show to your browsing customer?
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This is definitely something we struggle with. As vehicles are delivered without all stipulations met or something happening in the DMS that assigns a customer to the vehicle but doesn't mark it sold (weird thing that happens from time to time) we are constantly showing cars we've already sold. Then there is a lag on inventory displays with sites like Cars.com & Autotrader.com so we field a lot of calls and leads on cars that were sold "yesterday". These are some of the issues you have when you have too many systems and have to force one to work with another (thanks DMS).

Here is one that was brought to my attention last night: http://www.checkeredflag.com/new-in...2e69b4046381e006567587d864ae6&useHistory=true

This car was actually sold to a buddy of mine and everything looks right in the DMS except for the fact that the status code still shows this car as available. Because we strive for purity in the DMS (ha ha) I force our admins to change it in the DMS instead of correcting things on my end, and allow the next feed to fix it. But, this is certainly a situation where we don't have an available Toyota Prius on the lot right now and neither do other dealers so we're getting tons of calls on it.....it is truly a technical glitch probably due to human input, but a real mistake nonetheless.
 
#10
CFrentzen said:
I have implemented a new idea for our site... The idea is to post on the site in a non-inventory page all New and Used vehicles that are coming in. Comments are welcome on the idea of course.
Click to expand...


CF,

We have a "New Arrivals" page that is popular, but, it's for units that are ready for sale only. I use to have a link on that page for units "in-transit". Many shopper headaches due to all kinds of missing and bad data and "assumptions" from customers (they think all cars are perfect when they roll off the truck). The sales reps liked to use it, so I left it on the new arrival page, but I've HID THE in-transit LINK so only the sales reps can find it.

hope this helps.
Joe
 
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