Nissan going to ONE website provider for dealers?!

[joe.pistell]

Dear OEMs,

• Your car shopper audience isn't captive.

• You can buy a Car Anywhere.

• You can buy a Nissan Anywhere

• Shoppers LOVE choice.

Our industry serves stealth shoppers that baffles everyone. Beware un-intended consequences of well meaning ideas.

Uncle Joe Rule #43:
"Dealers are like snowflakes, no 2 are the same"

Uncle Joe Rule #88:
"Car shoppers make 2 big decisions; #1 What car, #2 What Store."


OEM's strategy talks should sound like this:
"car shoppers on our dealer's site are in the final hour of car shopping. We're in a zero sum game, our efforts should support a superior shopper experience 1st, all else follows."

HTH
Joe

p.s. an attribution model isn't to be trusted until it can forecast a dealer's sales, until then, it's a lab project.

 

[joe.pistell]

Dear OEMs (and everyone else),

It's time to let go of the urban legend "car shoppers hate dealers". Stop using it as a common denominator for high-level decision making. Proof is everywhere. Shoppers LOVE choice. Shoppers LOVE 2 Nissan dealers competing for their win.

HTH
Joe
p.s. ask any Verizon customer if they'd like 2 Verizon stores competing for the sale (like car dealers do). Game. Set. Match.

 

[craigh]

The business model for the OEM makes sense due to the data. Websites can provide incredible amounts of information on model interest, shopping times, market segments, etc etc etc.

 

[emilymoore]

No, Nissan. Just no.

 

[JessicaRuth]

I heard this was a NO GO. Did anyone else hear that?

 

[rlamb]

Everyone likes to complain about Cobalt/CDK. Their sites aren't that bad. You get out of it what you put into it. I'm in a group of 20+ stores and the only with the a Cobalt site. We get more traffic (paid and organic) than any of the other stores, have good time on site and conversion numbers as well. Spend time on SEO efforts and pay attention to your SEM and you can make any site perform. Cobalt may not look the best, but I don't care what it looks like, I care how it performs.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Word on the street that CDK is the winner here and will be the exclusive website provider for Nissan dealers here in the States.

The announcement could come as early as September this month.

I thought we were done with these exclusive deals.

 

[JessicaRuth]

This. officially. blows.

 

[craigh]

Do we know if it's mandatory or optional?
I've heard mumblings of other manufacturers coming out with optional vendor packages.