Online Shopping to Online Buying

[Jeff Kershner]

for anyone that doesn't think the OEM's aren't trying to figure this out on a MAJOR level and with a "FU" attitude, you're kidding yourself!

 

[Alexander Lau]

A for anyone that doesn't think the OEM's aren't trying to figure this out on a MAJOR level and with a "FU" attitude, you're kidding yourself!

Precisely, I am in complete agreement here. I used this already, but "dealers ignore at your own peril."

OEMs are looking for ways to cut you out of the equation and why not? Disruptive technology is known to do such things.

 

[Bill_Playford]

The question we need to ask ourselves is why are investors pumping billions of dollars into these services? How is the capital so easy to come by? This is not a battle. It's war.

 

[Viracocha]

Of course the OEMs want to figure this out. If they dont' figure out a way to support the sales process that the customers area demanding then they will inevitably end up with someone like COX between them, their dealers and their customers. And lets face it, that's bad for all three of them.

 

[ed.brooks]

@Ed Brooks What he is referring to is - the customer that goes into the "buy online / shopping cart" process has a higher closing percentage VS your more overused conventional CTA's like "Get your ePrice". I've seen other studies across the board that prove this out. I was personally working with a company several years ago that provided a "buy online / shopping cart" experience and once the customer was engaged with that process and were taking actual steps towards the purchase, they ABSOLUTELY had a higher percentage of purchasing that vehicle from that dealership. Even if they didn't finish the entire purchase online.

So they abandoned the cart in frustration but many of them bought anyway. How many left for another dealer because the process pissed them off? How many incremental sales did the dealership gain? Any?

 

[Viracocha]

The question we need to ask ourselves is why are investors pumping billions of dollars into these services? How is the capital so easy to come by? This is not a battle. It's war.

Take a look at the total market cap in this game. Its not hard to make a strong business case to be poised to gain first to market (acceptance)

 

[Alexander Lau]

So they abandoned the cart in frustration but many of them bought anyway. How many left for another dealer because the process pissed them off? How many incremental sales did the dealership gain? Any?

Just because it failed initially, doesn't mean it will keep sucking. Improvements to the process(es) are made.

 

[Michia Rohrssen]

Wanted to jump in here real quick to clear up some things.

First and foremost - I'm not here to pitch online sales as the greatest thing a dealer can do in 2016.

The basics still apply. if your website sucks, your sales people don't follow up with leads quickly and your inventory is limited, adding a "Buy Online" button won't save you. In fact, it probably won't even help you.

We use a number of tools to evaluate if a dealer will benefit from the product and have turned away a number who we didn't think it would help. One of which is SEMrush.com - take a look at your own dealership and see some of the cool stats if you'd like.

The 3-4x higher close rate comes from leads that are submitted through the platform when a "Buy Online" button is clicked vs. a "Get e-Price" or "Contact Us" button. Which, also logically makes sense if you take a step back. Someone clicking "Get e-Price" is much higher in the buyer funnel than someone clicking "Buy Online."

We typically see a conversion rate of 10% from click > checkout and of those people who complete the checkout, we see above 80% lead close rates(vehicle purchased and picked up or delivered).

We use Segment and Amplitude as our main analytics platforms which allow us to capture much more information than Google Analytics can. Both platforms are worth looking into if you're into marketing tech.

 

[Bill_Playford]

Take a look at the total market cap in this game. Its not hard to make a strong business case to be poised to gain first to market (acceptance)

A quick visit to Crunchbase proves your point (although $140M-$150M for Carvana and Beepi is nothing to sneeze at, given that $290M is around 20% of what Asbury is worth). Those who are paranoid should be concerned about what we're not seeing and hearing publicly. These other dealer and technology acquisitions might tell us a much different story in just a few years time.

 

[ed.brooks]

Wanted to jump in here real quick to clear up some things.

First and foremost - I'm not here to pitch online sales as the greatest thing a dealer can do in 2016.

The basics still apply. if your website sucks, your sales people don't follow up with leads quickly and your inventory is limited, adding a "Buy Online" button won't save you. In fact, it probably won't even help you.

We use a number of tools to evaluate if a dealer will benefit from the product and have turned away a number who we didn't think it would help. One of which is SEMrush.com - take a look at your own dealership and see some of the cool stats if you'd like.

The 3-4x higher close rate comes from leads that are submitted through the platform when a "Buy Online" button is clicked vs. a "Get e-Price" or "Contact Us" button. Which, also logically makes sense if you take a step back. Someone clicking "Get e-Price" is much higher in the buyer funnel than someone clicking "Buy Online."

We typically see a conversion rate of 10% from click > checkout and of those people who complete the checkout, we see above 80% lead close rates(vehicle purchased and picked up or delivered).

We use Segment and Amplitude as our main analytics platforms which allow us to capture much more information than Google Analytics can. Both platforms are worth looking into if you're into marketing tech.

The big question remains, does it help sell more cars? Moving a number from one column to another without adding the total sales volume does nothing. Does It Sell Cars?