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Online Shopping to Online Buying

We bury consumers under information these days. They can't sort through the complexity. Before I left "the road" I sometimes visited 6 dealerships a day... most days it was three. I saw the same thing play out over and over again. Sales people were meeting consumers for the first time and the challenge was to dispel the false information the consumer had in his/her mind. Hell, our own staff can't dissect the combination of programs, rebates, stackable and unstackable trunk money, stair steps, etc. How would we expect consumers to? Besides, who says its their business? "Back in the day" things were much less complex. Business was done ABOVE INVOICE. When we paid a sold car off at the bank we paid an amount LESS than what we sold it for. These days, we have to wait for the factory check/debit to make gross profit. OEMs curtailed markup to try to promote more credibility. At the same time, they switched dealer profit to "behind invoice" while screwing the sales staff. At the same time, dealers were also increasing the "pack." And we wonder why we have the challenges we have to day?

We'll have transparency with consumers AFTER dealers are transparent with their staff, and not a moment before, claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
 
I mentor young minds:unclejoe:.

:2quiet:

You can innovate all day, but I prefer our FILDI (F It Lets Do It) strategy. Sell the car online. Just Do it.
The product never has to stop changing and morphing to what our customers want. Start somewhere.

This thread is entertaining as I watch car dealers try and determine how they are going to exist in the new model, how they can make the new model match their old model or how they can make tiny pivots to enter the new model.
I think @JoePistell needs to stop and consider everything he's said about Innovation - you preach all about a radical, innovative way to do it, but then you say @BHavican knocked it out of the park when he said all they want is a tool that allows buying to take place online in a convenient way.

If we had a tool that allowed those customers who are happy with the advertised price to purchase the vehicle online, I believe they would appreciate that. Furthermore, that tool could be a reason why they buy the car at our store instead of the store 10 miles away with the same price.

We've been talking about this for a long time

As Zefrank says, "Life isn't just a sequence of waiting for things to be done"

 
Its like drinking through a fire hose to the consumer... and to our staff.

I agree with this statement. Everything is information overload for customers.
The nice thing is that consumers know more than ever when they get to the dealership.
If we agree consumers know more than ever when they get to the dealership, then let's offer the ability to skip the dealership altogether - they've made their decision, let them execute on it.
 
Having more information is not the same as "knowing" more BUT if you think it is a productive thing to do, what is keeping people from putting a shopping cart on their site? Answer: Small details like trade ins, negative equity, and complex credit issues? Why would anyone establish a sales system that can be used only by the best credit people with no or easy trade ins and aces credit? Everyone else becomes confused, and "everyone else" represents the majority of the business. The people who are set up to use such a system also happen to be the most educated buyers who we make the least amount of money on. But we want to set up such a system so we can brag that we did it? Show me a system that increases gross profit, and I'm all in.... on the road selling it to dealers. In the meantime, our industry is ignoring its biggest issue.

Put a cart up there and report back to us. Has anyone done that?

Is it productive to increasing gross profit?
 
I prefer our FILDI (F It Lets Do It) strategy. Sell the car online. Just Do it...
Start somewhere.

It's a dark day for ol' Uncle Joe. I had high hopes that @craigh was going to be a DR indie all-star... one of those rare talents with that can 'see behind the curtain' and blow the world up. "Start Somewhere" is not the basis for a post I'd put my name on.

Best wishes & enjoy your travels Craig.
 
Millennial-760x522.jpg

Hi guys!

I really believe this topic is a very interesting one. First of all I want to show my admiration and respect for all these people that have being working in the car business for years. I would like to just bring another perspective to this conversation. I have been working in sales my whole life. My father was an entrepreneur. My first job was in a retail store when I was 16 years old, then I decided to move my career into acting (Where I learned a lot about personal branding and networking since in acting you depend on so many people in order to work; producers, agents, casting directors, directors, actors, etc) and currently I'm working as an Internet Sales Manager at the same dealership I started working as a salesperson.

The perspective I want to bring is a generational one! Millennials! Since I'm also a millennial and our generation was the one that grew up using the internet I thought it was necessary to talk about it. We saw the progress from messenger to snapchat and now we are the present and future generation of online sales. Something that in my experience I discovered is that millennials are adopting the fears of past generations for the car business and they don't necessarily enjoy any negotiation process. They tend to love the idea of "no hassle", with exception of few people that still feel they need to negotiate the price even if they don't understand the market.

I believe one of the reasons why True Car is so famous in my generation is because it brings them the perception that nobody will take advantage of them, even though they don't necessarily read or understand how True Car actually works and I mention read because my generation tends to be more visual and in general they don't tend to read as much as past generations.

Now, everybody knows that an average customer will visit 8 different websites in order to find the best deal possible online and then send an e-mail or make a phone call to the dealership. With this in mind two main factors come to my mind in order to increase your sales online; the dealership's website needs to be EXTREMELY user friendly and the person responding to this customer at the dealership needs to have AMAZING people skills! If you can master the art of reading people's body language, tone of voice and emotions, even if the communication is via e-mail, over the phone or maybe social media, you will have the advantage in online sales.

The platform might be different but human behaviors are the same! The only big difference is that Millennials are more tech savy and more educated than past generations, however, most of them were so attached to their computers, phones and tablets when they were younger that they tend not to know how to react in stressful or uncomfortable social situations like... negotiations. We need to learn to sale our company, dealership and ourselves not only via e-mail or text but via facebook, linkedin, twitter or even snapchat. Now is not enough with delivering a great "sharky" sales pitch but to have the social skills and emotional intelligence to create a win-win situation for both parties.
 
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