Shared Used Vehicle Inventory

[CraigB]

I was talking to a friend who had a frustrating car buying experience and it relates back to something I am seeing on more dealers websites.

This friend went to a dealership to look at a car they saw on the dealer's website, when he arrived he was told the car not only wasn't at the dealership but was at a dealer in a different state (owned by the dealer group).

I have seen a number of dealer group sites that clearly call out the location of the vehicle but the individual dealer sites do not.

If anyone is doing this can you provide the rationale behind listing other dealer inventory on your site and not disclosing the location? Also, what do you tell a customer who sends a lead or walks in on said inventory?

 

[VVAuto1]

Rationale is provide more inventory options for the consumer to express interest and ultimately the ability to help serve their needs.

Example, If you have 4 locations each with 100 used cars...Would you rather provide the consumer with 100 used car options or 400 used car options. We try and be transparent about, no reason not to really. Ultimately you end up creating little micro inventory listing sites - like trader,guru,cars etc

 

[CraigB]

While I agree with that strategy wholeheartedly, do you disclose the actual location of the vehicle?

 

[VVAuto1]

Whats the advantage of listing less options for consumers?

For example if you have 30 at your "point"and in your network you have 600 available that any consumer has 100% access to purchase at any moment.

And yes we absolutely we disclose the location directly on each vehicle listing page.

Sidenote - I do like the ability you have on the fetch website that shows "3 more available" on the srp. Are you seeing dealers buying 3-4 of the same used car and pricing them exactly the same?

 

[CraigB]

Agreed, giving the consumers more inventory is better. In fact, we see much lower bounce rate and higher pages per session on referring traffic to dealer group sites vs single point sites. If the shopper is looking for an Impala and you have 10 of them, they are more likely to stay on your site for longer and look at them.

Related to the sidenote:
That is actually what happens when the same vehicle is listed on multiple dealer websites. Since we have no way of knowing the physical location we show the closest match based on the users search and show them that it is listed at more.

 

[yagoparamo]

Not disclosing location in most major cities with traffic is an absolute bomb waiting to explode. It is unfair to a customer to make them drive 2 hours thru traffic to learn that the car is another hour away at a different place.

Show all the cars, disclose location.

 

[simpledealersuite]

Disclosing the location may be the ethical thing to do, but they will probably just add a disclaimer line that says
"This vehicle may not always be at our store, please contact us prior to visiting" or something along those lines

I think its more about an ethical approach vs a legal one.

 

[Jlewis74]

I have dealer groups who list all inventory on all sites, we do a overlay on the pic that shows where it is located and in the VDP. They also brand it as the number of units avalible and that they will ship for free to the customer.

 

[Alexander Lau]

They are typically aggregated for better options. Someone up above alluded to it. If you want to test drive or sell you the car, they'll make sure to get it to you. Location seems to be less and less important these days. Personally, I could care less where it's located. If the dealer wants to sell it to me, they'll get it to me.