The Evolution of an Automotive Customer

[Jeff Kershner]

As with just about any study, they can be picked apart. I too think 7 is further down the list than what my gut tells me and other studies I have seen.

I also think when I customer is truly in their car buying/shopping phase, they many times morph into someone different. LOL. Depending what phase of the shopping process the customer happens to be in can yield different results/answers.

With all that being said, we still know that price on a majority, is not the sole reason of purchase and if we can use studies and information to reinforce to our sales teams, it will only help with.

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Larry - I would love to visit your website to catch-up on some of your blog articles....BUT....it only works on Internet Explorer 6.0 or above. @pcmguy - mind fixing this?

 

[LarryBruce]

I know alex we have not put the crossbrowser code up yet for MBU it will be soon. There is nothing on MBU blog yet anyway this will be the first entry. If you want to check out the new WP design you can go to http://www.micrositesbyu.com/MicrositesBlog/ but as i said there is nothing there, yet.

 

[LarryBruce]

@alex if you go to my persoal blog www.pcmguy.com you will find more information

 

[LarryBruce]

@Jeff

I know that surveys surely can be manuipulated to say pretty much what ever you want. That's why we deciced just to film a large sampling of customers as they search for a car and dealer online and look for commonalities in their behavior. This makes for a much more clean and objective case study. We are posting all of the videos to allow others to veiw and draw their own conclusions from thier observations of the behavior.

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Larry - let me know when your article is up on MbyU. I forgot about pcmguy.com - thanks. Adding to my RSS feeds now (does your RSS work? - just kidding).

 

[Joe Pistell]

If you want to know where price priority is, my instincts are telling me it depends on what Internet Property the shopper's visiting AND remember the Dealer's Brand has weight!

Example: Kayak.com vs JetBlue.com

The shopping process:

1. Plan Purchase (research)

2. Shop on Aggregator sites (like kayak.com)

3. Drill down to best priced choices

==This is where brand pops==

If I see my favorite brand AND my favorite brand is anywhere near 'the best price zone' I'll leave the Aggregator and goto the Brand's site and get the brands optimum web experience.

!!Dealer's MUST not offer the same content found on Aggregators !! Juice up the 'value added' goodies and if your on your game, it'll be interactive (like JBLU's "big a** seat" selector)

If your not sure how to communicate brand, or, what a killer brand message looks like, see: http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f43/what-key-ingre...

 

[Joe Pistell]

While I'm rambling...

IMO, "The shopping process" steps that a shopper makes are similar in all high ticket sales.

This also highlights the shopping opportunity that AutoTrader.com and Cars.com should exploit. Currently, AT and Cars is suffering from a gigantically bad reputation, based specifically on poor visibility.

Should the CEO at either company (AT or Cars.com) dare to open this gateway to the dealers home site, then the flood gates would open and the we'd all "see the light"!

Understandably, neither CEO wants to do this for fear they loose traffic themselves. BUT, what they'll gain is their first chance to raise rates in years.

Mr Perry or Mr Golub, if you entertain this idea (of linking to dealers sites), to boost your value, you may want to link to a dealer landing page 1st, make it newspaper like with a monthly sales theme, allow the dealer to display a video, present a link to the dealers site AND present an exclusive offer that requires an opt-in. ( put your marketing guys headed in this direction: http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=best+squee... )

Please send royalty checks payable to:

Uncle Joe's "I Want to Live on an Island Again" Fund

 

[LarryBruce]

Joe I have been trying to get Cars and AT to understand the value of squeeze page, landing pages, microsites and conversion paths for years. The term "Too big to get out of your own way" comes to mind.

 

[Joe Pistell]

Larry, you know this, but he's my $0.02.

Cars and AT are 2 titans locked in battle, yet both are winners and both are fat and happy with the slice-of-the-pie they got.

Result: Don't rock the boat.

It's a great setup for an upstart with attitude: http://www.dealerrefresh.com/look-out-autotrader-...

Problem with that upstart is it's business plan. The plan recognizes Car Dealers are NOT self-serve, they need their hand held. You need sales reps on the ground selling the program to produce more profits. Simply presenting inventory and waiting for dealers to sign-up wont work (see google adwords).

damn... can I ramble of what? So sorry. Somebody uplug me.