Turning Buyers Into Shoppers

[ddavis]

It still amazes me, to know, that during the research phase, customers spend 17 to 19 hours, on the internet, before visiting a dealership. Much of that involves vehicle comparisons but anyone is naive if they don't think that price is a chief consideration. A recent Cobalt study (featured on the front page of DealerRefresh) states that the average consumer visited at least eight dealership websites. These customers tend to be at the bottom of the sales funnel. At this point, they should have narrowed it down to a couple of different makes and models.

You have to ask, why shop eight different dealer websites? They're looking for a price or a "no games" deal. If they come to yours, and all of the new cars are priced at MSRP, they will likely bounce. They may chose the “get the ePrice” but if they do, they will go to three more stores for theirs. That helps to explain the eight dealerships. Some dealers will dance around the price and get ignored. The rest will send them a quote at net.net or one or two hundred over that.

What is the point? Are we not turning buyers into shoppers? This has been my logic for using market-based pricing for both my new and used cars.

You see a great deal of information on search and social media. When it comes to search, are we not spending a great deal of money to draw people to websites that aggravate the customer and encourage them to go elsewhere? On social media, are we basically doing the same thing?

From personal experience, when I went to market-based pricing my lead count went way up and my closing ratio, as a percentage of leads, was phenomenal. Shown appointments closed at over 85%.

This has always been controversial. Fire away.

 

[danoneil]

Could you clarify what market-based pricing means ?

Is this the same as true market pricing ?

This the definition from our website for true market pricing:


Unlike most of our competitors all of our pre-owned vehicles are inclusive of the following:
-Maryland State Inspection
-Freight/Destination Charges
-Reconditioning Fees
-Certification Fees
This means that we show you the "TRUE" price on EVERY used car, no Hidden charges. This is the Heritage Automotive Way!

 

[ddavis]

What I mean by market-based is competitive. If you were to sort, by price, on Cars or AutoTrader, considering miles, equipment, certification, etc., would you be competitive?

I have recently seen a big departure, from those disclosures, in my old market. I have no way to know if their decisions, to abandon the "jick" advertising, come from bad reviews or heat from the State's Attorney General. Now, I am seeing, "What you see, is what you pay".

If you are having to compete against that, I would have "What you see, is what you pay" all over my website, third party sites and social media. I would also have a video explaining it. I have worked in Arizona, Texas, and Louisiana where they have laws against those disclaimers except for the State inspection on new cars. It never stopped it from happening.