What ways could dealers be more transparent, IDEAS anyone?

[MotorWidget]

GM's Shop-Click-Drive
Dealer.com's Reserve It Now
Cox's MakeMyDeal.com

All work in conjunction with the dealer's online presence. I have seen dealers sell new cars through eBay as well. Carvana is a very innovative used car dealership - not a "listing site".

@MotorWidget - you started by saying the dealers can't sell online because it's illegal, I think you are mistaken. I've worked with dealerships, for years, where they would deliver the car to the customers home or office and collect signatures there

Ed Brooks, there is a big difference between squaring away the pre-paperwork process online and doing the deal for a car as we would buy a pair of shoes through a shopping cart over the net.

While their may be the ability for a dealer to sell online in the pure sense, it's a very dangerous move to make as once this happens, manufacturers could follow which could have very dire consequences for dealers.

This article may better describe my point.......
http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2014/03/31/why-cant-you-buy-a-car-directly-from-a-car-company

 

[ed.brooks]

Ed Brooks, there is a big difference between squaring away the pre-paperwork process online and doing the deal for a car as we would buy a pair of shoes through a shopping cart over the net.

While their may be the ability for a dealer to sell online in the pure sense, it's a very dangerous move to make as once this happens, manufacturers could follow which could have very dire consequences for dealers.

This article may better describe my point.......
http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2014/03/31/why-cant-you-buy-a-car-directly-from-a-car-company

So dealers CAN sell online, right? Have you ever heard of franchise laws?

 

[csabatka1]

I have been following this site for about a year, and during that time have seen multiple people make similar references. During this same time period, we have launched a completely new website. I believe that it sucks LESS than the old one. My current site averages 3:59 per visit, 16% Bounce Rate, and 4.8 Actions per visit. I am not an expert, but I can tell you these numbers are a whole lot better than they were on my old site.

What is it about the websites in our industry that "suck"? What (in your opinion) do we need to do in order to fix this? We are a small Independent store, and we are not afraid to try new things. If I know and understand what to change, I will do it without hesitation.

I don't feel that transparency is the answer (for what it is worth).

Clint -

You're extremely close to my markets, are you at Clock Tower?.

For the reference to dealer website sucking. This is a very complicated answer and I'm speaking to parts of it at Digital Dealer and Driving Sales in Oct. Dealer website suck because they severely lack a quality user experience (UX). UX is such a huge part of the web and buying process, but easily the most neglected. Backed by our customer studies and focus groups I found there are 3 main items a customer wants, pictures, pricing, and selection. Easy right? Not with dealer sites. Since most dealers choose a big vendor to do their website, their overall website experience is the exact same as competing dealerships. There is nothing that separates themselves from the lot down the street. Dealerships could careless about what a user is expecting and wanting we visiting a website. Ford for example, went with dealer.com for their Ford Direct sites, guess how many Ford dealers in this region have Dealer.com sites now.... pretty much all. Why did Amazon became popular? They built an amazing UX in online shopping backed by transparency, low costs, reviews, and a great buying process.

Part two, dealer website SEO suck. And this is AWESOME for those of us who know what they're doing.
Do a quick search for a ford dealership in Columbus, NE. Let me know if you see Anderson Auto Group pop up in the 1,2, or 3 position in organic.

 

[csabatka1]

I love the idea of sending a survey out to used car buyers. That's pretty easy to accomplish with an automated CRM email template and SurveyMonkey. The only downside to the responses is that damn buyer's remorse factor.

I do this yearly. I do a survey of all internet, phone, and showroom customers w/ email address logged in the prior 12-months, regardless of if they purchased from us or not. The questions are based on internet shopping behaviors. We had 1,212 respondents this year and data is very similar to the 3 years prior. I'm using a lot of it in my upcoming presentations, but some good stuff I found (speaking in rounded percentages in this post)

90% used internet at some point to shop for a vehicle, research, or somewhere in the process.
84% of those customers used OUR websites to shop.
65% read at least one review online.
At least 90% wanted each of pictures, price, and inventory

My favorite
18% used Autotrader
17% used Cars.com
of those only 28% recalled seeing an Anderson Auto Group vehicle on either of those sites.

 

[craigh]

Part two, dealer website SEO suck. And this is AWESOME for those of us who know what they're doing.
Do a quick search for a ford dealership in Columbus, NE. Let me know if you see Anderson Auto Group pop up in the 1,2, or 3 position in organic.

Search for "columbus NE ford dealership" has you at #3
Search for "ford dealership" with location set to "columbus NE" has you at #4, but the sidebar and top of the results page are all dedicated to Gene Steffy.

 

[joe.pistell]

...What is it about the websites in our industry that "suck"? What (in your opinion) do we need to do in order to fix this? We are a small Independent store, and we are not afraid to try new things. If I know and understand what to change, I will do it without hesitation.

Why do 'our' websites suck?

1. Shoppers almost always arrive with more questions than answers.
2. Shoppers often buy a different car than the one that brought them in.

If our sites were great, the 2 observations above would not happen.


Clint, I too came from a position similar to yours. Listen closely to your shoppers, they reveal all kinds of insights that need fixing.

For example, this DR blog article 5 yrs ago Is Your Chat Used or Abused? This is where I discover that chat is used to find products (read: my site sucks).

 

[Chris Cachor]

I think for the most part the websites suck because about the only thing integrated with the actual dealership are lead forms and sales hours. It would be great to schedule service (concierge style) right on the website and have a reminder sent once or twice via email before hand. If I fill out a credit app on the website, have the financing info already available in your system rather than having to do the whole process again on the sales floor. I'm kind of surprised dealer website still don't have a "My Account" feature where customers can look up purchase history, service history, coupons, saved credit applications, etc.

Simple things like this to tighten up the experience with ROBO I think can go a long way and will actually tie your salespeople up less. I've spoken with several people that purchased new vehicles in the past 6 month and they've all said, "just let me buy the thing online and deliver it or I'll come pick it up." There's demand there for a sub set of buyers I know for sure. I think that sub set will only get larger as well.

 

[craigh]

^ come talk to me in 30 days

 

[joe.pistell]

I think for the most part the websites suck because about the only thing integrated with the actual dealership are lead forms and sales hours. It would be great to schedule service (concierge style) right on the website and have a reminder sent once or twice via email before hand. If I fill out a credit app on the website, have the financing info already available in your system rather than having to do the whole process again on the sales floor. I'm kind of surprised dealer website still don't have a "My Account" feature where customers can look up purchase history, service history, coupons, saved credit applications, etc.

Simple things like this to tighten up the experience with ROBO I think can go a long way and will actually tie your salespeople up less. I've spoken with several people that purchased new vehicles in the past 6 month and they've all said, "just let me buy the thing online and deliver it or I'll come pick it up." There's demand there for a sub set of buyers I know for sure. I think that sub set will only get larger as well.

Always great thoughts CC! We're going down the same road. Like the video says "car shoppers want us to break down the wall, shoppers want to bring their internet work into the store and they want the dealer's operations out onto the internet"

 

[ed.brooks]

Why do 'our' websites suck?

My thoughts; The ONLY goals of most dealership websites are to harvest customer information and get the customer into the showroom to start the REAL selling process. That goal is at odds with the customer's goals and their buying process. CarMax's website seems much more geared to answering customer questions and helping them start their buying process (as opposed to simply providing research and "shopping" tools).