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A very thoughtful question!  Great 1st post Elmer!

Here's my take, it's like a progression of thoughts:

1. Shoppers don't know cars.
2. A picture is worth a thousand words
3. Shoppers use pictures to understand cars.

If this is true, then I'd expect to see:

1. Higher time on site
2. more time on VDPs
3. More pictures viewed p/visit
4. Less lead to visitor ratios
5. Higher return visitor rate

This should create a higher sales to unique visitor ratio (divide sales by # of unique visitors).  In the US, it's 1% to 3%.  

Background: In the US, Dealers have mountains of standing inventory, ready to test and buy.  Shoppers here want to negotiate, so, this dynamic causes the majority of shoppers want to be anonymous.