Automotive Digital Retailing: What Dealers Should Know

photo with green effect - automotive digital retailing helping dealerships sell more cars

It’s the excitement of another deal made, funded, and delivered that ends with a sticker beside a salesperson’s name. Making deals and selling cars is what automotive retailers do best, but it is a process built by dealers for dealers that is a significant source of anxiety and dissatisfaction for most car buyers. Over the…

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Digital First, Credit First Customer Experience

Customer Experience

Improving the customer experience and transforming the transaction are not limited to offering digital buying capabilities for remote buyers. If profits are determined by sales and sales are determined by sales process, there’s little doubt that the greatest obstacle to success and customer satisfaction is the time it takes to complete the deal structuring and…

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Why Are Some Dealers in the ‘Back Seat’ Regarding DR?

Digital transformation barrers

Imagine someone walking into your dealership – perhaps a consultant or vendor – and suggesting that you are operating your dealership wrong. Immediately, you’d be fiercely defensive and most likely question their credibility, knowledge, and intentions. After all, your operations have been financially successful for years, even decades or generations. That is how a lot…

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Digital Retailing Benefits Dealers, Not Just Buyers

Benefits of digital transformation. Digital handshake

A good way to start answering the benefits of digital transformation is first to accept some truths about your customer. Offering a digital path-to-purchase experience increases the likelihood a shopper will buy from your dealership – 85% more likely according to the Cox Automotive Digitization-of-End-to-End-Retailing-Study. And when it comes to choosing a dealership, 83% of…

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What is Digital Retailing?

Connected retailing

It’s the excitement of another deal made, funded, and delivered that ends with a sticker beside a salesperson’s name.  Making deals and selling cars is what automotive retailers do best, but it is a process built by dealers for dealers that is a significant source of anxiety and dissatisfaction for most car buyers.  Over the…

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Automotive Digital Retailing: Upsetting The Status Quo Has Its Challenges

eLEND-Integrations

Dealers everywhere have found themselves navigating a new normal…a new normal accelerated by the pandemic. But it is important to understand that the new way to retail digitally isn’t a COVID-19, Millennial or Gen-Z-only conversation. It’s for anyone with a smartphone who desires a more convenient, simplified car buying experience, regardless of economic reality –…

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6 Ways To Make Your Website More Transactional

Transactional website conversion strategies

Allow shoppers to remain anonymous Digital retailing is the start of the deal. it’s not a generation tool. sell the car. Not the appointment. Engage in real time Make it easy for your customers to communicate with you. Basic integrated communication options such as a built-in chat, messaging, email widgets are just the start. Shopping…

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The Pandemic Drove a Great Leap Forward in Digital Retailing Adoption, Part 3: What’s the Auto Dealership New Normal – and is it a Blessing or a Curse?

Change is hard. But sometimes, it’s necessary to learn a new skill, find a new employer, or adapt to altered circumstances. And when it comes to auto dealerships and the COVID-19 pandemic, change has been seismic: those able to stay in business did so by making quick and comprehensive changes to the way they sell…

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The Pandemic Drove a Great Leap Forward in Digital Retailing Adoption, Part 2: What Happened When “Everything” Changed?

For starters, not everything did change – though as time passes the stories of the great pandemic will surely grow more dramatic. The reality is, frankly, dramatic enough: there was a fair amount of disruption to the automotive space, enough to shut factories down for months and close many dealerships. But, dealers are a resilient…

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6 Ways Auto Dealerships Can Prepare to Restart Sales

Chances are good that as a result of the pandemic you’ve had to either furlough or lay off some of your sales team as you figure out what comes next. You’re likely operating with a skeleton crew of high performers and management folks that will be key to your success once the world gets beyond…

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15 Pandemic Do’s & Don’ts for Car Dealers

As we all deal with the current pandemic, your daily operations have probably been impacted. Your physical showroom may even be closed. But your virtual showroom probably has never been busier. Digital retailing means you are open 24/7. Are you making the car buying process easier or harder for your customers? Below are 15 pandemic…

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Digital Finance SOS – Is Digital Retailing the Answer? Part Three: What is Digital Retailing’s Impact on Dealers and Consumers?

Part Three: What is Digital Retailing’s Impact on Dealers and Consumers? Digital Retailing is all about giving the customer what they want – and doing so within a profitable sales and finance model. As the technology has evolved, it is no longer a matter of sacrificing one for the other; the technology is unique in…

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Digital Finance SOS – Is Digital Retailing the Answer? Part Two: Why Aren’t Dealers Adopting Digital Retailing?

Adopting Digital Retailing

By now everyone knows about digital retailing. There are enough automotive technology providers hawking their version of “Retail Magic,” it would be hard to miss it. At its most basic, digital retail technology empowers car buyers to move through the buying journey online and seamlessly transition in to the dealership. Meaning dealers are able to…

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Digital Finance SOS – Is Digital Retailing the Answer? Part 1: Is the Strong Preference for Automotive Dealership Financing Shifting?

Automotive Dealership Financing

Part 1: Is the Strong Preference for Automotive Dealership Financing Shifting? We recently took a deep dive into some key industry numbers around digital retailing (DR), including proprietary data from a survey eLEND conducted earlier this year. Our goal is to assess online auto financing trends, investigate DR’s potential impact on auto finance, and understand…

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Smart Dealership Technology: Simple Solutions for Success

There are a lot of expensive technology solutions out there that,you are constantly being told, can accomplish great things for your dealership. Almost everyday, there is a headline about the next great tech solution. But there are fewer headlines about how they often come with added costs, increased complexity, and, a ton offrustration for your…

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3 Ways Dealers Can Benefit from Blockchain Technology

Revenue opportunities are dealership opportunities Here’s why: In many respects, the future of automotive retail is connected to blockchain because it’s a scalable, secure ledger system that can be used in virtually any type of transaction, no matter how small or what the data may be. In fact, auto retailers sit at the intersection where…

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The 3 ways to increase visitor to sales ratios

As the influence and reach of the internet continues to grow, it can be difficult to determine how to harness its power to capture more than your fair share of the benefit. As a dealer operator – and someone probably not at expert in SEO/SEM and all things social – it’s a huge challenge.   …

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Digital Retailing: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

Dealers know the value of digital retailing and how effectively it can increase visitor to sales ratio’s and make the showroom process more satisfying and profitable. Yet the adoption of digital retailing solutions is still fairly low. In fact, we recently surveyed dealers and found that, though dealers understand its value. Most are still reluctant…

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3 easy ways mobile tech can boost CSI for Dealerships

There are few absolutes when it comes to the business of selling cars — which is a little amazing, right? Most dealerships work hard to define an optimized path to success, one that starts the moment a car buyer sets an appointment or walks into the showroom. Yet even though there’s this clear and organized…

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Incremental changes can bring a mini revolution

Have you heard that customers hate the car buying process? I thought so. Fact is, lately it’s hard to avoid the constant sound of critical voices telling dealers they must make dramatic changes to the way they operate their business. It goes something like this: Change everything you’ve ever known about the car business, then…

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Tips to Give Your Customers the Best Buying Experience

Selling vehicles can be a hard business. Though people need cars every day, most people don’t buy them often. Instead, the fix their old ones until it is no longer feasible. Since people don’t buy new (or used) vehicles often, there is a lot of competition between car lots and dealerships. When people do decide…

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