Digital retailing is gaining traction. Increasingly, customers can complete the entire car-buying process online: from choosing their vehicle, to setting up financing, to scheduling delivery.
However, not all dealerships have embraced this trend, and many are still unsure about whether it's worth it to offer a digital retailing option on their website.
Dealerships who don't offer a digital retailing option risk losing business to competitors who do. With more and more customers turning to the internet to research and purchase vehicles, those who don't offer a digital option may miss out on potential sales and see their market share shrink.
To help you make a more informed decision about whether to offer digital retailing on your site, let’s explore why you may or may not want to provide it — and a few tips to get started.
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With a digital retailing option, your customers can complete most (or all) of the car-buying process online.
This includes shopping for specific makes, models, features, and price ranges on the dealership's website, accessing competitive financing options, requesting more information, or scheduling a test drive, and even completing a credit application.
About 1 in 5 car buyers completes most of their vehicle purchase process online.
It’s not simply a website with photos of cars and prices, or some basic calculators to estimate payments. And it’s more than just having a website that lists inventory and tells customers to come to the dealership to buy the vehicle.
The goal of digital retailing is to provide a seamless and positive buying experience for customers, from the initial online research phase to the in-store sign-and-drive process.
Why would you consider offering a digital retail experience to your customers? The biggest benefits center around a faster sales process, better customer retention, and access to a larger market.
Simply put, some customers prefer to buy online. If you fail to offer a digital path to purchasing a car, you’re missing out on a growing population of customers, and other dealerships will be happy to snatch them up for you.
Meet your buyers where they prefer to shop, and you’ll have access to a larger market share.
Customers who have a positive experience with digital retailing are more likely to return to your dealership in the future and recommend it to others. Even prior to a sale, a robust digital shopping experience helps keep buyers engaged if a buyer is delaying their car purchase.
A 2021 Cox Automotive car buyer study revealed that buyers who completed key financing steps online were more satisfied with the time they spent at the dealership, compared to customers who completed the process in person.
About 1 out of every 5 car buyers is considered “primarily digital.” In other words, they’ve completed more than half of the total vehicle purchase process online.
They can do this at their own leisure in a low-pressure environment, taking their time to select the vehicle and options that feel right for them. By the time they come into the dealership, they can drive off the lot with their new vehicle in record time, rather than spending an extra hour in a back office signing paperwork.
This leads to a better customer experience, but also frees up more time for your team to process more sales per day.
When customers have the time to do their research and figure out the options that work best for them, they can come onto the lot and know exactly what they want. Even if they haven’t completed the final purchase steps online, they arrive highly qualified (with a 46.4% higher close rate than from other lead sources) which cuts down the amount of time and effort needed from your sales team.
No solution is without tradeoffs or limitations, of course. Bear these points in mind before you move forward:
With these limitations in mind, let’s review some basic requirements for getting your digital retailing option started.
A full digital retail strategy is beyond the scope of this article, but to get you started, here are some capabilities and features you should consider including:
These are just some starting points to creating a comprehensive digital shopping experience for your customers. A great digital retail portal will lead to more satisfied customers, a more efficient sales team, and better customer retention.
Sometimes a great buying experience isn’t enough to keep customers coming back for service, however. With less time spent at your dealership, you’ll need to be more intentional about creating the sort of relationship that gets customers coming back for service. Discover how in our free Sales-to-Service Handoff Checklist.
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