02 July 2012

Hard to believe that last week’s Web Workshop was the seventh such event we’ve run in the past four years. When we launched the Web Workshop strand, back in 2008, the topic of the first series was ‘maximising revenue from your website’.

At that time we reckoned 80% of car buyers were using the internet for research and 20% were willing to ‘consider’ buying on line. Speakers at that first event focused on the basics of website design and functionality.

Of course, the fundamentals of good web design and functionality remain as critical (in fact, more so) today as they were four years ago. But the real lesson from last week’s Web Workshop was that consumer behaviour has changed – and changed fundamentally.

Now, 94% of customers are researching online and almost one-in-three UK car buyers are willing to complete their car purchase online. As Allistair Carmichael of eBay noted in his presentation: “there is a very real blur between online and offline” commerce and retail has shifted “from the high street to the i-street”.

More than anything, it is clear that the future of retail is mobile.

To illustrate the point Allistair related the story of one customer who found, researched and then bought a £90,000 Bentley on eBay while enjoying a Sunday lunch with his family in a Zizzi’s restaurant. To complete the deal he paid online, via his mobile phone, using PayPal.

When eBay phoned – just to check that the purchase was not a spoof – the customer’s explanation was simple: “I buy everything else online, so why not buy a car”.

Auto retailers are embracing mobile; that much is certain. In our recent Online Strategy survey, 67% of you said your website was ‘mobile enabled’. But are you always getting it right? Workshop facilitator, Martin Wilson from Mobileweb was able to point out some quite fundamental errors in recently created, high-profile, mobile-specific sites.

All of which points the way forward for our next Web Workshop. Mobile is so big that it deserves a day to itself and we intend to bring that to you shortly. Watch this space ….

Rupert Saunders

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Tags: Allistair Carmichael, auto retail, eBay, i-street, mobile, online, retail, Web workshop