17 September 2012

Over the past few months one of the common themes that keeps coming up when I start talking auto retailing is the shift in knowledge from the person selling a car to the person buying the car.

This is entirely because of the Internet.

As is we all know, buyers are now doing all their research online before stepping into a dealership. This means they know exactly what they want and at what price. They also only have to know a single model.

Sales staff have to know an entire range. Easy if you work for Alfa Romeo, less easy if you work for Mercedes.

Manufacturers don’t make it easy either, even though they are acutely aware of the ‘knowledge’ issue at retailer level. Ranges can be wide and varied and soon the number of variants multiplies up. Even if you only have a four-engine line-up with four trim levels across a three-door, five-door and estate version of a car, that’s still 48 variants.

And things aren’t going to get any easier. Audi’s new A3 also comes with three different suspension settings, which loosely translate into normal, hard and harder.
It’s complicated enough when selling a new car, but what about when it comes back on to the used car market?

Tristan Young
Editorial director
Auto Retail Network

See our LinkedIn Group poll on the importance of retailer vs consumer knowledge.

Tags: Audi A3, Model ranges, new cars used cars, online