21 July 2014

With the online side of selling cars dominating an ever increasing proportion of the sales, and aftersales, process it’s no wonder that retailers and manufacturers alike are always looking for an edge.

 This week I spoke to Chris Hayes, marketing director at Toyota, about the different technologies that were available to retailers on a global basis. These include live video from the showroom that not allows customers to chat to a sales person but for the sales person to then take a video camera and show the customer exactly what the car is like there and then – rather than having to rely on a set of stills or even a set video of the car. This way customers can ask to see anything they want of the car.

Chris mentioned that Toyota had recently upgraded its website and had used Auto Retail Network’s Website Report 2013 to see what rivals were doing and also where Toyota could improve.

Last year Toyota came 28^th in the manufacturer ranking, something the brand doesn’t want to repeat this year.Much of Toyota’s poor performance was down to “no mobile site or online service bookings”.The manufacturer now has both these things in place. And that’s just in time, because we’re about to start our annual testing of the top 38 car makers, the top 50 franchised retail group sites and the top 20 used car retailer websites.

The 2014 report will be out this autumn and, because it will be our second report, with more stringent and up to date testing, we’ll be able to see who’s worked to improve and who’s stayed still – which in this industry is the same as going backwards.

Tristan Young

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Tags: 2013 website report, online sales, Toyota