07 April 2019

I don’t know if you tuned into our Auto Retail Live broadcast on Wednesday on how to drive more profit from your used car operations which as usual contained what you would hope would be basic common sense but which a quick trawl of some quite large retailers suggests is missing.

I went on one belonging to a multi-franchise group because as it happens I am in the market to buy two cars and have a generous budget to spend. How frustrating is it when the home page of its used car division offers only the options of selecting a make and model. Why not body type? On Auto Trader you can select from MPVs, SUVs, hatchbacks, city cars and so on which sign-posts you to the right selection of vehicles. But on this multi-franchise group – nothing.

In the trade we may know that VW, Nissan, Mitsubishi and others make pick-ups but does Joe Public? If they don’t, that retailer may well have missed a sale and it certainly doesn’t foster any sense of good will towards the business because searching its site is a hassle.

Our speakers for the web broadcast were Graeme Potts, CEO of the Eden Motor Group, Guy Thomas, group head of product at BCA and Alistair Jeff, head of partner programme at CDK Global, in other words people who know what they are on about, and one of their points was that when cars are advertised the words should stress their advantages and strong points.

Odd then that one retailer, another well known name in the industry, opens the description of one of its cars with the line ‘Fully repaired…’ which struck me as being rather off-putting!

Our webinar had two other key messages. One was the need for consistency in vehicle appraisal, of having sales execs who can accurately value a trade-in so that values are pretty much the same be that the sales person or the sales manager. Training, process and management were the main points being made here and the speakers are absolutely right, it is a critical element in securing a sale.

The second was this; your website is today’s showroom window so take a look at it from the point of view of a browser, of someone who may be just starting out on the journey which ends with a sale but isn’t yet sure what or where to buy or how much they can afford, and honestly assess how well the stock is presented, how easy is it to get a valuation for the current car, how easy is it to arrange finance and all the other things which make your business and your cars stand out from the rest.

Hey, you might even want to offer visitors the chance to select by body style before you even begin to drill down into make and model…

If you did miss our webinar you can catch it here.

John Swift

Editor

Auto Retail Agenda

Tags: BCA, CDK Global, Eden Motor Group, website