Online retailing: where dealers win

  16 December 2013

I’ve been sorting out Auto Retail Network’s annual survey of mobile website retailing by franchised retailers.

The survey is in its second year and aims to show how advanced the world of auto retail is in terms of mobile retailing. In other words, how many dealers have a smartphone-friendly website. We’ll be sending out the survey this week, so if you see the email, please take time to respond.

However, while we’re all concerned that we’re not up to the minute in online retailing and that we’re losing customers because our mobile presence isn’t good enough, let me tell you this…

I’ve been trying to book a skiing holiday. I can report that, when it comes to mobiles and online presence, auto retail is far, far more advanced than the travel industry. While the amount I’m going to spend on my holiday isn’t as much as I paid for my car, it’s still a hefty sum. Forget ‘wow!’ factors; travel websites just can’t cut it. I found myself actively looking for holiday websites that were mobile-friendly so that I could buy from them. Amazingly, I didn’t find any.

In auto retail, mostly there’s no shortage of sites that are mobile friendly and this gives me hope that while technology for dealerships is hard work, the ones that have a mobile website are the ones that are going to win more business.

Tristan Young

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