Most Customers Shop the Internet First
According to the 2007 Dealer eBusiness Performance Study, most customers begin their shopping experience online. In TheSubprimeReport.com, our sister blog, I wrote about the study.
Consider these facts:
- 88% of automobile shoppers start their shopping experience online
- 79% of online shoppers start the buying process with an internet search (Google, Yahoo, etc.)
The major implication of these two facts is that the automotive business is now primarily an internet business first. It is not becoming this way, it already is. Dealers must now focus time and money on improving their online presence to make it as user friendly as possible. As usual, dealers are behind the times when it comes to technology. Many dealers are still operating as primarily offline businesses, with internet departments treated much like Special Finance Departments have been: as necessary evils, not a valuable source of sales volume and profits.
Generating leads from dealer websites should be a priority. Form pages for financing or price quotes should be conspicuously placed on the front page of the dealer website, not hidden among “financing” or “request a quote” subpages. There needs to be clear and compelling calls to action on the front page, above the fold.
Dealers must staff their business development offices with enough personnel to handle internet leads quickly and with quality. Internet salespeople need to be paid well, and trained to sell your particular brand online and sell the benefits of your dealership to prevent defection of internet leads to other stores and brands.
More people in general are using search engines. Compete.com reported recently that in November, over 8 billion searches were conducted on the popular engines. That’s about 43 searches per person per month. This is more reason for auto dealers to get with the program. Dealers need to take a close look at their websites and ask if they are optimized for search and for lead generation.