Car retail was already in a phase of primary digitization when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and now, some industry observers, the transition will accelerate.
Lockdown has made consumers more comfortable with online video calls and grocery shopping from their sofas, and has left stores in a position for distance promotion with a highly visual competitive advantage.
And now that showrooms can re-accommodate buyers in person, some of which retailer motor vehicles deserve not only to go back to their old time-consuming strategies and processes.
Rupert Pontin (pictured), director of analysis of the Car Sales Platform Cazana, believes that the time consumers spend at a dealership will most likely decrease. Buyers may be less eager to check a car, or more of them would like to review the driving at their convenience. The virtual boast of distributors, their online presence, is vitally important.
“New and used car sales operations will have to adapt to more flexible and remote promotion to the public,” he said.
AM100 broker organization Peter Vardy is preparing for part of its online car sales until 2023. Invest heavily in e-commerce in sales and after-sales, and its online retail platform Silver Bullet integrates auto search, portion exchange, financing and procurement execution. Its lead executive, Peter Vardy, said the system, which can also be used on the site, frees up brokers’ time to deal with more customers.
Similarly, at Volvo Car UK, CHIEF executive Kristian Elvefors expects all new car sales from the brand to be made on its online ordering platform until 2025, at a dealership, at home or in the customer’s workplace.
Adjustments in retail and the way consumers get their cars were expected to provide more convenience to the customer, yet they pose demanding situations for many dealers who have locked capital in showrooms at the request of automakers. corporate identity systems.
Thus, small teams of dealers who lack the resources and capital to expand new facilities in line with the transition of consumers to the “use” of the property, will have to collaborate with each other to gain scale, according to Rep. Guiseppe Marotta.
Marotta spent 4 years as political advisor to CECRA, the European broker distribution body, and is working with a joint venture created through seven teams of Italian franchise brokers to advise them on long-term mobility services.
“The distributors have been concerned about the lease for a long time, but MaaS goes even further. Our purpose is to make sure distributors think that way,” he said. “The MaaS market can be tracked through distributors, regardless of size.”
Better use of knowledge in the coming years will allow distributors to appreciate more the price of their customers. Marcus Dacombe, foreign director of product marketing at CDK Global, believes distributors want to plot the lifetime price of each customer, which doesn’t end after purchase.
Dealers will have to offer services and prices throughout the life cycle of car ownership, as valuable gains can be made in the aftermarket, which is too ignored.
“By combining customer knowledge with the wisdom of applicable touchpoints, dealers can have more useful conversations with customers at every step of the car acquisition and ownership journey,” Dacombe said.
James Tew, managing director of Ivendi, agreed that knowledge would play a role in improving broker operations, helping them refocus their operations. Partnerships and integrations will be needed to make this happen, because motor vehicle retail is such a diverse and complex industry and riders can’t expect to have a single tool that does everything they need.
The last few months have made very clear the complexity of broker processes, and this is something he believes he wants to replace to ensure his long-term prosperity. Simplified omnichannel sales processes, device knowledge and learning will help teams manage higher transaction volumes much more efficiently.
For example, Tew (pictured) predicts that retail groups will adopt centrally controlled groups to sell lucrative financing and add-ons such as video technology insurance or phone calls. It questions the merit of having a person to do it in each and every showroom.
Such advances would possibly be quite herbal extensions of the classes learned in detail, but Tew believes that the way brands help franchisees deserve to be replaced in the future, allowing them to expand into the new facilities consumers need.
He believes franchisees want to be rewarded more for the joy of the logo they will offer at the festival with other new car suppliers, such as contract rental brokers, who will have much lower overheads and offer optimized fun.
If distributors are going to continue with the home delivery facilities that some have followed the closure, they will have to be able to bear the cost. Tew said there’s obviously a market for home deliveries and that many will gladly pay for convenience, but click-and-charge is a less difficult solution for most.
“Everyone has to make sure they have a click offer and charge as standard, and then eventually a delivery service if they can and see the demand. For a new vehicle, I do not think it is debatable from the visitor’s point of view, however, the factor for the rider is that, as this is a remote sale, the visitor has the right to return to the vehicle ».
Shaun Harris, codeweavers sales manager, said that not everything would be done online and that there are still many other people who want to buy in the showroom even after making some of the paintings remotely. Distributors want to enjoy the pleasure they can offer. He added: “I think the car has things to know about from retail … see the influences of how other people buy things in general and what it means for the car.”
ICDP general manager Steve Young (pictured) said many distributors had not taken advantage of the lockdown scenario well to implement new methods and be informed about how to use those equipment to give consumers the ability to manage more steps online. He suspects that, despite the experience of coronavirus, maximum sales will still be “closed” in the showroom, but consumers will take more steps on their online journey.
He added: “Maybe after visiting two or 3 dealerships, they will have two to three, or more, video conversations sitting comfortably on their couch, before visiting an unmarried dealership. Dealers now have the opportunity to be informed and verify new tools, and if they need to stay at the center of the sales procedure in the “new” standard, the time has come to invest.”
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Live Automotive Management: where franchised and independent dealers will have everything they want to know about the operation of a fashion showroom and a service and repair center adapted to the virtual era.
When: November 12, 2020
Where: Birmingham NEC
AM Magazine: 2020 publication of the Newspress Awards Automotive Industry
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