If you were to ask your parents the story of purchasing their first car, I bet they’d have a tale to tell. Maybe it’s one of acquiring it from a neighbour for a heavily discounted sum and a case of beer. Or of seeing a ‘for sale’ ad with a small, grainy photo in the AutoTrader Mag down at your local 7/11 store. Or maybe they waltzed into their closest dealer, took their new wheels for a spin around the block before sealing the deal with a firm handshake.
How times have changed. These days, a lot of the research - and sometimes even the purchase - of a car is done entirely online. In fact, 90% of car sales start with a digital click. Sure, test drives and handshakes still form part of the process, but by the time a customer arrives in your showroom, you can bet they’ve clicked, searched, browsed and read every online piece of info about the car they’ve come to see.
Picture this: a customer walks into your showroom. It’s pristine, with bumpers perfectly lined up, and no empty spots in sight. Every car is freshly waxed, just waiting for its new owner to drive it off into the sunset. The impression this has on the customer is huge: you’re professional, you’re trustworthy, you’re a company that your customer wants to drop thousands of dollars on a car with.
And why wouldn’t they? You and your team spend countless hours and thousands of dollars each year to make sure you are the best equipped to welcome customers to your showroom, to build relationships with them, and to hand them the keys to their perfect vehicle.
Now, imagine an alternate universe where that same customer walks into your showroom and stumbles upon this scenario: instead of sparkling vehicles neatly arranged in perfect rows, they see cars carelessly parked across the showroom floor. Some of those vehicles are dirty and some are even covered with a tarp and a small sign that says: “Coming soon”.
Your clients will probably think that they’ve stumbled into some automotive episode of the Twilight Zone, right? Like I said, alternate universe, because of course, you would never let your dealership look anything like this.
So why do so many automotive websites depict this type of chaos? While it is imperative that your physical dealership is as well equipped for success as possible, you are doing your brand a disservice if you are not applying the same logic to your dealership’s online presence.
These days, your website is the digital equivalent of your showroom, and a SRP your dealership’s lot. Whatever the number of people physically visiting your store each day, there are tens, if not hundreds, times that many visiting you online.
With this being said, it’s crucial that you treat your website and digital presence with the same level of care & attention you do your offline assets. SRPs with low-quality images, inconsistent displays, or, the horror of all horrors, inventory with no images at all, don’t fairly reflect your business and could very likely lose you a sale.
Solutions like CarCutter exist to help improve your digital experience, ensuring your inventory looks just as good online as it does on the lot. To discover more, request a free demo.
