Many leading retailers today collect more than half of their revenue online. They can credit their success in large part to presenting all costs with no surprises in their digital shopping carts. Estimates by eMarketer predict that total online purchases could climb to one-fifth of all retail purchases by 2020. We’ve already seen this trend lead to the closing of major brick-and-mortar stores that fail to heed this growing consumer shopping preference.
E-commerce is thriving in nearly every industry except automotive. Frost & Sullivan predicts only 5 percent of all cars will be sold online by 2020. The same study, however, estimates that the majority (60 percent to 70 percent) of new car sales leads will be generated digitally by then, with leads going to those dealerships that provide the most accurate, transparent online pricing.
According to the DealerSocket 2016 Dealership Action Report, only 30 percent of consumers feel that they are ready to make an auto purchase entirely online. Many factors have an effect, but central to the problem is consumers’ lack of trust in the car buying process.
Trust, transparency, and accurate pricing all must be improved to deliver the optimal online experience and move buyers into the dealership.
Online Accuracy Means More Sales Floor Activity
The majority of digital retail tools today help consumers calculate an estimated price through a “build your own car” tool. This model, however, tends to leave out many hidden costs and fees, creating a fragmented estimate and unfavorable experience once the customer is sitting at the sales desk.
These tools allow customers to price their deal online by entering a trade-in value, a credit score, a down payment amount, vehicle options, mileage, and other information to come up with a calculation. Upon structuring the best deal, the customer visits the dealership thinking he or she knows all of the costs and that half of the desking process is already completed. The actual buying experience, however, is far different.
Since this digital retail tool is not integrated with the rest of the system, the customer is asked once again to provide all of his or her information to the salesperson when he or she arrives at the dealership. He or she is then presented with terms that do not jive with what was calculated beforehand — off by hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Financing fees, registration, title, other dealer fees, add-ons, and up-sells start piling up, creating the discrepancy. The result is a bad customer experience where trust and confidence is never established by the dealer.
The DealerSocket Precise Price digital retail tool was created to address the frustration of both the customer and the dealership.
Dealers must create a positive online experience that extends through to the final signature. The accuracy and transparency provided by a digital retail tool such as Precise Price helps dealers win back customer trust with a seamless online-to-store experience and more efficient transactions.
Precise Price benefits both the dealer and customer:
- Time savings — Precise Price integrates with DealerSocket CRM for greater efficiency, eliminating the need for the customer to provide his or her information twice
- Accuracy — All variables are taken into account to structure an accurate, reliable price
- Consistency — The digital retail experience can be branded as the dealer’s own with built-in web tools that carry the look and feel of the dealership’s website
- No surprises — Customer trust is strengthened with better alignment and no surprises during the digital-to-store experience
An accurate digital retail tool can improve the desking process and customer experience to the point that a true online sales transaction eventually will be viewed with trust and confidence.
Today, Precise Price is closing the gap between the digital and brick-and-mortar experience. It is the only tool that offers a transparent, customized, integrated, and mutually beneficial digital retail experience.
With Precise Price, customer confidence and trust in the digital-to-store experience is renewed. Dealers spend less time collecting customer information and reviewing pricing, instead devoting their time to meeting with more customers and closing more sales.
To learn more about Precise Price, DealerSocket’s fully integrated digital retail tool, visit https://dealersocket.com/precise-price.