 |
|
By Ralph Kisiel Automotive News / September 26, 2005 A new survey of auto dealers finds that skepticism about Internet sales has disappeared, and the majority of dealers view the Internet as increasingly important to their business. In a telephone survey of 100 dealerships conducted in July and August by Black Book Online, 78 percent said that the importance of the Internet has "strongly or moderately" increased over the last year. In addition, 52 percent said they use the Internet for sales and marketing. This is Black Book Online 's first survey on dealers' Internet use. Black Book Online is the Web version of the guides used by dealers to appraise used vehicles. Further support The survey results are similar to findings in J.D. Power and Associates' 2005 Dealer Satisfaction with Online Buying Services Study, further supporting the notion that dealers continue to grow more comfortable with using the Web for sales and marketing. "What I see is that the Internet has grown up a bit and is now becoming a legitimate business channel," says Mike McFall, president of Veretech Inc., of Boca Raton, Fla., which licenses its technology to Black Book Online. "In fact, (it is) more legitimate than a lot of other things that dealers do because it's very measurable. Dealers are learning how to measure this and are learning how to quantify it." Volkswagen dealer Eddie Lee, dealer principal at Lewisville Volkswagen near Dallas, said he has been particularly impressed with AutoTrader.com. The site lists new and used vehicles. "We actually tried getting off their premium service for a while, which has the new cars on it, and we suffered," Lee says. Lee's dealership generates sales leads from its own Web site. It also uses the Dallas/Fort Worth Area Volkswagen Dealers Web site, dfwvw.com. Seven VW dealers are listed on that site. "Our numbers went off the chart, the number of hits we were getting," Lee says of dfwvw.com. Chat room Lee's store also uses the Web to let customers communicate with a dealership representative in a chat room on the dealership's Web site. Black Book Online queried dealership Internet, sales and general managers and other dealership personnel for its survey. By adding Black Book Online to their Web sites, dealers can offer their customers the ability to get an instant third-party trade appraisal. While third-party Web sites were the first to sell Internet sales leads to dealerships 10 years ago, dealers and manufacturers have launched their own lead-generating sites. The survey revealed that dealerships say they get better leads from their own sites and from manufacturer sites than from third-party sites. Specific third-party sites were not named in the survey, but some of the more known include autobytel.com, carsdirect.com and dealix.com. In the survey, 80 percent of the respondents rated the quality of Internet leads from their own Web sites as moderate to high, and 72 percent said that leads from automaker Web sites were of similar quality. But only 46 percent of the respondents said the quality of the leads they purchased from third-party sites were of moderate to high quality. "Dealers have depended on third-party providers who have done a good job of providing leads," McFall says. "But what we see now is the mix increasing to include more leads from the dealer's own Web sites and from the manufacturers." |
||||||||||||||
Copyright © 2004 Boost Motor Group. All rights reserved.