Remember those days when, if your customers wanted information on a vehicle they either had to come to your dealership, or buy a car magazine? Yeah… Those days are over. When a consumer finally comes into your showroom, they armed with the type of knowledge that puts THEM in control, not your sales force. Now, your sales force, if trained correctly, will be able to control the sale while still allowing the consumer to feel empowered, but today, the power is in the consumer’s corner. As we all know, according to NADA statistics, the average consumer is spending close to 10 hours online researching a vehicle before they take any type of action towards making a buying decision. We know that once a consumer knows what they want, they need to find out where to buy it.
If you have a good amount of competition in your PMA, then how can you make yourself stand out, and do whatever you can (outside of stalking that consumer, going to their house, making them sit down and listen to you), to make sure they are looking at your inventory and eventually come to buy from you? Sure, you can retarget them, or display a price so low that your competition will complain to their rep about you. But why not take a cue from one of the world’s most successful companies and their website?
Pictured below is a product display page from Amazon. As you’ll notice, above the fold (the section of the page that you see first, without having to scroll down), all of the most relevant information is right there. There is no need to scroll down the page to find out all of the products key features or price. As you’ll notice, the key features, price, reviews and the number in stock are positioned to be the first thing you see. This gives the consumer everything they NEED to know, and if they want to explore more, they can.
So how does your VDP look compared to something like this? Chances are, it’s nothing like this. It probably looks something like this:
So what do you know about this pre-owned vehicle, just from looking at the picture? Well, you know that it has an automatic transmission (when was the last time you saw a Buick with a manual?), you know it has a V6 engine, it’s white (though the stock photo would make you think differently) and it has a black interior. You also have a slight idea of what the price is…
And what is below the fold? All of the relevant information a consumer wants to know about the vehicle they are interested… or is it? This is what you’ll typically find when a dealer lists options on a vehicle:
Take a quick look at this feature listing. What do you notice? What don’t you notice? According to this list, the vehicle has a back up camera and cooling front seats. It also comes equipped with a blind spot monitor, bluetooth and navigation. These are key features that every consumer would want to know about right up front. It’s good to know that the car comes with an AM/FM radio, cruise control and air conditioning (most vehicles these days do), but why not put your inventory’s best features up front and right there for consumers to see?
Imagine listing six or eight of your vehicle’s top features right there, above the fold, don’t you think it would make your potential customers far more likely to submit a lead to your dealership? You can keep the boring, generic, feature list below the fold, but displaying the best features of your inventory will convert far better. Also, in the case of pre-owned and CPO vehicles, you can display what has been done to the vehicle as far as reconditioning is concerned. Did you replace the brakes and tires? Let your consumers know!! Mix in recon details with key features of the vehicle, and that way, if someone attempts to lowball your price, you can easily come back showing them that $$$$ was spent on the vehicle.
In other words, bring VALUE to your listings. Imagine if you were selling the vehicle yourself, you’d want to let the customer know all of the good details and why its the right vehicle at the right price, right? So why do so many VDPs list all of the key features in a generic, alphabetized list? Speak with your website provider and find out if key features can be placed ABOVE THE FOLD. Put all of the highlights front and center for the consumer to see and leave the boring details below the fold. Remember, most consumers are not patient when it comes to finding information, hence why 99% of Google searches are incredibly effective. People want to know what they need to know, and they want to know it NOW! Not giving it to the consumer just means they become aggravated and will either find someplace else (your competition) where the information is presented directly in front of them, or, they’ll enter your dealership even more defensive than normal, leaving your sales staff with a steep uphill battle.
But what else can you do besides presenting the vehicles highlights immediately? Having at least twenty good quality pictures (not stock photos) will give the car life. Decide on a set number of pictures to take for EVERY vehicle on your lot and commit to it. Make sure that every listing starts off with the same angle. For instance, you’ll want to make every first picture a shot looking at the vehicle’s right front corner, or the very front of the vehicle. In other words, build uniformity. Also, where possible, have one of your sales staff take a one to one and a half minute video, doing a virtual walkaround of the vehicle and post it on the VDP. You can even start aggregating live customer testimonials to put on each VDP. Bring the value front and center and you’ll see a significant increase in eleads and closed deals.