Auto Dealer Monthly, May 2015

ONLINE MARKETING My family has been in the car business since my father Jack Kain started selling cars in college He opened his fi rst dealership in 1952 and soon thereaft er started bringing me and my eight brothers and sisters to work with him fi rst as babies in picture frames then as toddlers and teens and fi nally as adults My entire life has been spent in and around car dealerships and Ive received an intimate education in what does work what should work and what might work As an industry weve typically focused on what does work and shied away from should and might Both are unpredictable and take a lot of extra planning investment and eff ort Besides why change when we are making solid profi ts Well the industry continues to change at a rapid pace and even though we are in a high sales cycle now we will experience a downturn at some point in the future I have always been taught that the best time to plan for the future is when business is good I realize Tesla and Shop Click Drive are four letter words to many dealers right now and you might not want to hear it but I believe allowing customers to make their In Favor of By David Kain SHOP CLICK DRIVE The move toward digital retailing is the inevitable result of increased familiarity with self service transactions own online deal is the optimal plan for building trust as well as effi ciency and profi tability As such I think its time to plan for what the future will bring along with all its challenges 18 AUTO DEALER MONTHLY MAY 2015 and opportunities A major challenge is how long it takes to buy and sell a vehicle an opportunity is fi nding a way to make it easier for both sides Th is strategy is built on trust which is the cornerstone of all retailing and particularly digital automotive retailing DIRECT SALES I have always enjoyed studying how automobiles are marketed and sold And I have learned that to a large part it has always been about the inventory You have to stock the units the customer wants to buy and offer them at a price they want to pay Th is is not new information but the variables that aff ect the way you move those units are fl uid Each dealerships purchase process and its sales and F I teams knowledge experience and skillset vary but at the end of the day they are secondary to the inventory and the deal And as much as we like to think the Internet has changed things we are still fi nding that having the right inventory and off ering the right deal still rule But change is in the air and if you dont plan for it you will fi nd it diffi cult to play catch up Th e big question is when will the biggest changes occur and what is the proper plan Craig Newmark the founder of Craigslist once said that one of the reasons we are so advanced in digital is because of the promise that drove it We all felt like the world would change overnight Businesses invested in digital because we wanted to be ready when the revolution arrived Yes the dot com bubble burst but the Internet continued to grow in scope and importance In fact had dealers and vendors not made those early investments we probably would be about 10 years behind the rest of the retail world Th e reason I mention this is to emphasize how long it takes for something to really take hold and work You have to persist through the inevitable ups and downs at the start Th e fully online transaction is an inevitable byproduct of consumers increasing comfort with self service be it with online shopping or automated grocery store check PHOTO BY JOE IMEL COURTESY GENERAL MOTORS CO