Welcome to another edition of Inside Automotive with Jim Fitzpatrick. Today, Jim is joined by Hugh Hathcock and Kalah McCoy, Owner and Executive Vice President of Velocity Automotive Solutions (VAS), respectively.
Customer trust and transparency are crucial elements for every car dealer to consider when selling vehicles digitally. In fact, the majority of consumers today expect a high level of transparency when making large purchases. In order to help car dealers earn that trust, VAS offers digital window stickers as part of the larger VelocityEngage portfolio. Window stickers are the number one tool that gets the most engagement from consumers.
Every time a car comes through your dealership’s inventory, a digital window sticker is generated automatically for consumers with no wait time. From the dealership perspective, McCoy says as customers bring in trade-ins, used car managers have more nuanced data to assess the value of these vehicles.
The readily available information that the digital window sticker provides can even assist dealerships with their finance companies. Due to the current prices of used cars, finance companies might be hesitant to extend larger auto loans without comprehensive knowledge of the specific vehicle. However, with digital window stickers, anyone can have access to a complete vehicle profile. Banks are far more likely to approve larger loans with this information on demand.
“What’s the number one thing dealers want and are thinking now? Acquire more used cars,” says Hathcock. “If a used car manager scans the VIN, up pops the window sticker. He knows everything about the car now. So, he can make a trade appraisal to that consumer that’s going to be the best one.”
McCoy adds that when dealers set their used vehicle prices with various tools, what is not being considered is the crucial element of consumer engagement. If a pricing tool is telling the dealer to lower the price of a vehicle based on the local market and past performance, but the vehicle is getting a high level of engagement, then the dealer might not want to drop the price. This is what digital window stickers and the VelocityEngage portfolio as a whole offer.
“[The portfolio] is great for used cars, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s really for all of your inventory,” explains McCoy. “There’s no reason you wouldn’t have it for every car, new and used.”
At the end of the day, car dealers can have the best digital retailing tools on the best websites, but if consumers can not find all the information they need in one convenient place, they won’t even start the transaction phase.
To learn more about Velocity Automotive Solutions, be sure to visit VelocityAutomotiveSolutions.com.
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