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To
effectively sell online customers you must first understand
who they are, and how they are changing the Traditional Car
Sales process.
A computer, an
Internet connection, a comfortable place to sit, and plenty
of information about you and your competitors products available
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The online car shopper is in
control of the buying process and can easily remove you with
one click.
A common perception
among Internet shoppers is that there are better deals on the
Internet compared to just walking on your lot. In reality, the
biggest difference is that the Internet shopper has access to
loads of information about blue book values, and invoice prices
that several years ago were hard to find. This shopper will
usually want a better deal primarily because they possess that
information. Compare the traditional hit the streets and shop
until you drop buyer with the Internet car shopper that does
most of his pre shopping online, gathering information, and
will already have a deal before leaving the house.
Which style of buying do you think will win out in the long
run?
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When car shoppers log on to the Internet, what
is their purpose, and how do you fit in? To keep things simple,
let us break it down into three broad areas.
1. Entertainment:
Disney, Comedy Central, ESPN etc.. These people don't mind waiting for
stuff to download and will be more tolerant to slow loading sites.
2. E-Commerce:
Amazon.com, etoys.com, MVP.com etc.. People use these sites to do direct
purchases. A car is a very large purchase, and usually requires a test
drive and at least one trip to a dealer.
3. Research:
This is where the average Car shopper should be.
He is looking for new and used vehicles, photos, invoices, prices, book
values etc.. Your web site must download fast and be easy to understand
and surf through. If it takes longer than a minute for a shopper to
figure out how your site works, they are gone. Treat your web site like
a sales tool and keep it simple. Online shoppers don't care about slow
loading Flash presentations, company jingles, and slow loading moving
text boxes. Provide the researching shopper with the right stuff and
you will sell more cars!
Where is the online car
shopper going for information?
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Car
Buying lead Services To
sell more cars you need leads! Like it or not, online car shoppers love these
services. Millions
of online shoppers fill out new and used forms on different
carfinder services everyday.
Some services charge per lead, while others charge a set monthly
fee. This is what many people prefer. They like being able to
do most of their shopping from home and they can eliminate weak
online dealers from their sales process. The
succesful online sales reps use these types of services, have
strong follow up programs, and don't cherry pick leads.
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Classifieds Bringing
your lot to the customer! If you put your
inventory with Prices and photos online, you will definitely
increase sales. Besides your web site, which may not receive
alot of traffic, there are online classifieds where you can
showcase your actual vehicles. Don't
play games and waste your time by keeping prices a secret.
Online shoppers really hate this and they will surf on to a
site with prices. Photos
turn shoppers into buyers!
Shoppers that get a price and see an actual photo are very serious
when they contact you. Many will drive right in, so keep your
inventory current or you will really tick pepole off.
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