WebProNews

This is a great read. I started in the car business in 99 and was put in charge of the internet department quickly there after. I watched it grow so much so that within 4 years we had an entire internet team of 8 people. Every dealership is different but most have a process in place for special pricing through the internet department. You can also normally cut out the negotiating process for those dealers that will provide you with the information you want before coming in. In my experience the car you inquire about usually isn't the car you buy when you come in.

These 3rd party sites like autotrader.com and cars.com have sites with a lot of content and educate the shoppers so they will come to their sites for education and in return they hope they use their service to purchase a car. Autotrader has established themselves as the "google" of the auto industry. These services have taken advantage of the lack of SEO & SEM from dealers and are taking traffic from dealers for keywords that are specific to some dealers. I have even seen a 3rd party site buying a dealership name on google ppc campaign. More than likely selling the inquiry from that search term to the dealer.

Dealership websites need to get better at educating and becoming more dynamic. A lot of times the only things that change on the website is inventory. JD Powers did a study a couple years ago that stated that 80% of people that visit an automotive dealership website leave without contacting the dealership. Dealers need to become better at conversion.

Great article and keep the automotive articles coming.

I Wonder if you would get the same deals and offerings if you purchased Online rather than on the lot - kinda like retail stores offer different products online opposed to instore