Car dealer articles of interest
Just as we strive to provide your customers with valuable information that keeps them interested in your dealership website, we do the same for you. We scour the web continuously to find articles and information that might help you, the car dealer, with your marketing. We update this section of the website regularly.
Articles:
Dealers Face Up to Facebook and Friends
Car dealers are trying to work out where they best fit into the online phenomenon of social networking.
It shows how far they have come since the 1990s, when many dealers feared the Internet might ruin them by eliminating them from the car-buying process. Instead, dealers have gone on to find the Internet a useful channel to connect with their customers, garner sales leads and display virtual inventory.
Now they are trying to figure out how to use the vastness of social networking to their advantage through an array of online sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube.
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Digital Content Must Click with Consumers
By Steven Finlay
WardsAuto.com LAS VEGAS – October 19, 2009 -- All automotive advertising matters, including established forms such as television, even though “20% of people watching prime-time TV are either drunk or asleep,” quips Jim Farley, Ford Motor Co.’s communications and marketing guru.
While not abandoning traditional media, Farley is spurring a drive to digital, with about 25% of Ford’s media buys now going online. About 50% goes to television.
Young Car Buyers Shun Frills, Thrills
By Steve Finlay
WardsAuto.comLAS VEGAS – October 19, 2009 -- As a growing consumer force, Generation Yers may rival the Baby Boomers. But the younger set shows more conservative tastes as auto buyers, a researcher says.
Gen Y ranges from people in their mid teens to early 30s, and many of them, who are relatively new to the automotive marketplace, appear to be no-frills, no thrills-shoppers.
They particularly are interested in affordability and practicality, says Chance Parker, a research director for J.D. Power and Associates.
Car Buyers Step Up Internet Use Close to Purchase
By Steve Finlay
WardsAuto.comLAS VEGAS – October 19, 2009 -- The closer shoppers are to buying a vehicle, the more they check out
automotive Internet sites, according to data presented at a J.D. Power and Associates conference here.
Three-fourths of all car buyers use the Internet during the shopping cycle, and within a month of purchase,
90% of them are visiting websites of auto makers, dealers and third-parties, says Arianne Walker, a research director for J.D. Power’s U.S. automotive division.
I know they are ripping me off but who's ripping them off?
By Larry Bailin, bestselling author, Mommy, Where Do Customers Come From?
The Better Business Bureau reports that car dealerships are the most complained about business type with cell phone sales a very distant second. No big surprise that car dealers are the brunt of consumer complaints. Car dealers have historically had a reputation for underhanded dealings which is why the term, “car salesman” evokes images of plaid jackets, patent leather shoes and toothpick-sucking shysters.
To be fair, not all car dealerships are bad and not all car salespeople are scam artists, in fact most of them are quite the opposite. There is no shortage of bad salespeople and unscrupulous businesses in every industry, car dealers just seem to have gotten permanently tattooed with an unethical moniker.
Local auto dealers defy downturn
By Adrianne Pasquarelli
Published: March 24, 2009 - 2:32 pm
Despite Detroit’s sinking fortunes, not every automobile dealership is in the tank these days.
In fact, some of the nation’s top-performing dealerships are based right here in the New York area, according to an annual list released by Automotive News Monday. The list ranks 125 dealers in the U.S. by the number of new retail units sold in 2008, and is just in time for the annual International Auto Show, which begins April 10.
Two local players had an increase in revenue last year, primarily from Internet sales, along with service and parts.