Digital Dealer - October 2019 - 31

M A R K E TIN G & A D V E R TIS IN G : D IG ITA L R E TA ILIN G

By Melanie Borden
VP of Marketing,
Celebrity Motor Cars

Digital Retailing
Online Experience
Versus In-Store
Last month kicked off
a series of articles I'm
writing on digital retailing,
and now that we've
defined what digital
retailing is, we'll cover
some more ground, but
this time, focusing on the
online experience versus
in-store experience.
Is it the cheaper cost of
the vehicle's monthly payment or is it the incredible
experience the customer
has while in-store that
shoppers are looking for?
And does this vary from
store to store, based on
brand, local market, etc.?
Over the last few months,
I have been determining
if digital retailing works
for Celebrity Motor Cars
select dealerships that
are presently "trying it
out." Celebrity Motor
Cars, if you're not familiar,
is all high-line franchises in New Jersey and
New York, Lexus, BMW,
Mercedes-Benz, Maserati, and Alfa Romeo. I
believe transparency in
pricing and ability to work
your own deal is agnostic
regardless of brand.
Two of the five dealerships I oversee marketing
for decided to dip their toe
into the digital retailing
pool. This change came

based on some additional offerings our OEM
programs had in 2019.
Generally speaking, many
of the manufacturer-endorsed digital marketing
programs are now promoting digital retailing as part
of the overall go-to-market
strategy, and in some
cases, providing additional
regional subvention to the
dealers as an incentive for
making a change.
Just as I was writing
this, an article from Automotive News was posted,
which offered insight on
how younger buyers still
want the dealership and
prefer to have the in-store
experience, versus doing
the entire purchase online.
The article's core
context came from Randy
Berlin, global director of
dealer services at Urban
Science. It focused on
a recent study by Urban
Science with several
eye-opening findings. This
came as somewhat of a
surprise to me as a lot of
the data in recent years
has been telling us that
younger generations want
to "do it all online" and are
visiting less dealerships.
This resonated with me
and has helped me understand where we're at as

an industry with shopping
online for cars.
According to the Urban
Science report:
 The youngest shoppers (Gen Z and younger
millennials) are actively
shopping 3.8 stores on
average.
 The "older" millennials visit 2.6 dealerships
 Generation X shoppers visit 2.4 dealerships.
 Baby boomers visit
2.1 dealerships.
Last July, I attended
a Lexus Eastern Area
marketing meeting,
which Google presented
at and also had some
statistics similar to Urban
Science. Based on their
data, where the average
customer is now shopping
over three dealers, opposed to what we've been
hearing the last few years.
Regarding a test drive of
the vehicle, Urban Science reported 83 percent
of consumers said they
would never buy a vehicle
before sitting behind the
wheel.
Based on this information, our customers want
transparency, and they
want as much information
as possible to aid them in
their shopping experience
to make the best deciD I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

sion for them and/or their
family. Once they have
the information to make
an informed decision, and
they select the dealer who
they feel their getting the
right experience from, they
move forward with the purchasing process in-store.
This brings me to the
top-of-mind question: If you
have an online experience
providing transparency and
competitive pricing, how
do you ensure the customer(s) will still want to come
into your dealership?
The answer is you implement a seamless process
in store, incorporating
the elements from digital
retailing online, interwoven
into your sales process.
This means training and
adjusting your process
to adapt and give your
customers what they want,
which is familiarity to what
they used online, as well
as transparency and a positive experience from start
to finish. You must have
an exceptional, seamless
process from online to instore, for it to not only work
for not, but most importantly, your customers.
MELANIE BORDEN, a
Fashion Institute of Technology
graduate, has spent the majority
of her 14+ year marketing
career in the automotive tech
industry. Melanie has worked
in various atmospheres from
social media startups to a public
tech company in consulting,
marketing, and business
development roles. Presently,
she is the VP of marketing for
Tom Maoli's Celebrity Motor
Cars auto group where she
develops and implements
all facets of the marketing
strategy and built the in-house
advertising agency.

OCTOBER 2019

31
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Digital Dealer - October 2019

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