The shopper is on your dealership lot.

Game over, right? The shopping and research process: done and done.  

Not anymore it isn’t.

In an interview here at the NADA Convention & Expo, Jeni Pecard of Cars.com said that, “because of these mobile devices and having this information available to you at all times, the consumer journey has changed.”

And the online-to-offline window of that journey is “pretty tight,” she said.

“People are using their mobile devices all the way up until they walk up to the desk and they’re ready to buy,” said Pecard, manager of site analytics at Cars.com.

Pecard was talking with Auto Remarketing about the company’s new Lot Insights product, which is designed to give dealers a better picture of what consumers are doing on their mobile phones while they are at or near their dealership.

Lot Insights is one of two products Cars.com released at NADA, both of which not only tackle different stages of car ownership, but do so with mobile in mind.

Cars.com may have started in the car listings space, but it’s clear the company’s approach goes far beyond that.

In a news release at the convention, chief executive officer Alex Vetter called his company “the trusted bridge between consumers and local dealers,” and said that Cars.com strives to serve as relationship-builder through all car ownership stages.

These days, a big part of that ownership lifecycle and buying process centers on mobile.

In addition to Lot Insights, Cars.com officially debuted Sell & Trade at NADA, which gives consumers a way to sell their cars through an app and gives dealers a way to stock up used-car inventory.

Through the Quick Offer mobile app, consumers can upload information on the car they wish to sell and get real-time online offers from dealers in their area.

Meanwhile, dealers can tap into the Quick Offer for Dealers mobile app to bid on cars.

Auto Remarketing talked to Cars.com senior director of product Joe Oliveri last July about Sell & Trade, which Cars.com had been piloting for six months at that point.

At NADA, Oliveri provided an update. He said the company continued to test Sell & Trade since the summer, rolled out to some larger markets in January and then ultimately conducted the big launch at the convention.

“This is one way to provide transparency to the consumer, and bring that component of the transaction online,” Oliveri said of Sell & Trade. And help the process run quicker, he added.

Seems to be a common theme in the business, as more of the processes move towards digitalization and expediency.

Just take a look around the expo hall at NADA.

“There are companies here that are looking to bring some of that transaction online, and it’s going to continue to become an element of what consumers want,” Oliveri said. “Cars.com feels like this is our first step, at least, to help make it easier for the consumer, but also bring a very qualified — in this case, it’s called a seller or a buyer — to the dealership’s store.”

Say the consumer is already at the store. And like many of us, they’re tethered to that smartphone.

Cars.com addressed that through the Lot Insights product. It provides analytics on mobile shoppers’ activities at or near a dealership lot.

“Lot Insights is a report that really helps dealers understand consumer behavior from a mobile perspective,” Pecard said.

“The whole game has changed with the advent of mobile, so we wanted to start sharing information with the dealers about what they’re doing while they’re looking at their phones on the lot,” she added.

So, what are consumers looking at? Inventory, for one. 

In fact, Pecard said more than half are still browsing inventory while they’re on the lot. Beyond that, many also are checking out dealership information.

But here’s where the data gets even more pivotal.

Citing a third-quarter Cars.com Behavioral Analytics on Mobile Study, Pecard said that when shoppers are at a dealership, not even half are checking out the store they’re visiting and eight in 10 of these folks are checking out the competition.

Statistics like those underscore the importance of mobile, which has become a big part of the strategy at Cars.com and, really, a focal point for car-buying in general.

This is evident in both Lot Insights and Sell & Trade. 

“Mobile is at the epicenter of our lives,” Vetter said in the news release. “It only makes sense to develop solutions that meet the needs of today’s consumers and advertisers, and Sell & Trade does just that. As the automotive industry continues to shift into a mobile-first world, Cars.com is committed to lead the way.”

Vetter adds: “Lot Insights is a game-changer. We are the first in our space to quantify mobile shoppers on dealership lots across the country and capture their shopping behavior. This is a great first step for the industry to start advancing the attribution conversation and evolve marketing strategies and analytics to align with today’s consumers.”