MOLINE, Ill. -

Any dealer would dread this situation. A well-planned campaign or promotion gets a customer who is ready to buy to the showroom, but the vehicle this person wants to purchase isn’t on the lot.

So dealers don’t lose that “up” to a competitor, more salespeople and managers are turning to their online auction channels and showing those customers a “retail view” of the vehicle they desire.

Mike Wolf has 30 years of automotive retail experience. For the past 10 years, Wolf has been the general sales manager of Courtesy Nissan, a standalone franchise rooftop in Moline, Ill. — about 150 miles west of Chicago at the Iowa boarder.

For Wolf, auction retail view leads to making a sale with the aforementioned  customers, not watching those “ups” leave with metal from another store.

“Everybody tells them, ‘don’t worry I’ll get you one.’ They’re used to hearing that,” Wolf shared in an interview with Auto Remarketing. “When you actually produce something in writing and pictures, that shows you really do have the car located. Now it’s just matter of getting down to dollar and cents.

“Especially if you have somebody who has been shopping for a particular model and you produce picture and information, it may not be on the lot but at least it becomes a reality that you’re going to get them this car as long as we agree on a price. It makes all the difference,” he added.

While Wolf has had success using an auction’s retail view at his franchised store, independent lots are doing the same thing.

Greg Goolsby owns Westview Motors, an independent store that’s been in operation for close to 40 years in Hillsboro, Ohio. Twice in just in the past few weeks, Goolsby used the capability of an auction’s retail view functionality to obtain the vehicle customers wanted.

In one case, Goolsby found the perfect Ford F-150 one man desired; a truck that had all of the features at a price he could afford.

In another instance, Goolsby sold a Lincoln MKX early this year to a buyer who was extremely satisfied with the unit. However, the MKX owner was involved in a collision that totaled the unit. The customer loyalty Goolsby had forged with the earlier deal allowed him to use the retail view capability to email details about another MKX that was also in Illinois. Westview Motors secured the vehicle after the customer gave the go-ahead and made another sale.

Goolsby scoured the lanes at physical auctions in nearby Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, looking for that MKX, but none were available at a price he was willing to floor, but the retail view allowed him to pinpoint the exact unit needed at a price that worked.

“That’s where the difference is now compared to years before where I’d have to go to the auction and try to wait it out,” Goolsby acknowledged to Auto Remarketing. “A lot of times you’ve lost your customer by that time. This helps you a lot to find something for somebody quicker. People like the email end of it, too.”

Like Goolsby, Wolf regularly sees what online auction channels and their retails views can do for today’s dealerships. Wolf believes it’s how stores need to operate nowadays.

“If you try to stay with the tactics and the way we did business when I first got in, you’re already passed by,” Wolf emphasized. “Everybody is using this technology and using computers and the Internet. You have so much information that we’re almost on information overload. If you can’t supply your customer with so much information, they’re just going to find somebody who can.”

While both Wolf and Goolsby use the retail view accessibility offered by Manheim, other auctions such as ADESA, ServNet, OPENLANE and Ally Auto Remarketing all provide dealers with some form of retail view functionality.

Beyond making the sale, dealers think retail views provide them with another crucial element to running a successful rooftop.

“Retail view builds confidence that you have the car, you’ve done some work and that you’re concerned about what their needs and wants are,” Wolf said.

“My salespeople know about it and love it. If one of their customers is looking for something we don’t have, that’s one of the first things we do,” he added.

How Can Retail View Help Build Loyalty?

The point Wolf made regarding customer loyalty was almost exactly the same as the one shared by OPENLANE’s Ed Berkowitz, who is vice president of open auctions. Berkowitz told Auto Remarketing that when he travels to dealerships throughout the country, he preaches about how retail view can boost customer loyalty because it presents information to customers in a way that’s likely quite familiar.

“In the end, the retail customer develops a relationship with that dealer,” Berkowitz insisted.

“If I am comfortable with that dealer, they can show me a retail view of a car or show me a car on the lot,” he continued. “Dealers have really upped their game to say they have a lot of resources. But those resources aren’t why you’re buying from me; you’re buying from me because you have confidence in working with me.”

As a result, Berkowitz is noticing dealers aren’t carrying as many units on their lots as they might have several years ago. He conceded tight wholesale supplies are a contributing factor but so is the capability of using a retail view to cater to a customer rather than always needing that vehicle sitting on the lot.

“I’ve been on so many dealer lots in the last two months, and they’re ghostly, relative to what they’ve been in the past,” Berkowitz surmised. “There are so many fewer cars on these dealer lots that they’re able to turn the screen and find and a car and show the important information to draw that customer in.

“Dealers are turning cars faster,” he went on to say. “Part of that is just less inventory out in the market. Dealers are turning cars faster probably because they’re buying cars more effectively, given some of the technology tools at their disposal, such as  things like retail view, where they don’t buy to stock, but they can buy to demand.”

Auctions See Retail View Use Growing

At Manheim, company executives have watched retail view usage grow. During the past 18 months, the percentage of dealers using retail views has gone up 6 percent.

“The size of the Manheim inventory really provides our dealer customers with a much larger inventory pool to sell out of,” noted Joe George, vice president of Manheim Digital.

“Nowadays, it’s not just about the cars they have physically on their lot, it’s also about how quickly and easily they can source the entire Manheim inventory for a particular car a customer is looking for,” George continued.

“That helps dealers on a lot of different levels. It helps them from a carrying as many cars as they have in the past because of capital constraints,” he added.
Meanwhile over at ADESA, the auction company is considering a shift of a pilot program that’s worked so well in Canada to the U.S.

Vice president of e-business, sales and operations Jason Ferreri explained ADESA’s virtual inventory platform in Canada allows dealers to take some or all inventory located at company auctions and display those vehicles as a part of their store website, and the listings contain condition reports, bulk photos and more.

Ferreri acknowledged to Auto Remarketing that ADESA is continuing to put infrastructure in place to make this virtual inventory capability a possibility in the U.S, but the fact that the discussion is taking place has the ADESA executive excited.

“Technology has evolved even more than I would have thought, and I thought I was pretty aggressive four years ago as to where we would be as far as number of cars sold in an online environment,” Ferreri indicated. “Probably some of the macroeconomic forces accelerated that growth beginning in 2008 with the economic downturn and dealers being forced to become more efficient.

“In many ways it’s a continual challenge to stay current with dealers,” he went on to say. “Dealers today are so much more progressive than they were even four years ago. I don’t care what anyone says — they’re quick to adapt. If you go to any auction,  the amount of smartphones and iPhones and what dealers are doing with technology is pretty incredible.”

Like Manheim and ADESA, Ally Auto Remarketing (or SmartAuction), launched its Virtual Showroom back in 2008. Ally’s view also presents vehicle information in a way buyers are familiar with, especially if they’ve done any amount of shopping online.

Year to date, dealers have conducted more than 70,000 searches through Ally’s Virtual Showroom, according to vice president Steve Kapusta.

“In this very competitive market, knowing which vehicles you need to balance your inventory is only half the battle,” Kapusta stressed. “Now more than ever, resources like SmartAuction’s Virtual Showroom and its online auction are proving to be an essential part of a dealer’s strategy to find quality used vehicles for customers while managing inventory costs.

“The efficiency of the SmartAuction service has consistently allowed Ally to reduce vehicle remarketing costs, which improves net residual values, and gain insight into used car values as part of our lease residual risk disciplines,” Kapusta went on to say.

From the vantage point of independent auctions, ServNet has offered dealers retail view capability through Auction Pipeline. Furthermore, Auction Pipeline also has a public user section so potential buyers can scour inventory like a dealer might.

ServNet chairman Bob McConkey explained public access to Auction Pipeline restricts views of floor prices and bidding activity, but all of the information most inquiring purchasers would want is available. Furthermore, McConkey — who also heads up DAA Northwest in Spokane, Wash. — said the platform can guide users toward dealers who can obtain that vehicle.

“If they find a car on Auction Pipeline, they then can utilize the services of a dealer to access that car and make the acquisition,” McConkey pointed out. “It’s one of the evolutionary projects Auction Pipeline has.”