SAN JOSE, Calif. -

Spending six months working inside stores, listing vehicles, communicating with potential buyers and more gave Clayton Stanfield plenty of first-hand training.

As a result, the senior manager of dealer training at eBay Motors ramped up the company’s free online training offerings that now include five more classes that can certify salespeople in all aspects of the eBay vehicle-selling platform.

The eBay Motors Internet Sales Manager Certification Program includes a certificate and logo that can be displayed physically at the dealership, as well as virtually, on listings a store might have online. The five additional classes augment what eBay Motors rolled out about three years ago.

“It has been my heart and soul for several months,” Stanfield said to Auto Remarketing about the new initiatives the company officially launched this week.

The advanced training program available within eBay Motors’ Online University includes:

1. The eBay Motors Marketplace
2. Inventory Management and Vehicle Merchandising
3. eBay Motors Pricing Strategy
4. eBay Motors Listing Strategy
5. Lead Management and Vehicle Delivery

For dealers who might want a refresher or are new to all of eBay Motors’ offerings, the previously released batch of training includes:

1. Selling Vehicles on eBay Motors
2. eBay Stores Basic Set Up Training
3. Selling Parts and Accessories on eBay Motors
4. eBay Motors Dealer Center Listing Tool Training

Each class can be completed entirely online and at the participant’s convenience.

“People are buying cars differently,” Stanfield said. “They’re online and using it in a number of ways. Every time we master how someone is going to buy a car, they change. They go and get an iPad or something else. What we’re really trying to show dealers is people are buying cars in a new way. A lot of them are coming to eBay. We have 100 million active users who come to eBay and eBay Motors.

“These people are actively buying cars in a way that’s different from what we’ve done in the past. These people are also ones dealers might not normally see. They might be 50 or 500 miles away. They’re not going to be local deals,” he continued.

“To me, eBay is true incremental sales for dealers. What we’ve done in these classes is break down what it takes. You’ve got someone who is going to buy their car on their iPhone and they live 1,000 miles away. This person is a little bit different than the deal you closed 10 years ago. The classes are going to show you who this buyer is, what are they looking for and how you can best meet their expectations,” Stanfield highlighted.

Stanfield explained that he began his journey through dealership showrooms to the production of class curriculum after the book he co-authored was published. He said The Operational Blueprint was geared to show dealers how eBay could augment a sales plan the store might already have.

“We were finding that it wasn’t the case where people didn’t know how to use eBay per se, but they wanted to know how it would fit into their dealership, those conceptual things that are more than about just how to use eBay,” Stanfield noted.

The newest online classes that last about 25 minutes each highlight items such as call scripts, role-playing and more. They delve further into what Stanfield has tried to explain during scores of Webinars and to about 3,000 store salespeople who completed the first series.

“There are people who sell on eBay who are rock stars at it and some that are just average,” Stanfield admitted. “What the rock stars do isn’t that much different than everybody else.”

The eBay Motors manager then shared an example to illustrate his point.

“I’ve got a bid on a car from a guy named Clayton in Reno,” Stanfield began. “He’s probably on his iPhone. He’s probably sitting in a parking lot. I’m not going to send this guy and auto responder and call him back in five days. I have to call him back this second because he’s active. People don’t shop on their iPad and bid on vehicles 500 miles away if they’re not really deep into the market to buy a car.

“That’s what we try to preach all of the time — eBay buyers are serious,” Stanfield emphasized. “They’re in the market. Is it a different experience? Yes. Our business is a lot different from AutoTrader and Cars.com, no better, no worse. It’s just different so we want to put out some classes that show them how to best succeed.”

And that success is not just at the independent or franchised dealership level, according to Stanfield. He explained how the eBay Motors training can be beneficial to each individual who becomes certified.

“I used to be a mechanic,” Stanfield recollected. “I wanted to be not just a better mechanic but I really wanted to become more marketable as a mechanic. How many certifications can a car salesperson get?

“You walk into a store with eBay experience and certified by eBay, there’s going to be dealers knocking down the doors to get this guy. That’s what I’m hoping to achieve” he went on to say.

Stanfield said eBay Motors plans to ramp up marketing of the eBay Motors Certified Internet Sales Manager when the company finishes a revamped website dedicated to its Online University. But dealers already can start the classes by going to www.ebaymotors.com/training.