When dealers come to Las Vegas for the National Conference for BHPH hosted by the National Alliance of Buy- Here, Pay-Here Dealers, Autotrader’s solution for this slice of the dealership space will hit its second anniversary. At this same event in 2014, Autotrader unveiled an online tool specifically designed to match BHPH dealers with customers who need the financing they provide.

Thomas Wadley, product manager for Autotrader’s BHPH Center, has been involved with the project since its inception and reflected with BHPH Report on the journey the company team has traveled with nearly 2,000 dealers from almost all 50 states who have tried the tool.

“One of the things we’ve been able to validate is that when we launched this initiative, we identified a market segment that wasn’t being catered to and we created a solution specifically for that market segment,” Wadley said. “Over the course of time, we were able to get on board those buy-here, pay-here dealers starting back at the NABD Conference in May 2014. Since then our number of registrations has continued to increase. We’ve seen this solution does work. We’ve gotten dealers on board who are getting shopper traffic, and this shopper traffic is generating the leads for those dealers.

“The problem that’s uncovered in the past is that these dealers and shoppers have had difficulty connecting with each other,” he continued. “This environment is the perfect solution for them, the dealer, to focus on financing and merchandising their vehicles with a financing model. It also allows the shopper to be more confident that they are connecting with dealers that will approve them to get a vehicle.”

One of the attributes of the Autotrader BHPH Center that propels it to have such an impact in this space is how potential buyers most oft en find the site and look over dealership inventory. “What we’ve observed is over 70 percent of the consumer traffic comes from mobile devices. That’s been a pattern we’ve seen for the last year and a half,” Wadley said. “We’re excited about that because the site is built in responsive design fashion so that it renders to the device it’s being viewed with.”

Wadley also touched on the other attributes the solution can deliver.

“Another key feature that we’re excited to release is the back-end reporting that dealers are able to view,” he said. “They can see the performance of their vehicles on the site. They’re able to see what the shoppers are interested in in terms of the payment information, the most sought-after vehicles within their local search market, and the number of times their vehicles are viewed.”

In the past two years, the Autotrader BHPH Center team has demonstrated the solution to a wide array of industry experts and has gone to independent dealership gatherings to highlight the product. Collecting assessments of users has also been crucial to development.

“We’re confident with the feedback we’ve gotten at dealer conferences as well as some of our other testers that the solution is quite user friendly,” Wadley said. “We’re still interested in getting more feedback from our dealer base. As we continue to promote this product to this market, we’ll adjust the whole experience as needed.”

Now with the Autotrader BHPH Center about to embark on its third year, Marcus Dame, senior director within product management for independent dealers, described how the company is making plans to place additional resources on the project so the solution can be an even sharper tool in a BHPH operator’s toolbox.

“In getting to know the team and the platform, the dealers who are subscribing to it and the shoppers who are using it, what we’ve been able to do over the last two years is really validate that we can be effective in attracting qualified buyers, and we’ve been effective in attracting qualified sellers and engaging those two in almost like a match-making environment where then we’re delivering value to both,” Dame said. “They have validated to us through their activities that we’re getting the product optimized in a way that aligns with the original vision.

“We’ve taken it beyond proof of concept that it’s working and working very well,” he continued. “What that has done is positioned us to take that investment pivot. How do we really integrate into our business outside of a concept or test and make it part of the fabric of our enterprise and organization so we can support it in a way with dedicated efforts, sales and support and not just a couple of people who are running day and night to make it happen; rather, a portfolio of resources around it so we can really serve those shoppers and sellers optimally the way we do for our core businesses.”