CARY, N.C. -

CarStory has released an enhanced version of its Market Reports that is designed to heighten mobile shopper engagement on VDPs, according to the artificial intelligence platform’s creator Chad Bockius.

“The main focus for this release was all about the design, in terms of the look and feel, but more importantly how we represent the analytics that we share and how to optimize Market Reports for mobile shopping,” Bockius said in a phone interview with Auto Remarketing.

“Over three-fourths of consumers today are shopping on their mobile device — both on their couch and on the lot. And as a result of that, it has created a culture of skimmers.”

Because mobile devices have become the primary type of interface for a large majority of the population it is important to make mobile shopping experiences conveniently engaging, Bockius explained.

“They’re going to skim information quickly and we had to address that,” he said.

“We had to create an experience that allows consumers to access and consume the data the way that they want it. Which is just a reality of 2017.”

CarStory Market Reports is now fitted with added additional data elements, such as a feature on the Market Reports home screen where machine learning is used to automatically identify images, according to Bockius,

“Based on our research, we know exactly which images consumers want to see first, and we use that data and our machine learning to process those images to create a collage on the first screen of the Market Report. Which is not just a nice design element, but more importantly it’s giving information to the consumer,” Bockius explained. “It’s not giving them the information over text, it’s giving them information visually, so they can see what features the vehicle has.”

Bockius said CarStory offers dealers three benefits: more engagement, more leads and ultimately more sales.

“In our research, we have found that dealers who have employed Market Reports see a 60 percent decrease in bounce rate. And we have seen a 24 percent increase in lead conversion,” he said.

Bockius believes the dealer VDP should be the best resource for a consumer who is making that decision to buy.

“The more people that you are bringing into the door, the more you are going to be able to sell. If you can’t engage that consumer on the VDP, it’s the equivalent of having that consumer walk off your lot,” he said.

“We have brought all the critical research information directly to bare on the dealers’ VDP to keep those consumers engaged and tell the consumer the whole story, so that ultimately they can make that confident decision to buy.”

CarStory has the largest depository of inventory data in the industry, according to Bockius.

“It’s quite amazing, the amount of science and the amount of data processing that occurs to generate these reports, but at the end of the day our goal is to hide all that to ultimately create a simple summary that consumers can access right on that dealer VDP,” he said. “When we analyze the data, we are looking at a specific vehicle relative to the market competition in a local area. All of our data comes down to two buckets of data we have to sort and analyze the first is all of the market supply data or the actual inventory, so what is available for sale today — that’s part of the data.”

Bockius said consumer demand data, which covers a variety of things, is the second source of CarStory data.

“We look at what consumers are searching for, the vehicles that they are spending their time on, the vehicles they are cross shopping and the features they are looking for,” he added.

Bockius mentioned that Kevin Frye, eCommerce director of Jeff Wyler Automotive Family once told him that with CarStory Market Reports, he can become an instant expert on every car on the lot.

“You can imagine how difficult it is for any salesperson to know the specific, the whole story about hundreds of cars,” he said. "We automate that process for you, we can put that information right in your pocket and you can be an expert whether you’re talking to a consumer on the phone or on the lot instantly, and that is going to help dealers move metal,”

CarStory is completely free to dealers. For more information, about Market Reports or to become a participating dealer, visit dealers.carstory.com.