Leveraging Your Mouse To Shop For A Vehicle

Over the past few days we decided it was time to buy my wife a new vehicle. It’s been several years since we had done any serious vehicle shopping I wasn't sure what to expect online versus offline at the dealerships.

This buying journey began by my wife first visiting a Ford dealer on her way home from work and getting some ideas what you wanted. Once she had narrowed it down to 2-3 models (slightly used) I immediately went online to learn more about the vehicle models she liked, what problems those models may have had (recalls) and then begin the process of shopping dealers. Websites like AutoTraders.com and Cars.com helped immensely to quickly see what vehicles were available in our local area. Some vehicles allowed us to see the CarFax reports for free online. (Although the CarFax tells you some things for leased vehicles it is pretty vague.)

Using the Internet to shop vehicles this quickly becomes a game of price/feature/color with no regards to dealer service or why buying from one dealer is better than another. Even visiting the actual dealer’s websites there is little or nothing about “Why buy from us?” It’s all about price and personal color preference and what features they offer for each vehicle.

The first thing I noticed while shopping is all the different dealers obviously also check the Internet before pricing any vehicle. So the Internet prices listed pretty much are all right in line with each other. The real buyer advantage happens when you start to physically go see a few dealers with printed spec sheets from the Internet. Once they know you are a web savvy shopper and have done your homework prices begin to fall. They may first say “That’s our Internet price we can’t do any better”, but in this economy and by doing thorough research online and offline you can get the price down…. sometimes dramatically! (It makes me wonder what the actual dealer cost of the vehicle was.)

My thought throughout this whole process was there was never any real discussion about what we can do for you (service wise), nor why we are the best place to buy from. It’s all about price, color and options. After all, you can get your vehicle serviced any where and chances are it may not be at that dealer. Two dealers did say “We would like to earn your business” but never offered how they would do that. They were just passing words that had no real value to us.

This leads me to my final comment… If other retailers (ie: flooring dealers) do a poor job of differentiating themselves from their competitors, if they forget to talk about their services, then they too will be in a price war. Without building your own brand value in the consumer’s mind you are strictly selling on price. After all, consumers can buy their products today just as easily online as offline.