A digital storefront is a complete car buying experience that can be bolted onto the dealer’s existing web site, and integrated with the dealer’s instore process. It must support all six of the canonical car-buying tasks:
- Choose a vehicle
- Price the vehicle
- Price protection products
- Value the trade
- Structure the deal
- Organize financing
This is not always a linear process, as I explained in Workflow for Online Car Buying, and not all customers will use the full process, as Andrew Tai explains in this video, but the storefront must support whichever tasks the customer chooses. Details about the six tasks are given here and here.
… delivering an omnichannel experience that is unmatched and, we believe, will be the future of car buying – Bill Nash
When you think of a good online process, like the CarMax omnichannel sales experience, these tasks are a native part of the web site. Dealers that don’t happen to be CarMax can offer an online process by bolting a storefront onto their existing web site.
As far as I can tell, this innovation is due to Roadster, but they are no longer alone. Roadster’s Express Storefront went up at Longo Toyota two years ago. TagRail, Modal, and Moto also compete in this space. TagRail and Modal both brand their offerings as “digital checkout.”
By “bolted on,” I mean to include the various techniques used to move the customer from the dealer’s web site into the online buying process. Modal is actually named for a programming technique, the modal window, and Roadster uses a link.
The transition, however, must not look like it’s bolted on. Roadster shows a good example, here, of preserving the dealer’s original site design. I can tell it’s Roadster by looking at it, and programmers will notice the “express” subdomain, but this is a seamless transition for the customer.
Also seamless should be the transition across platforms and into the dealership, an experience known as “omnichannel.” Think of a credit plugin like Auto-Fi. It allows the customer to apply for credit on the dealer’s web site, and also updates Route One in the dealership. You never want to redo a task the customer has already done online.
For a storefront there are multiple potential integration points – inventory, CRM, desking, menu, and credit. The customer may start a deal on the web and then walk in to finish it, or vice-versa. They may engage the storefront on a tablet or kiosk in the dealership, and finish it at home. The goal is to support all six tasks wherever the customer chooses to do them.
Virag Consulting 