The tech buzz at NADA this year was Digital Retail. Tagrail has a new partnership, with dealer site provider Fox, and Moto showcased some of their OEM projects. Roadster has an aggregation marketplace, which I’ll get to in a minute, and Modal (Drive) was conspicuously absent. I hope they’re okay.
All dealer site providers are now claiming the hip acronym DR, including some that are way off the mark. This week I want to cut through the clutter and taxonomize a bit. We’ll see how well my predictions from five years ago have held up.
Dealers will migrate onto the most capable of the platform sites, and … the winning platforms will not be mere lead providers.
I am going to skip the consolidators and the used-car sites, to focus on DR solutions for franchised new car dealers. That was the context for the earlier article (and the pull quote). The grid above divides the DR space into four segments: True DR, Pivoters, TPC, and Marketplaces.
True Digital Retail
A true DR solution must handle the six canonical functions, do the paperwork online, and save the deal (not a lead) for use in the dealership. True, not many customers will do the full process online, but you have to offer the capability. Qualifying questions here are along the lines of “can you sell a service contract and book it online with the administrator?”
I don’t want to be pilloried for omitting someone, but my short list (when asked) goes: Roadster, Moto, Modal, Tagrail, AutoFi, and CarNow. I can find CarNow dealers pretty easily online, paired with a variety of site providers. Here in Atlanta, Ed Voyles is an example.
Pivoters
Anybody with a foothold in the dealer’s website is using it to pivot into DR. The first group of pivoters are what I call “finance first” sites. AutoGravity, DriveTime, and AutoFi are sites customers use to check their buying power before going into the dealership. Based on intel from Ricart Ford, I would say that AutoFi has successfully pivoted into the DR segment.
Gubagoo is using their foothold in chat to pivot as “conversational commerce.” SpinCar is adding protection products to their VDP real estate, which is right where they belong. Even popular F&I menu Darwin is moving online with Darwin Direct.
Third Party Classifieds
My model for a marketplace is Autotrader plus its DR feature, Accelerate. However, the other incumbents have not followed suit. In fact, Cars.com “does not sell vehicles directly and is never a party to any transaction between buyers and sellers.” This space is inhabited only by brave new entrants like Joydrive, GoGoCar, and Deliver My Ride.
As I wrote here, this model has plenty of challenges, like finding UX and services that will appeal to all dealers – not to mention the customers. Dealers may prefer a simple clickthrough to their own DR solution. This is the backdrop for Roadster’s Express Marketplace.
Roadster Marketplace
Roadster’s marketplace operates just like a TPC site. It has the familiar VSP/VDP with faceted search, but then it segues into a full digital storefront. The reference site I looked at, Cochran group in suburban Pittsburgh, lists 3,500 new vehicles in 18 makes, from 26 rooftops – with transparent pricing!
My first reaction, I have to say, was “Holy crap, they’ve actually done it!” They have made their own private Autotrader. Of course, the same market area lists ten times as many new cars on Autotrader but – funny thing – they all use Accelerate. Competition is wonderful that way.
The arrows on my grid suggest some strategic directions:
- Single-function solutions will pivot to become storefronts. AutoFi is an example.
- Third-party sites will add DR functionality. Accelerate is an example.
- As storefronts grow to serve dealer groups, they will tend toward marketplaces.
I guess the only remaining frontier would be for two unaffiliated groups to cooperate on a single platform, as I wrote in Toward a Digital Auto Marketplace, maybe in contiguous nonoverlapping markets. The eCommerce term is “coopetition.” Or, maybe Accelerate will gain some traction.
Virag Consulting 