All dealers are suffering from the lack of used vehicle inventory. Consumers are being forced to gravitate to used vehicles for multiple reasons – They are less expensive plus the manufacturers aren’t pumping out nearly as many new vehicles as they are normally depleting available selection. To add insult to injury, even if the manufacturers WERE continuing…

Digital retail has just had an unexpected growth spurt. While stay at home mandates disrupted worldwide economies, it has also forced many business and consumers to abandon technophobia and welcome digital retail solutions with open arms. Companies like…

Video has historically played a major role in car dealerships; from training with VHS tapes, to video messaging, text and Live Video Calling. As 2019 draws to a close and we approach 2020, it is clear that when it comes to consumer…

These days, consumers usually look at online reviews when deciding not only WHAT they are going to buy, but also WHO to buy it from. However, there have been plenty of scandals in the retail industry concerning fake or paid reviews. So, it gets a little cloudy in the water, and consumers have gotten somewhat cynical.

Take Amazon. Hundreds of…

Conversations about digital retailing in the automotive industry tend to center around two things: customer experience and an increase in sales volume. But some dealers feel that it just leads to decreased margins on the front-end in the “race to the bottom,|” and that face-to-face interaction will end in more revenue – whether that's in the front or the back…

The Seamless online to in-store sales platform for auto dealers enjoys sustained growth due to the addition…

It’s a well-known fact that Amazon is on a mission to reinvent the traditional brick-and-mortar store model. Until recently, they were mostly focused on dominating online sales. However, it is clear Amazon is now looking to expand its footprint to include offline sales. A great example is the…

We have all had moments we wished we could do-over. For anyone who saw Avengers Endgame, you understand the value of "undoing" cannot be overstated. So what do we do when against our best efforts to build a strong customer-centric reputation we end up with poor ratings online?

In a slower market, our online reputation can impact be the…

Just about every technology company in the automotive space is working hard to produce pieces of the digital retailing puzzle to facilitate a better customer experience. But many are focused solely on crafting a solution that allows the customer to complete the car-buying transaction online -- from start to finish.

Dealerships should certainly…

Daphne, AL — March 7, 2019 — The Mar-Kee Group announced the release of a brand new RV-Specific Service Advisor “Sales” Training program — “RV Professional Service Advisor…

The Fundamental Attribution Error reminds us that people tend to unduly emphasize internal character, rather than external factors when trying to understand people’s motives. We tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people. The oft-overlooked reality is that the environment matters more, if not most.

A thief steals an…

At NADA many exhibitors hyped their digital retailing solutions to support online vehicle transactions. While no one has cracked the code for a complete, seamless online transaction, there are several great solutions that provide enough functionality to meet consumer demands. After all, consumers are not asking for a 100% “digital…

According to the 2017 JD Power CSI survey, only 13 percent of consumers scheduled their vehicle service online. The progress toward online scheduling has been glacially slow, rising only two percentage points over the past three years.

This is despite the fact that nearly all dealerships now have an online scheduler and most service reminders are digital.…

DUBLIN, CA – February 13, 2018 – TagRail™, the creator of DealerTag™ and the Lexus Plus CEM App, announced today the integration of Market Scan and F&I Express services into its new Digital Retail Platform. Now TagRail’s platform provides shoppers a transactional-specific, penny-accurate vehicle finance and aftermarket product check-out and delivery experience from their livingroom to the showroom.

These integrations populate TagRail’s F&I tool…

I have written extensively in the past two years about conquest email campaigns and have warned dealers that most companies offering these services generate highly suspicious worthless traffic.

Most conquest campaigns generate website traffic that does not act like a consumer, does not asks questions like a consumer or researches vehicles like the other…