This is part 3 of the “Consumer Trends for 2011” series and will conclude the findings of trendwatch.com – so far we heard and learned about

• Consumers will look for more realness and human touches
• Consumers will be more prone to try new products and services
• Targeted pricing and offers for your potential customers
• Consumers will look out for gaining Online Status Symbols
• Consumers will convert into “Twin-sumers” and “Social-lites”

Let’s look at a few more things, we as dealerships may can “monetize” and take advantage of.

• TREND: A so called “planned spontaneity”

Thanks to the never ending boom (or at least it appears like it) of the chosen mobility to being connected, the smartphone industry should be considered a great friend of every business. The technology standard and our urban society enabled a new generation of consumers who allows us to make instantaneous choices without sticking to plans just with a tip of our phones keyboard and geo-location enabled services. Even it appears to be “making choices on a fly” this spontaneous act is called by trendwatching.com “a planned spontaneity”.

For you at dealership it will concrete the case that you need to look into geo-location based services like Gowalla, Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and Google Places. Even so we are still experimenting around, questioning the ROI and profitability “can we make money out of this”, I believe we need to take the opportunity and run with it. Groupon for example as I heard through numerous interviews of dealers and service departments is bringing indeed traffic to dealerships, but in the same breath take I need to listen to “but it doesn’t make money”.

Let me get this question out here:

Do you think Barnes & Noble is making really profit on their customers, when allowing them sitting down near the magazine rack, reading for a couple of hours $9 Photo Magazines, may get a coffee only then after done with reading put the magazines back onto the shelves, leaving the B&N store with any dime spent?

B&N was and is about an experience. Sure, it is difficult to imagine a customer saying “wow, need an oil change – how super will that be?”, but having your waiting area nice, neat and equipped with some more stuff (new magazine, apple computers, treats, choice of coffee and teas, etc) other than the 2009 brochure of a Honda Civic can make a difference. Like B&N you should have a long term strategy to retain the customers who reached in their Groupons or Foursquare waivers.

• TREND: Even so you may don’t like it but consider “Going Green” is not going away

We know that almost every car manufacturer is going this path. From Volkswagen’s Clean Diesel over to Chevy Volt up to the Nissan Leaf, manufacturers are leading the pack. I further observed more and more dealerships making modifications at their dealerships. So for example did the Jim Ellis Group in Georgia a total new rebuild of the Volkswagen location with “green” buildings materials on their mind. From installed motion sensor light switches to motion sensor water shut off valves and so on, the philosophy providing environmental safer vehicles and showing as a dealer you are part of it just fits. Another prime example of an adapting green policy in the automotive world is the LaFontaine Automotive Group in Michigan. There adjustments made are reading like the “who is who” in the green initiative

• The hydraulic service lifts are being lubricated with vegetable oil

• To minimize electrical hikes, they installed eighty-five (85!!!) skylights

• All interiors doors are made of pressed corn

• HVAC is regulated by a specialized geothermal system

• Water used for washing cars will be reused (hopefully not for the morning coffee)

and last but not least

• Salespeople wearing organic material shirts

Do you believe they have a great marketing message when selling the new Chevy Volt? Oh, yes!

• TREND: Lifestyle Leasing and Owner-less rather than being in a long-term contract

Reach out with your fleet people or VIP sales people to companies in your region who are offering car-sharing to the community. A huge portion of consumers made decisions that access is better than ownership. I can imagine that the recent credit crunch led the “non-qualify-able auto credit” consumers into the arms of carsharing.net, zipcar.com and all the other newborn companies around “car-sharing.

You might be not able to sell immediately 30 cars but when setting up with these groups servicing and loaner car agreement I can imagine to gain some traction down the road. Checking myself one of the Atlanta location, I am even able to determine if I want to show off in a BMW 328i or Volvo S40. The astonishing fact was that I did have the opportunity to select one out of four choices of each brand.

Would you like to have possibly 4 or more cars to service on a frequent basis?

So that is it from me on the topic “Consumer Trends for 2011 and how you as a dealer can profit from it”. I hope you could get at least one idea out of the mentioned trends, and when you see some success I would love to hear back from you.

I wish you and your organization a Happy New Year and a tremendous car selling and auto servicing year of 2011.