Car pricing, demand and supply.

Pricing for immediate demand and supply is happening in real time – there are no lags anymore, especially for car dealerships. We call this live market data. There is a constant push and pull that directly affects the price of a product i.e. the price of a car on your car dealership floor. Because pricing is becoming so transparent, we now want to know where the price is going in the future – I think, therein lies the next opportunity for transparency i.e. when demand and supply data becomes transparent.

In being passionate about moving our industry forward, we then took this a step further and produced the first ever industry report that shows aggregate demand data. Our Industry report gives the car dealer a better understanding, to help you know what cars to buy or sell.

If the currency we are working with is the consumer attention in this transparent world of demand, supply & price, then how do we get and keep the consumers attention?

Where is the consumer’s attention for your car dealership? 

On Facebook, but serious buyers for cars. Platform context is always a factor when trying to get consumer attention. Consumers by enlarge don’t buy cars on Social Media. So, social media is important to be present on, because we have to admit that the consumers’ attention is there. But don’t try and sell cars on them, or get quality leads, you’ll be disappointed.

  • There are 23 million people on Facebook in South Africa in 2019, up from 18 million a year back
  • That’s out of 31 million people on the internet
  • 11 – 12million of these have jobs and who can actually buy cars – means there is a lot of pent up demand

If you have not started building strategies to attract the consumer’s attention, start now, before it’s too late.

2 things a Car Dealership can do to start

  • Work the system as a Car Dealership

The internet created opportunities for AutoTrader, we started off as a print business and now we capture almost 100% of in-market car shoppers’ attention. There are 2,4 million in market car shoppers on google that shop for cars every month. The only reason a car dealership wins versus a car dealership losing is that the one that’s winning is working the “consumer attention economy” more efficiently. They are not sitting blaming the economy, blaming the platforms, blaming the consumer. There is business out there, you just need to find creative ways to get this consumer attention as a car dealership, but how?

  • Invest in your Car Dealership brand

If you invest in your car dealership brand, is when the real magic starts to happen. As car dealers in South Africa, it is time you start focusing some of your efforts on the out-of market car shoppers so that when the consumer / out of market car shopper sees your brand, they choose you over another car dealership. AutoTrader is a retail sales platform. In the end, when all the chips have fallen and all prices, demand and supply data is intelligently transparent, your car dealership brand will be the only thing that causes your success. But you can’t use the internet to build a brand in the short term, you have to invest for the long term. How? 

The Car Dealership “mind-shift”

Car Dealership content executed in the right way, solving consumer problems and answering consumer questions will bring you the attention of the consumer. Dealerships need to have a subtle “mind-shift”:

  • Stop thinking of yourself as a car dealership that markets cars
  • Rather think of yourself has a marketing company sells cars

Because, in this world of the internet, if you think of yourself as a marketing company that sells cars, you will understand how to communicate & get the attention of the consumer and then  sell more cars. Don’t leave it to 3rd parties to communicate – be creative with communication. Test, learn, change! There is no one size fits all or secret recipe to communication.