Hi guys
Im so sadden to see that the use of this helpful message board has fallen off so dramatically over the last few months. This forum served me well, both as I was getting my start at selling cars on-line and can be a great source of information to anyone that wants to improve their game.
I wanted to take a few minutes to report the results of what we have been doing and share what I hope you will find as inspirational news.
I am an ISM in a Standalone Jeep Store in South Texas, about way between Austin and San Antonio. The community that our store is in is only 70,000 people. Our store sells 55-65 New Jeeps a month and about 45-50 used cars every month. Our staff consists of five floor salespeople and myself. I take no floor Ups and receive no Phone pops, 100% of my business comes from the internet and online referrals.
I got to this store last August after spending a year as An E-Commerce Director for a 7 store Group in West Texas. This is my 13th year in the car business and I have truly enjoyed every second of it as I have watched the retail process develop into a high-tech medium for selling cars. My only regret is that I did not discover the PC until 1999.
When I got to this store the only leads this store received was 30-40 Autobytel FAX leads that were dispensed to the sales staff on the floor. From what I can tell, not one of those leads had resulted in a sale for the previous four months. The company also used Get Auto for window stickers and to have some sort of used car internet presents but no one really worked those leads, because they went to a non-functioning email address. There was a web site, it was a link from their sister Ford Store but the requests were going to the same Bad Email address. Therefore, as you might imagine most of the request were not being answered either. Sadly, this is about the same shape that I found most of the stores in that I have consulted over the last three years. {Does any of this sound Familiar?}
My first action was to secure our own URL http://www.bbjeep.com so that we would have email address that would match our URL and not our ISP extension. I began to work on developing a website and a few simple e-commerce strategies.
-First we implemented an Auto Responder
-Then we signed with AVV for their lead management system Web Control and so that our New Car website inventory could be real time.
-We also began to save all of our email address so that they could begin to receive a link to our weekly ad and a newsletter.
-With the support of my dealer and management team we began to develop and implement processes that were more consumer friendly like; quoting prices via email and when needed faxing all of the info that a customer might be asking for.
-I purchased a $90.00 digital camera so I could email pictures and build splash pages for feature used car inventory.
-We also bought a $49.00 scanner so I could send document to customers who might need something sent to them like a Window Sticker.
-With the support and input of my management team, we built email stationary that covered most of the most FAQs that come up during email conversations.
By late October of last year, most of our tools were in place for us to really get rolling.
Here are a few of our results. (Incidentally, I demo and deliver my own cars)
-------------Leads /Deliveries
OCT 2001----57 /16
NOV 2001----49 /16
DEC 2001----61 /15
JAN 2002----53 /18
FEB 2002----61 /19
MAR 2002----83 /25
TOTAL--- 364 /109
This is a 29.99% closing ratio witch is what I consider to be fairly significant my goal is to bring our average over 30% and I feel that this will happen in April of this year because my email address data base of unsold customers will cross the 500 mark this month. There are about 150-email address that I have farmed from people that I have sold to and even a few from people that I missed selling something. I also have 9 units on order that will deliver in April.
For yeas I have been an advocate of having a different commission structure for ISMs but I am beginning to change my mind because other than a few small bonuses and a slightly larger mini Im paid on the same commission structure as the folks on our floor.
I think I have finally begun to figure this Internet thing outmy suggestion to you is that if you are not contacting the unsold email addresses that you have on a weekly or at the vary least bi-monthly you are missing a tremendous revenue opportunity.
If you would like any details just let me know Id be happy to share any hints that might help. On the other hand, if you have any advice that might help me or see something that Im missing please let me know.
------------------
Greg Machado
E-Commerce Director &
Independant Consultant
gMACgroup.com
machado@gmacgroup.com
210.710.8456
[This message has been edited by machado (edited 04-01-2002).]