11:57 am, November 2, 2020
Maximising the value of every single visitor to a website is a major area of focus for every dealer.
That’s especially true in uncertain economic times like in 2020, but how can dealers do this? GardX believes dealers investing in its SpinCar 360-degree photography product can unlock the key.
In the video above, Billy Coutin, director of GardX AD-Vantage and Ben Cooper, EMEA director of SpinCar explain the benefits SpinCar will bring to your business. Here is a quick summary of the main benefits.
Several companies are now offering advanced imagery including 360, how does your offering differentiate?
Ben: We think of imagery and 360 as a core part of Digital Merchandising, but only as one component as shoppers gather information on their next vehicle purchase. As customer shopping journey’s move past make and model and the visual elements of identifying the car they want, they quickly transition to exact specification and we believe our product set helps with the complete journey of the customer.
Billy: And at the same time, we’ve continued to build on our core imagery products specifically for the UK market – in addition to spin, our clients use Damage Tagging functionality to bring transparency to vehicle defects (especially important in the auction segment), automated background removal and background replacement in static images (to ensure busy forecourts do not detract from the vehicle) as well as ensuring image quality and stabilisation are industry leading.
The other thing that’s key to remember in embedding 360 within a retailer operation is that this is a change of process for them in their photography operation. One of the core competencies of GardX is managing and training for process change within dealerships to sell more F&I products, so training for SpinCar 360 has been an extension to that and is a critical factor in getting the best quality output
What kind of benefits do SpinCar customers see from using your products?
Ben: We think of the benefits both at the overall platform level and at each component product level. For example, with 360, our retailers get on average a 25 per cent increase in website engagement time and 30 per cent increase in website conversion rate. As a consequence we’re increasing inventory turn and enabling our clients to sell more vehicles per year.
We’ve also run AB tests with listing sites across the world where our 360s also appear and see similar uplifts: one of the major listing sites in the US saw a 68 per cent increase in lead submission rate and 36 per cent increase in click out to retailer website.
We see similar benefits in the auction space, where 360 is adding 20 per cent more bids-per-vehicle which results in an uptick in prices achieved. In many cases we’re also improving the operational processes to capture the imagery and get vehicles online faster – if vehicles are at the dealership but not online, they are only adding to holding costs
Billy: With our Feature Tour and F&I products we’ve also been able to demonstrate clear value. Bringing the education of the F&I options upfront in the shopper journey leads to greater attach rates; whether that is the customer completing a transaction online, or going into the dealership as a much more educated customer – where they feel they are choosing the right products to protect the value of the asset they are buying.
We’ve seen attach rates increase by 30 per cent and given the huge profit contribution these products make to the dealer, this is really significant. With Feature Tour, merchandising of features has traditionally been one-word or single line descriptions – modern cars are so complex and jam packed with technology that requires better explanation for customers to understand it and value – Feature Tour helps dealers decrease website bounce rate and protects margin by explaining why one BMW 3 Series is priced higher than another BMW 3 Series.
Ben: Finally, at a platform level, the more individual product components a customer subscribes to, the more insight we can obtain about the online shopper and be able to help the retailer nurture those leads.
This is just a snippet of the interview at the top of this post – click the video to find out more
