9:42 am, April 22, 2015
OFFERING the right deals online can mean customers from across the country will come to your dealership to buy their next car.
New research by iVendi shows motorists will no longer only travel to the showrooms closest to their home – more than 60 per cent of customers live more than 25 miles away, and 10 per cent more than 150 miles.
The figures come from analysis of users of iVendi’s Car Finance Checker, an online tool that allows customers to prequalify themselves for motor finance online.
James Tew, CEO at iVendi, said: ‘Most dealers attract only a minority of customers from outside of 25-mile radius but once a business effectively becomes an online entity, its location matters much less to buyers.
‘Offering an online motor finance facility means the customer can essentially complete the whole deal to buy the car without ever having to visit your showroom. As long as the vehicle description and images are accurate, they’ll be happy.
‘What is surprising, though, is the distance some customers will travel. Our figures show around one in 10 customers will travel 150 miles or more and some who have applied are more than 250 miles from the dealership.
‘It is clear that including facilities such as Car Finance Checker as part of your dealer website or car portal makes you, in effect, a national business, as long as you have a car in your showroom that a customer wants.’
Launched in early 2013 and fully rolled out mid-year, Car Finance Checker is designed by iVendi to integrate into almost any dealer online environment and, by taking a few details from potential customers, enables them to check their eligibility for credit with the dealer’s panel of lenders. It works through a sophisticated decisioning engine that predicts the propensity for approval from a wide range of lenders.
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