More seamless data flow needed as vehicle shopping goes digital

Data flow between dealers, vendors and automakers will need to become more seamless as the vehicle shopping process becomes more digital in the coming years, dealers and automaker executives said.

“Obviously, we want to understand how our advertising is impacting traffic to the dealer website and, ultimately, traffic to the dealership,” Steve Carter, Mitsubishi Canada marketing director, said during the Sept. 21 edition of the Automotive News Canada Retail Forum: Dealer Discussions digital event. “But if we can also [say] to the dealers, ‘Here are consumers that are engaged with the brand that are at the lower part of the funnel, and here's how you can engage with them,’ and you have the tools to either engage with them in person or digitally. I think ultimately, for the consumer, it's a better experience.”

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More of the vehicle-shopping process is being done online, with customers researching vehicles from the comfort of their homes instead of running from one dealership to the next in search of the right car for them. 

Customers are looking not only at automakers’ websites but at dealership sites and third-party websites. Linking them and being clear about who owns what data would be important moving forward, according to panelists.

“What is becoming increasingly more and more important is a seamless two-way communication between dealers, OEMs and all the different suppliers and providers that a dealer has, like, for example, [dealer management system] providers, where a lot of the information that a dealer has resides,” said Tim Reuss, CEO of the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association. 

“And that needs to be resolved, still, technologically, so that the information is not only flowing one way -- let's say, from the dealer to the OEM -- but is actually flowing also the other way so that the person on the front lines actually has the information that he requires when he's in front of a customer.”

Adam Mintz, senior manager of digital business development at Hyundai Canada, said integrating systems for dealers, DMS providers, the automaker and others would be a “major focus” for Hyundai moving forward. He said the exchange of data between automakers and dealers would help to give dealers better information about customers, who know more about the vehicles they want before they step foot in a dealership.

“The brand promise, if you will, of digital retailing is all about making a faster, easier and more seamless experience. That's really our focus” in the coming years, Mintz said.

Paul Antony, executive chairman of AutoCanada Inc., said automotive digital retail must make the vehicle-shopping process as seamless as shopping on Amazon. AutoCanada, the country’s only publicly traded dealership group, is in the midst of building out a used digital retail division that it says will ultimately allow customers to buy vehicles either in-store or completely online.

“If I were dreaming and had a magic wand, it would be about giving the consumer such a peace of mind like they have with Amazon, that when they buy something and it doesn't work for them, that [they are able to] just wrap it up and send it back,” Antony said.