Pub. 11 2012-2013 Issue 3

N E W J E R S E Y C O A L I T I O N O F A U T O M O T I V E R E T A I L E R S F A L L 2 0 1 2 32 new jersey auto retailer I f you do a great job at building your listings with actual photos, video, valuable comments, merchandising and specials, you’re creating value for shoppers and showing them why they should choose your vehicle and dealership from the long list of cars that show up on a search results page (SRP). And the beauty of getting the basics right is that you only have to do it once and it works on every platform (think tablets and smartphones!). Great Merchandising Goes the Distance To illustrate how potent this message is, AutoTrader.com recently conducted a geo-distance analysis of 68,000 new- and used-car buyers to understand how far a car buyer will travel to buy a car and the tools they used during the car shopping process. The study showed that two and a half times more car buyers traveled dis- tances of 30+ miles to buy a car when the Internet was used during the shopping pro- cess. The study also revealed that the most successful dealers at drawing car buyers both near and far had the highest level of merchandising in their online advertising. In fact, 30% more new- and used car buy- ers traveled 30+ miles to dealerships that used multiple custom vehicle photos (not stock) versus dealerships without multiple custom photos. Additionally, 26.4%more car buyers traveled 30+ miles to dealer- ships that used custom vehicle comments versus dealerships without custom vehicle comments. The 6 Basics of Great Merchandising 1. ACTUAL photos, videos and customer-specific com - ments. You’ve heard it before: actual photos are REALLY important to your online success. Listings with actual pho- tos – and the more the better – perform significantly better than listings with stock photos or no photos. The numbers tell the real story, though. According to June 2012 AutoTrader.com data: • There is little difference in click- throughs between stock photos and no photos • Custom photos can improve your click- throughs from the Search Results Page (SRP) to the Vehicle Details Page (VDP) by 521% (vs. no photo) • Click-throughs from the SRP to VDP can increase up to 110% with multiple custom photos Photo tips: Show a variety of interior and exterior shots and angles within the first nine photos to ensure that shoppers Want More Eyeballs Online? The Secret is Good Merchandising. BY HOWARD POLIRER, DIRECTOR OF INDUSTRY EDUCATION, AUTOTRADER.COM There’s so much being thrown at consumers today that much of it has become excessive noise. As a dealer, your job is to address their needs as quickly, easily and as informatively as possible, and the way you do it is to get the basics right.