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September 19, 2005 |
Mitch Garrett, a broker and member of the promotional board at City Auto Sales in Memphis, said success with Internet Sales has proven to be the driving engine of the dealership's sales surge.
The company got heavily into Internet sales about four years ago, and sales began to really take about three years ago.
The success was recently highlighted in an article that appeared in the local paper, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, which in turn further boosted sales.
Garrett said City Auto was No. 13 in the country in 2004 based on the number of cars sold off it's web site.
"Since then we've gone to No. 3 from No. 13," Garrett said. "By the end of the year we might be No. 1. August was out best month ever."
Garrett described City Auto as "different from other dealers in that each salesperson is responsible for his own vehicles."
"You deal with the individual salesperson who purchased or traded for the vehicle." Garrett said. "There's no sales manager to 'turn to' and there's no 'just let me ask my manager if I can sell you the vehicle for that price.' We don't play those games with our customers. They are far too valuable.
City Auto has about 30 brokers and 3 salesmen working out of the facility. They rent space and contribute money toward campaigns to bring customers to the Web site and brick-and-mortar location.
When the print story brought City Auto to the attention of the greater public, Garrett said, more people were visiting the Web site and they were selling more cars as a result.
"We use AutoTrader.com and Cars.com as a link to our site," Garrett said. "we're using television a bit. That's recent."
They also developed some strict protocols to keep their Internet site current. They have a full-time Web master whose job it is put up car ads when inventory is added and remove car ads when vehicles are sold.
"There's nothing more frustrating for a customer who checks your site at night and sees a car he likes and drives to your store the next day, only to learn that the vehicle in question was sold the afternoon before," Garrett said.
"I don't know how some dealers can think it's all right to update their Web pages only once or twice a week. It has to be done every day."
They also developed software that highlights their inventory.
It allows dealers to post multiple pictures, taken from multiple angles, of each car for sale as well as an accurate and detailed description.
"I know it's counter-intuitive for dealers used to newspaper ads to list as much information as possible, but on the Internet that's what creates trust and brings people in," Garrett said.
"We track our sales to learn how people heard of City Auto," Garrett said. "We have a sheet titled 'The Road I took to City Auto.' which lists the different ways people could have heard of us."
Topping the list as 65 percent is the Internet, Garrett said.
Following that is repeat business or referral at 30 percent, the 5 percent is listed in the category "some sort of publication".
"Our print ads don't work anymore, so we don't do it anymore," Garrett said. "We went from $25,000 a month to nothing in about two-and-half years.
"We discovered, with the Internet, that we could spend less money, but could get better results.
"A car listing stays up until the vehicle is sold. With a classified, it's up for three days, period, plus those ads get thrown in the trash at the end of the day."
Garrett said they will continue to put resources into promoting City Auto on the Internet.
"About 80 percent of sales could be considered local, but with the Internet 20 percent of our sales are from all over the country," Garrett said.
"The internet gives us a national reach."
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SKY HIGH: Sales at City Auto Sales in Memphis, Tenn., have taken off since it decided to concentrate it's efforts on selling vehicles via the Internet. Success on the Web led them to focus advertising efforts on the 'Net', which created even greater sales. |