Survey Shows Mixed Messages on Digital Auto Retailing’s Progress

An eLEND survey of auto dealerships offers a good news/bad news scenario on how digital retailing is progressing.

Dealers overwhelmingly say they are progressive and willing to adopt more digital tools (84%), yet the majority define digital retailing as posting inventory and says more than 50% of their process continues to be manual or paper-based.

The survey, conducted among dealerships nationwide in August, indicates dealers are interested in a progressive, customer-focused, digital approach to retailing.

For example, dealers overwhelmingly agreed they should sell a car the way the customer wants to buy it, online or in-store. But the actual process and tools to implement that lags behind the intent, according to the study says.

Highlights include:

“One thing that remains consistent over the years, as we survey dealerships, is the disconnect between the progressive, streamlined digital process dealers say they want to offer and their ability to deliver it,” says Pete MacInnis, CEO of eLEND, a financial technology company.

Customers’ expectations seem to outpace dealerships’ ability to meet them, he says.

He attributes that, in part, to slow adoption of new technology, the inherent complexity of financing and purchasing a vehicle and the industry’s struggle to deliver end-to-end digital retailing that’s not cobbled together.