Walser Auto Group a Pioneer of Digital Retailing

Car dealer Andrew Walser didn’t wait until COVID-19 hit to get serious about digital auto retailing.

His 26-store dealership group has been doing it in earnest for nearly a decade. And much of the software it uses to carry out the various functions of transacting car deals online was developed in-house.

“We never thought of ourselves as a software company, but we developed (our own),” says Walser, a 33-year auto retailing veteran and CEO of the Minneapolis-based Walser Automotive Group. It is No.39 on the Wards 2020 Megadealer 100 with total 2019 revenues of $1.47 billion.  

Andrew Walser (2)

Intellidesk structures desk deals automatically. FUSE (Finance Under Secure Environment) allows customers to do the entire transactions online. There’s also a website function that automatically offers fully compliant advertising specials “on the fly,” he says. (Andrew Walser, left)

There are tools for online trade-ins, credit applications, e-contracting and a customized F&I questionnaire to help consumers decide what aftermarket products would suit them best.

Some dealers have stepped up their digital-retailing game in response to showrooms in many states temporarily closing by state order because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Walser’s early efforts weren’t crisis-based. Rather, it was a matter of trying to run a smoother operation.

“The traditional process is filled with inefficiencies,” Walser says during a recent Thought Leadership Summit’s customer-experience analytics online conference. “It takes too much time and money.”

He adds: “We want to make buying a car simple.” Presumably, the same applies to selling a car.

Walser’s innovations aren’t limited to technology.

For instance, in 2001, the group implemented a negotiation-free sales philosophy to remove haggling from the purchase process.

Many dealers love the no-negotiation concept, but they are afraid to implement it, fearing they will lose some bargain-hunting customers who want to wrangle the best deal.

“If you are doing 1-price, you have to be OK with losing 10% who will beat you down for a dollar,” says Walser. “These aren’t great customers anyway; they’re not loyal. I’m OK with having the 90%. But for other dealers, it’s hard to give up any deal.”

The group’s non-negotiation car-selling philosophy eliminated sales commissions that relied heavily on gross profits, he says.

Walser speculates a negotiation-free model would attract a different kind of salesperson. It has. “We wanted to attract college graduates,” says Walser, who holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Arizona State University.