Running a Dealership Website

[Qazqaz]

Bit of a moan coming, so bare with me!

Midlands-based, salesman.

Is anyone here responsible for listing cars on their website? I'm just intrigued as to how much time is spent in this industry doing the menial tasks rather than focusing on selling cars, or improving a sales team? I've worked in the industry just three years as a salesman.. not long in the grand scheme of things, but I've had virtually no training, no reviews... nothing... in 3 years! I was hired with sales experience, but open to the fact I knew very little about cars.

I have a general manager who spends a huge percentage of his time editing photos for a website. Ie, re-sizing, cropping etc, to go on Auto Trader.

It seems mad to me that someone with decades of experience doesn't have the time to offer insight bar a minute or two here and there when you're with a customer. I would like to steal the knowledge of those more experienced, as it will earn me, and them, more money. But despite them stating they're always on hand to offer help, in reality they're clearly too busy with stuff I don't think they should be doing.

Is this just something where I am, or is it common at larger dealerships for so many hours to be spent advertising the cars, leaving little time to sell them?

 

[jamoor]

I’m tempted to say 90% of the sale is done online before the customer arrives at the dealership.

I’m also tempted to say they could automate a lot with software, how many cars are sold a week?

 

[Diagro]

It's middle age men using antique software using poor quality photos. Hence why they spend so long on it.

Plus the millions of emails they need to reply to

 

[Steeps]

Shouldn't take hours to process the images. Start off by taking a decent photo and that's most of the work done, the rest can be done with batch processing. If they're spending more time editing the photos than taking them then that whole process needs to be looked at for improvement. If you're one of those dealerships that photoshops the cars into fake showrooms or carparks, stop it.

 

[Qazqaz]

I’m tempted to say 90% of the sale is done online before the customer arrives at the dealership.

I’m also tempted to say they could automate a lot with software, how many cars are sold a week?

I would estimate about 40 a week sold

 

[Qazqaz]

Shouldn't take hours to process the images. Start off by taking a decent photo and that's most of the work done, the rest can be done with batch processing. If they're spending more time editing the photos than taking them then that whole process needs to be looked at for improvement. If you're one of those dealerships that photoshops the cars into fake showrooms or carparks, stop it.

No fake stuff, au naturel as possible. Just cropping and a hint of brightening as required.

 

[Steeps]

Cropping can be done by moving the camera either with arms or legs depending on the distance required to frame the shot, brightness even on a camera phone can be done with a simple slider to get the right exposure, or a couple of seconds and applied to every photo in a batch on the pc.

40 cars a week, if you published 20 of each that's 800 photos. Get it right in the camera and that's a few hours just to sort and upload for the lot. When I covered events I used to allow 10mins per car, towards the end it was under 5mins to sort, quick adjustments and batch resize/upload and that included culling off 60% of the photos not up to standard or duplicates.

 

[paradigm]

If you're one of those dealerships that photoshops the cars into fake showrooms or carparks, stop it.

Whilst were on the subject of “stop it”. Those dealers who feel the need for every other “photo” to be a powerpoint slide of why they are the bestest dealership evar, showing their cack third party warranty and the fact that they also like cats, that needs to sod off. If you have 15-20 photos, make them count, close ups of regularly scratched/worn areas to prove they are actually decent, highlight optional extras that are hard to see (i.e buttons that turn stuff on), etc.

 

[Alz_D]

A GM spending time in an office with Autotrader rather than doing actual work with the customers or on the pitch when it's cold? - surely not

And to answer your question - from experience - all motor groups are the same. Limited or no training (or the training they give is generic manufacturer stuff where they assume everyone is a robot and if you say the right things and ask the right questions customers will buy every single time) The last group I worked for solved the problem by employing a minion, gave him a company car and sent him off around the group every day taking photos and updating the online presence with the likes of their own website / Autotrader / Carwow etc and the manufacturers own approved used sites.

The industry is still in many ways in the dark ages, with technology and the way some dealers treat staff. It's not an easy industry anymore and it's getting harder and harder to earn the big numbers that justified the awful work time balance.

 

[Semple]

highlight optional extras that are hard to see (i.e buttons that turn stuff on), etc.

Funnily enough i found this a right headache when i was looking for a car. Half the time dealers can't fill out the description or specs correctly on Autotrader, or sometimes the description is filled with so much waffle, it's painful to read through.

Case in point was looking for a car that had cruise control, you could tell from a photo if the car had a cruise control stick, then it was at least fitted with cruise control. But the number of ads where they missed this info out etc, and required the buyer to dig through the photos to see if they'd captured a decent one from the drivers seat showing all the controls.