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With nearly all vehicle sales happening online – from the very catching of your customer’s eye to the close of the deal, it has never been more critical to stand out from the competitive crowd of car dealerships. How can you make the best of this evolving car market pattern, improve your car merchandising, and thus your vehicle sales rate? 

We at Xcite Automotive have conducted an auto vehicle merchandising survey to help you find out the importance of efficient and consistent merchandising of your vehicles. We set out to identify the dominating vehicle merchandising tendencies and factors recognized by car dealerships and came across interesting findings that can help you understand the current market trends and develop a winning merchandising strategy.

Our survey was carried out among 132 participants having different roles in the automobile market, with the majority of 65.9% formed by owners and managers. The participants in the survey answered 9 questions related to their car merchandising practices, and we have summarized the results for you.

90% OF DEALERS SAY, EFFICIENCY & CONSISTENCY MATTER 

High-quality, fast, and efficient vehicle merchandising is identified as critical by the vast majority of the dealerships, accounting for over 98% of the survey respondents. More than 90% of dealer group members recognize the crucial importance of a consistent vehicle marketing approach across their dealer groups. In addition, more than two thirds of the dealerships included in the survey consider updating their vehicle merchandising, detailing, and reconditioning important for dealing with the challenges they face in the highly competitive auto industry. They also tend to consider combining all of these services with one vendor. As a result of the efficient merchandising strategies they implement, almost three quarters of the dealerships interviewed evaluate their position in the competitive online car market as dominating or very strong. 

95% OF DEALERS SAY, ACTUAL INVENTORY PHOTOS MATTER

You can’t sell without getting your inventory in front of customers simply because they want to see what they’re buying. As our car merchandising survey shows, today’s online marketing environment requires special efforts to ensure a strong online presence of your car dealership by investing in your inventory photography. The huge majority of almost 95% of the respondents share the opinion that custom photography of new cars is more efficient and evokes higher customer interest as compared to stock photography. Only a quarter of the car dealers interviewed, however, are considering purchasing a photo studio within the next year. About 60% of the participants rely on marketing and advertising specialists to create their vehicle photos and videos, Xcite Automotive accounting for over half of them. Moreover, in addition to the stunning photos and videos, 53% of the car dealerships in the survey have tried 360º interactive spin products for their websites.

The findings of our 2021 car dealership marketing survey highlights how critical it is to respond promptly and efficiently to the highly competitive and dynamic online car marketing environment by implementing effective and consistent merchandising. Empowering your customers by providing them with state-of-the-art inventory photography is definitely a win-win approach when we talk about the auto industry today.