HYUNDAI Motor Company Australia (HMCA) is within days of rolling out a system for buying cars from the factory website which has been fast forwarded by the COVID-19 lockdown confining people to their homes.

In spite of the fact that people are able to leave their homes to buy a car, many are reluctant to do so and HMCA is keen to bypass that reluctance by providing an online avenue to purchase from its corporate website.

The Click to Buy system is based on that developed by i-Motor which is presently available on Hyundai dealer websites developed and administered by the i-Motor web team. Presently 35 Hyundai dealers have Click to Buy, with more dealers adopting it.

A unique twist to the Hyundai online system is that buyers are able to make an offer on a car they have chosen and specified on the site.

Because the offer and the final transaction price are discussed behind closed doors, it avoids the ‘race to the bottom’ that occurs when discounted prices on new vehicles are posted on dealer websites and is banned by most franchise agreements.

Under the system, online buyers select a Hyundai model and variant. Once they have added on the options and accessories they are given a final price against which they are able to make an offer on the vehicle. They are then able to negotiate the ultimate transaction price with the selling dealer.

An advantage of the Click to Buy system is that a My Account feature that is part of the offer process provides dealers with a significant picture of the prospect’s details and requirements before the conversation is taken offline.

The Hyundai ramp-up of online buying is one of a number of active efforts to engage buyers from their homes and places of work. BMW is known to be working on a complete end-to-end electronic purchase in which every step can be done remotely.

Toyota Financial Services also has a well-developed system and is said to take about 50 online financial quotes a day.

At the same time, automotive marketing and advertising house AdTorque Edge has just launched a means for dealerships to continue selling new and used vehicles despite the drop in visitors to the showroom.

In a step designed to support its clients through the current health crisis, the company has started to roll out an online sales facility to all their website clients.

The feature enables customers to put a hold on a new or used vehicle listed on the dealer’s stock locator by putting down a credit card deposit through a facility built into the dealer’s website.

Once they have done this, the dealer is notified to make contact with the customer to arrange an at-home test drive and finalise the sale of the vehicle.

AdTorque Edge managing director George Cornwell told GoAutoNews Premium: “This form of remote transacting was where modern dealers were needing to head in the future anyway.

“We are just wanting to fast-track its adoption, as we see it as a way of helping dealers to weather this storm brought about by COVID-19.

“So far, we have had 53 dealers adopt the system and we have initially seen 85 customer orders already,” Mr Cornwell said.

“So the dealers who have installed it have been thrilled by the results. It’s a great comfort to them to know that they can keep their businesses running and are able to retain contact with prospective customers despite the many health restrictions being put in place.”

Mr Cornwell said the deposit system was very attractive for used-car buyers who wanted to reserve a particularly appealing used car that is listed at an attractive price.

“Some dealers have found just in the past couple of weeks that they are taking deposits on used cars,” he said.

Mr Cornwell said it was important for dealers to promote the facility across their websites.

He said dealers were typically charging deposits of between $250 and $750 but said that buyers were more likely to respond to lower rather than higher-end deposit amounts.

The managing director of i-Motor, Tony Malby-Luke, told GoAutoNews Premium his dealers reacted quickly to the shutdown with requests for banners and messages of COVID-19 arrangements for customers.

“We did 1500 support tickets in the first 10 to 15 days of the month. We would normally do that in a month which gives you a sense of the sort of amped-up communication that was going on,” he said.

Mr Malby-Luke said that the crisis was refocusing dealers on their websites and some dealers were now deciding that “digital comes first, the showroom comes last”.

Referring to best practice in online selling, Mr Malby-Luke said: “A good dealership should have all new-car inventory on their website, all used cars and demonstrators on the website, all vehicles with pictures, all vehicles should have a description written specifically about that vehicle by the dealership and all vehicles should have a call to action around finance, etc. Then a call to action: ‘Ask our team now about a competitive quote.’

“They need to get a dialogue started. Just get the customer talking to you.”

On lead response, he said: “Dealers need to aim for a five-minute turnaround from the lead arriving to them calling the customer in all hours between 7am and 10pm. The customer is not filling this form out for entertainment. Watch lead quality control and follow-up. Were they contacted?”

Michael Sommerton, CEO of Dealer Solutions, told GoAutoNews Premium: “The website is now the showroom and never more important for dealers.

“We have noticed that there has been an increase in enquiry on features like online deposits, an uplift on enquiry on video and on our Auto 360 product.”

He said that before the COVID-19 crisis Dealer Solutions had added an online deposits feature for its clients in partnership with PayPal.

“When a customer visits the individual vehicle page there is a provision for the customer to place a deposit for that vehicle. So it is making the experience for people who are visiting the vehicle detail page in particular much more informative,” he said.

“We have definitely noticed an uptake in that.

“Dealer Solutions has also partnered with DealerCell to offer contactless digital retailing to allow customers to buy a car online via our website platform for all our dealer and OEM clients. The interest so far has been extremely positive.”

Mr Sommerton said that overall conversion of dealer traffic had risen five per cent during the COVID-19 crisis.

“We are reporting to dealers that their web pages are getting an increase in traffic during this time. More people are looking at dealers’ sites than we previously reported that are in the market to buy now,” he said.

“There are also some quite clever dealers out there who have developed their own specific campaigns around contactless selling of cars during this time. So our DigiPurple business is working with a number of clients who are highlighting on their websites how they are facilitating contactless sales and deliveries.

“The smart dealers are really putting some money into that.”

Mr Sommerton said that dealers had been reluctant to cut back their online activities because they had so much stock to move.

By John Mellor