Dealerships, Free Access Articles , , , ,

MITSUBISHI Motors Australia Limited (MMAL) has appointed two retail motor industry online specialists as official partners in a move to provide dealers with a consistent and accurate online presence for the brand.

This follows initiatives in which Mitsubishi Motors is moving to have its branding set in stone for all its dealers. As part of the plan, certain elements of dealer’s websites will have to comply with Mitsubishi’s requirements.

Two dealer website providers have been appointed; Dealer Solutions and i-Motor.

i-Motor principal Tony Malby-Luke told GoAutoNews Premium that at the moment the information on model content, special offers and other content on Mitsubishi dealer sites was not always up-to-date and that the car-maker wanted to bring all dealers into alignment with consistent information in a live feed from Mitsubishi.

“This would mean that the smallest country dealer would have the same information as a large city dealer,” he said.

Dealer Solutions general manager of sales Glen Faulkner said that dealers are being shown the new site in a familiarisation program over the coming weeks and that initial adoption of the site by dealers would not be mandatory.

But he said that after a period of time Mitsubishi would audit sites to see if dealers still using their own sites were compliant with the brand guidelines and were carrying the correct consistent information.

GoAuto understands that if any dealers’ sites were not compliant by then they would most likely not be supported by Mitsubishi Motors and would need to use either the Dealers Solutions platform or the i-Motor platform.

Dealer Solutions provides corporate websites servicing Toyota, Hyundai, Subaru, Jaguar and Land Rover dealers. The company covers clients in more than 3000 dealerships. i-Motor is part of the Toyota certified site program and has Subaru, Suzuki, Volkswagen, Renault, Isuzu Ute, Isuzu Trucks, Ram Trucks and Haval.

Dealer Solutions chief operating office Damian Jones said that the website service, which was launched last Friday, has been built to suit Mitsubishi’s guidelines but the system has been bundled to suit different kinds of dealers within the network.

“We can cater down to a little single franchise operation with just a very simple site but also cater to dealers who want a range of other features built into their site from leads management, management of their inventory and their photography.”

He said the system allows dealers to showcase other areas of the business like parts and service and F&I.

Mr Jones said Dealer Solutions was able to customise various features into its corporate site designs.

“With Hyundai we are actually driving their pricing and lead distribution using geolocation working with their PMA data. If a customer puts in their postcode it will automatically bring up the dealership and the pricing that relates to where the customer is located. So we can do that for any OEM.

“With Mitsubishi for example, they are doing their own new car system and we have integrated that into their platform,” he said.

By John Mellor

Manheim
Gumtree
Manheim
Manheim
DealerCell
Gumtree
AdTorque Edge
MotorOne
PitcherPartners
Schmick