Dealers should never underestimate the value of a walk-in and this small improvement in the information about the dealership could help unlock more walk-ins.

This has been confirmed in the latest research report commissioned by Autotrader Group  which showed that walk-ins had almost double the conversion rate (30 per cent) when compared to a pre-arranged visit (17 per cent).

Nicole Laidlaw

The report, entitled ‘Engage’, clearly shows that increasing the number of walk-ins should be a priority for every dealership.  But achieving this has been a consistent challenge. After all, how do you accurately report on the volume of walk-ins when they are often difficult to report on?

We know when receiving a pre-arranged visit how customers found the dealership, whether that is from a third-party website, online research, or direct advertising. But when it comes to walk-ins, what is it that encourages people to visit a forecourt unannounced? 

One thing that doesn’t improve walk-ins is when contact details for a dealership are hidden behind data capture forms. 

In fact, 7 out of 10 respondents surveyed during the ‘Engage’ research preferred to drop in unannounced rather than give their contact information before visiting the dealership. This was due to consumers preferring to remain anonymous and enjoying the freedom to arrive at a dealership in their own time. 

59 per cent of people surveyed stated that their first contact with the dealership from which they eventually bought their car was an unannounced visit in person.  

It is thanks to this preference for making unannounced contact that respondents (65 per cent) also preferred to see the actual dealer location and contact information so that they could be in control of reaching out.

By contrast only 16 per cent of those surveyed preferred to leave details for the dealership to make initial contact. 

Although extended lockdowns have impacted the car buying journey recently and led to some radical and rapid industry innovation, the Autotrader research shows that consumers still value visiting a dealership over any other method when it comes time to buy a new car. 

Traditional methods of contact are preferred with visit (73 per cent), phone (38 per cent) and email (20 per cent) being the three preferred contact methods, the research showed, further drawing attention to the need for dealer contact information to be available to people on online trading platforms such as Autotrader as they browse listings for their next second-hand car. 

So what activity are buyers engaging in before they get to the highly critical stage of contacting or visiting a dealership? 

The use of internet research and car websites has also only increased thanks to the impact of COVID. The research showed that people are doing more online research ahead of contacting a dealership, making it crucial that dealers are listing their contact details where buyers are doing their research to encourage leads or, better yet, potential walk-ins. 

The research indicates that by advertising on sites that promote the location and contact details for a dealership, the dealers are putting themselves in a position to increase the potential number of unannounced visitors to their showrooms. 

This industry is wedded to the metric of leads versus conversion rates. But there seems to be a clear preference amongst car retailing customer base that publicly available dealer information encourages walk-ins.

Nicole Laidlaw is head of sales Victoria and Tasmania for Autotrader Group

Research commissioned by Autotrader Group, independent consumer research agency, F22 Market Research, surveyed 1,000 Australians between 21 September – October 2021 via an online quantitative survey.

By Nicole Laidlaw