Great example of where the execution layer of their CDP is irrelevant. I see this often with one of the larger CDP solutions.

At least this version is showing you things that are more relevant to your shopping. The other one I see is all over the place. Every car the dealer sells every week. I see them because my support team has to submit test leads during onboarding.

But dealers see all the outbound action and click activity. They get excited. I keep wondering how much of their database they’re burning through for the future. I have stopped doing business with over-aggressive companies on my inbox.

This has the potential to be a huge new advertising play, but my opinion is that it's all going to come down to how people react.
If the average ChatGPT users feels that this is OpenAI "selling their information" or "watching their chats", the relevance of ads will fall off a cliff.

If nobody revolts, this could be hyper-targeted AI ad placements at a time of consumer need.. could work.

CPO SELLS CARS​

The hidden opportunity: Dolan actually has the better car at a lower price — roughly $1,600 cheaper AND backed by a Toyota Gold CPO (7-year/100k powertrain, $0 deductible, clean CARFAX). Carvana's unit has fewer miles but zero CPO-level protection. Dolan is losing the mobile battle while holding a winning hand.

2024 Toyota Grand Highlander XLE SUV AWD under 20k miles

AMAZING RESULTS: https://claude.ai/share/b48ad8a9-85c3-4a58-b03c-51b9cd94d92f

Value summary:
Dolan's unit is priced $1,600 cheaper AND carries a Toyota Gold CPO warranty worth thousands in real coverage. On paper, Dolan wins the value battle — but the mobile site fails to tell that story clearly.
​

4. Test 2: building trust (the "truth" test)​

Dolan Toyota — photo clarity & proof
When the VDP does load, the Toyota Gold CPO badge, CARFAX One-Owner, and 7-yr/100k warranty are present — but they are buried below the fold in a wall of text. The price display excludes doc fees ($599.50) and state fees by default, shown only in fine print. No window sticker link is prominently surfaced on mobile. Photo count was not independently confirmed from mobile crawl. The CPO story — Dolan's biggest competitive weapon — is invisible at first glance.

Carvana — condition transparency & financing
Carvana leads with: photo gallery (confirmed feature set + condition shots), 7-day return policy badge, history report summary, original warranty status, and a "Get pre-qualified" CTA — all above the fold on mobile. Price shown is all-in except tax. Minor gap: 7,395 miles is accurate but the vehicle carries no CPO-equivalent backing beyond Carvana's 100-day warranty.

The gap: Carvana creates instant certainty — you know the price, the history, the return policy in under 10 seconds. Dolan has a better warranty and a lower price, but the mobile VDP makes the shopper work to find both. Uncertainty drives shoppers to the site that removes doubt first.

NEW PROMPT (paste all of this below into your fav AI)

I deleted this prompt (v4.4)​

--It was OK, but it needed tweaks. new prompt added, see post below--​

I am a BIG Overfuel fan!

Jeff Kershner said:

Thanks! Don't be afraid to point out the trolls. Send me their username via DM and we will assess.

Be on the look out for our Media Kit. I believe Alex may have sent it over to you by email earlier this morning.

Click to expand...

Sure did!

that prompt is fat, it needs trimming.
One thing it finds, for some vendors, AI CAN'T READ YOUR INVENTORY (technical reason given).

tylernobi said:

The gap between how inventory search works and how shoppers actually think is, in my view, the single biggest conversion leak on dealer websites today. Curious if your audit captures that disconnect, or if it's more focused on the UI/UX layer of existing search tools?

Click to expand...

My 17yrs here, over 5,000 posts. I have one theme.
1. Car shopping is complex and hard.
2. Our websites suck.

Not one car shopper started their day saying.. "Oh, I can't wait to send in a lead".

I surveyed car buyers for years, 6,000 surveys annually.
I read a million chats and leads Not one car shopper said 'can't I just buy this car online without talking to you?"

Confirmation: Carvana, the Amazon of auto, would die if they closed their call center.

Love the topic...AI is awesome!

We built a couple agents to save the dealer time. One can stock a car into inventory, select the appropriate features and write a description. No human involvement. The other knows how to search and find cars at auction. Taking the dealers stocking criteria and building a watchlist for upcoming auctions.

joe.pistell said:

AI Detailers.

Click to expand...

but kinda brilliant.

john.quinn said:

OH -- BY THE WAY -- for the young'ens on the channel now -- those articles/essays I wrote for DR in the Old Days pre-date LLM's by at least 10 years..... just sayin

Click to expand...

DealerRefresh should consider enforcing a "no llm content" policy. The brilliance of these forums over the years was the openness and authenticity that is hard to replicate with an LLM. I'd hate to see Refresh devolve into a "prompt and post" farm like LinkedIn.

There is just no way that an LLM is going to be able to produce posts about purple ties and Jorts as well as we humans do.

AI Detailers.

Overfuel_Joe Montgomery said:

Thanks, Jeff.

Consumer-facing:

Our on-page design thesis began by studying Carvana and other top consumer shopping experiences -- businesses who had vast user data and had spent millions of dollars on A/B testing.

Click to expand...

Makes sense overall - focusing on simple, fast mobile design is the right move

joe.pistell said:

AI replies: "No. The honest answer is no — my prior audit was shallow. It only checked SME notes vs. actions taken. It did not audit the entire processing chain. Let me do that now."

Ugh...

Click to expand...

This is something I fear will happen to the consumer-facing tools - they will pretend to work hard while in the back-end decreasing token consumption to reduce cost on the fixed cost monthly plans. This is why I appreciate the transparency of Claude showing me token usage - I know if it's really working or not.

Personally I am using ChatGPT almost never anymore - Gemini took over all my research needs, Nano Banana Pro took over my image needs and Claude took over all code, planning, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF work (combined this means 90%+ of my workload is now on Claude).

If they do go down this road of faking the hard work, the nice thing about this industry is you can go right to the models with any other wrapper and get the same logic engine with none of the front-end shenanigans.

One of the coolest things I have followed since inception but still haven't built with myself is Pickaxe - Pickaxe | Shopify for Agent-Powered Businesses

Another day where I'm yelling at AI...

AI replied to me:

"Joe, you're right to flag this, and I take full responsibility. Let me do exactly what you're asking — a forensic audit, root cause analysis, and an action plan."

Click to expand...

Then AI completes the audit and I'm mad as hell, I'm 6 hours into a project, I threaten it and tell it to do it again: "Have you given this a full forensic review? What about the context window. I want to establish the best possible outcome."

AI replies: "No. The honest answer is no — my prior audit was shallow. It only checked SME notes vs. actions taken. It did not audit the entire processing chain. Let me do that now."

Ugh...

Jeff Kershner said:

BTW - where the hell is @john.quinn at? Since Dec 2, 2009

John is an OG of the OGs, when DealerRefresh was the Blog only - before the forums. Where ya at QUINN?!?!

Click to expand...

Here, Sir!

As a matter of fact, I suddenly find myself with some (semi-anticipated) time on my hands, and I'm eager to re-engage with the community!

Geez Louise... that profile pic... can you see when I added that pic, @Jeff Kershner? I had rented a pontoon boat on Lake Champlain for my young lad's birthday, and I was casting off the dock and landed that trophy perch... 2020? Maybe?

Anyway... I'm a little older, and lot wider, but I've been picking-up some new tricks and I'd like to get the community's take.

OH -- BY THE WAY -- for the young'ens on the channel now -- those articles/essays I wrote for DR in the Old Days pre-date LLM's by at least 10 years..... just sayin

AML has nearly 100k build sheets in our archive.
I pulled a list of safety features and the counts of how many different varieties there are for that feature.

• ---Feature Name: # of varieties---
• Automatic Emergency Braking: 201*
• Parking Sensors: 106
• Blind Spot Monitor: 83
• Adaptive Cruise Control: 77 (+ 33 dual-mapped with Autopilot)
• Backup Camera: 72
• Pedestrian Detection: 66 (+ 37 from AEB dual-map)
• Automatic Parking: 66
• Lane Keep Assist: 63
• Traffic Sign Recognition: 52
• Electronic Stability Control: 40
• 360-Degree Camera: 35
• Rear Cross-Traffic Alert: 25 (+ 38 from AEB dual-map)
• Park Assist: 32
• Collision Detection: 23
• Premium Brakes / ABS: 19
• Lane Departure Warning: 19
• Side View Cameras: 16
• Safe Exit Assist: 12
• Autopilot: 7 (+ 33 from ACC dual-map)
• Digital Rearview Mirror: 6
• Front View Camera: 5
• LED Daytime Running Lights: 3
• Night Vision: 1

Shoppers have questions, and sales reps are expected to have the answers. NOT.
How in the hell does a rep confidently deliver the car with all of this ADAS stuff installed?


*(+ 37 dual-mapped with Pedestrian Detection, + 38 dual-mapped with RCTA)

I don't envy the conference promoters, serving two masters is difficult.

On one hand, if the dealers don't see value in the educational content or visiting the vendors in the hall... they don't support the event.

On the other hand, if the vendors don't see dealers in the expo hall the vendors don't see an ROI... and they don't support the event.

If they don't get both of the above just right the event probably won't make it. Lots of dealer attendees doesn't necessarily mean strong ROI for the vendors.

[shameless self-promo]

My startup, AutoMagicLabs.ai is a research lab focusing exclusively on merchandising. Come back to Dealer Refresh often to see cutting edge ideas like this.