Are dealership websites improving?

[Alex Snyder]

I was just looking at a VDP, that is considered one of the best in the industry, and thought...

If you were an Internet Manager living in 2004, and could jump forward in time to today, would you be impressed with the progress of dealership websites over the last 10 years?

 

[Bill Simmons]

Re: Are we improving?

I tried searching for some VDP's using Wayback Time Machine at Internet Archive: Wayback Machine None of them are indexed apparently. But if the SRP, locations, and homepage examples are any indication I would probably say yes.

Fair warning, this Wayback Time Machine website can be a real time suck, but is is fun to go back and search for pages 10 years ago. Make this a spare time pursuit.

Also found a great shot of the Dealer.com site from 2002. Are you guys still offering $299 per month websites?

 

[Alex Snyder]

Re: Are we improving?

Also found a great shot of the Dealer.com site from 2002. Are you guys still offering $299 per month websites?


View attachment 2208

I can make the CyberCarLot special at $69 a month available to you Bill

 

[Bill Simmons]

Re: Are we improving?

I can make the CyberCarLot special at $69 a month available to you Bill

Waive the setp fee and you've got a deal How many times do you guys here that?

 

[Alex Snyder]

Re: Are we improving?

Waive the setp fee and you've got a deal How many times do you guys here that?

Never! Riiiiiight. Actually, it probably comes up as often as a customer asks his sales agent to waive the processing fee, freight, or some other thing.

 

[craigh]

Back to the original question, I do think that they've improved.
I think we are slowly, yet surely, moving towards something that is more consumer-centric.

I browse dealership websites almost every day to see what's happening. Most of the trends I'm seeing are:

1. Responsive - although this isn't the miracle solution everyone says it is, it's becoming popular
2. Clean Design - I'm seeing less clutter and more focus on information. I still see all the A/B testing prove that big, ugly buttons work better, but I'm seeing a great combination of both
3. Consumer Tools - Comparing cars, price drop alerts, service reminders, etc - what used to be many separate tools are becoming integrated into the dealership website in a fairly native way

Obviously there are many other things happening, but I see very little unique innovation in VDPs, VLPs, etc.
Some of the best website vendors I have seen have terrible VLPs. I think this area still needs vast improvements.