"Ghosting" cars?

[Alex Snyder]

I just made up the word "ghosting" but I guess it is the same thing as a "virtual inventory" only on a smaller scale. We've had some discussion over the years about this sort of thing on DealerRefresh and it seems to be a topic of conversation again with a few people I've recent spoken to.

So....

For years we've all had the ability to add a car into our inventory management tool - every tool I ever used had the ability to add any car I ever wanted to add. What I'm asking is, why isn't it common practice to just add a few cars here and there from time to time? Just to show you have a particular car on your website.

For example: if you can easily get any new Ford Focus, why don't you just have one in every color sitting on your website mixed-in with the other inventory you currently have?

 

[Avantir2]

I suppose it would be a lot like a restaurant advertising a particular dish and then when you showed up and ordered it you had to sit there while the chef went out and bought the necessary ingredients, garnishes etc. to prepare it the way you like it and then told you to come back later to eat it.

There is an assumption made by the consumer that if it's advertised it's available. They expect the worst from dealers to begin with and I believe this type of advertising would just reinforce that assumption and have a greater negative effect than if you didn't engage that customer at all. Not having the car they want COULD result in the loss of one sale. Wasting their time with what they would see as a 'bait and switch' will cost more than one sale in the long run.

 

[ryan.leslie]

I suppose it would be a lot like a restaurant advertising a particular dish and then when you showed up and ordered it you had to sit there while the chef went out and bought the necessary ingredients, garnishes etc. to prepare it the way you like it and then told you to come back later to eat it.

There is an assumption made by the consumer that if it's advertised it's available. They expect the worst from dealers to begin with and I believe this type of advertising would just reinforce that assumption and have a greater negative effect than if you didn't engage that customer at all. Not having the car they want COULD result in the loss of one sale. Wasting their time with what they would see as a 'bait and switch' will cost more than one sale in the long run.

Totally agree and very well stated! That is just a terrific analogy....

The dealer's battle in ORM is almost always one of perception, right? If you put this idea through the standard Risk vs Reward equation I think you will have a hard time balancing it. As Avantir said, the first thing the customer is likely to think is "bait n switch."

 

[yagoparamo]

Alex,

I think that is illegal in WA. You can only advertise a acr for sale IF you have the tittle for it. Now with a little twist, we do recomend dealers to do a data posting (grab their DMS with all the incoming cars entered on it), run that with Chroma data or something similar, and push them to the web.

In our system (and I'm sure others can do this...) we added the ability to have a custom missing photo for this. So you can add an 'incoming unit' image with a 800# that goes to a guy that knowing this has a script ready for that: "sir this unit is on a pre-sale status so it will be ready in 72 hours. I can call you as soon as its ready with all the info that you need before it even hots the web for anyone else to see it".

 

[john.quinn]

We live in the "Speak into the Clown's Face" culture. You pull up to the Clown, shout your order for burgers and fries, and pull up to the window. GOD FORBID you have to wait 5 minutes for your stuff!! (Seriously, try to imagine having to sit for 5 minutes at the drive-in window -- how much would you squirm?!?!)

So you do run the risk of infuriating the client -- "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T HAVE MY BURGER MY WAY RIGHT NOW?!?!?!?!"

That being said -- how the issue is "communicated" can overcome just about any objection. So if you can generate more quality leads without perturbing the client, why not? You just have to be gooooood

 

[Alex Snyder]

You just have to be gooooood

Always the part that worried me in any venture that had the requirement attached for sales agents.

 

[Djmjtar]

I wonder why other industries do not suffer from this challenge...Companies mark inventory all the time as "In Stock" or "Not in Stock" all the time. Even Amazon.com lists in their search results inventory that is not in stock.

 

[john.quinn]

Always the part that worried me in any venture that had the requirement attached for sales agents.

Agreed -- one of my common sayings goes along the lines of "Any process left to the sole discretion of the Sales Staff is doomed to fail..."