Ottawa-based S. Dilawri Automotive Group has selected Motoinsight to implement its omni-channel car-buying platform across their 10 dealerships.
Known as MotoCommerce, the platform fully integrates digital and physical shopping so that customers are able to complete their purchasing journey however and whenever they want to.
For the dealers at S. Dilawri Automotive Group’s franchises, this means having the ability to streamline the in-store experience by helping customers through inventory, pricing and other product details in real-time, according to Motoinsight’s news release. That information can also be made available online.
“What we have come to realize over the last several years, and in particular when working with our dealer partners, is that digital retailing is actually an opportunity for dealerships,” said Andrew Tai, CEO of Motoinsight, in an interview with Canadian auto dealer. “In particular, one of the big things is that digital retailing does not mean online selling only. It in fact means the physical stores have just as important of a role as the online storefront.”
In the omni-channel versus multi-channel battle, it seems that omni-channel has proven to be the victor in almost every other industry. Whether you consider something like the Starbucks app and how it delivers an omni-channel experience for customers picking up their coffee every morning, or things like groceries and Loblaws’ Click & Collect, “the online storefront and the in-store experience really become one consistent experience,” says Tai. He adds that they have seen this happen across all other retail industries and are simply taking that cue and replicating it in the automotive industry.
Dealership groups big and small, young and old, are recognizing more and more that the omni-channel approach is the way that consumers want to shop now, according to Tai. “We are in a bit of a renaissance period in our industry. When you look at North America, there are probably something like 20,000+ franchise dealerships across Canada and U.S., and today, I would say well less than one per cent of them have true omni-channel capabilities or even e-commerce capabilities,” says Tai. He thinks that number will reach somewhere in the range of 50 per cent, and that in the next five years there will be more change than in the last 15 combined.
Motoinsight will apply their platform across S. Dilawri Automotive Group’s Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Kia, Hyundai, Mazda and Mitsubishi franchises, among others. They are also working with a number of other large dealership groups that are also in their “implementation pipelines,” but expect to announce the updates in the coming weeks.
