Emiliano Void, from Cox Automotive holds court with dealers at ACE event.
With the growing popularity of the ACE Conference & Expo, Cox Automotive Canada used the venue to reveal a host of new products and updates. “ACE has grown to be a very respected event,” said Maria Soklis, President of Cox Automotive Canada in an interview. “With so many dealers here, it makes sense if you have news to unveil it here. It’s great for us to get that direct and immediate feedback from them.”
In terms of what dealers say they are looking for, Soklis said: “Dealers are putting similar demands onto their suppliers that their consumers are putting on them. They want transparency, they want efficiency, they want fair pricing,” said Soklis.
The biggest news Cox unveiled this year was the arrival of Kelley Blue Book, the popular consumer vehicle research site that also provides a range of data and vehicle valuation services for dealers. “Kelley Blue Book is coming to Canada,” said Soklis. “We are super excited about it. We are bringing it in different phases.”
Until now, KBB has only been available in the U.S., where many Canadian consumers have already been accessing it regularly to help inform their vehicle purchases.
The first phase will be vehicle valuation tools, and other services will be rolled out in the near future. “We feel there is an ongoing need to support dealers with accurate vehicle valuations to ensure that they are efficiently selling and sourcing their vehicles and maximizing their profits,” said Soklis.
She said although KBB will now compete with other vehicle valuation services in Canada, the company intends to play fairly, and remain true to their core values. “Canadian Black Book is a good partner with us today,” said Soklis. “They were aware. We approached them and told them very transparently that we were bringing KBB to market. Because when you value a partnership, you owe it to them to be transparent.”
In other Cox news, Manheim revealed details of a new online auction platform to help dealers buy and sell vehicles more seamlessly. The as-yet unnamed platform, called Manheim Open Marketplace for now, will soon be available, and has been described as a major improvement over the company’s current digital offerings.
“We decided to build a marketplace that suited the needs of Canadian customers that was a lot more innovative and easy to use”
“We are really excited about that,” said Soklis. “We were using a platform called OVE to address our digital need in the marketplace. We decided to build a marketplace that suited the needs of Canadian customers that was a lot more innovative and easy to use,” said Soklis. “We have some great technology. We can hardly wait for dealers to start using it.”
“This open marketplace will really be a game changer,” said Jerome Dwight, VP, Inventory and Financial Solutions at Cox Automotive Canada, in an interview at the ACE event. “From our perspective this is intended to revolutionize the Canadian marketplace from a digital remarketing perspective. That’s a pretty big statement, but we are confident.”
Open marketplace will be a channel for buyers and sellers to conduct transactions 24/7, but will also give them a gateway to access physical auctions and simulcast platforms — all through an entirely digital platform, said Dwight. The data insights will also help buyers and sellers optimize for where the greatest consumer demand is for various vehicles. “Our customers are smarter and we give them the power of the data and the open marketplace, which is fully mobile enabled,” said Dwight.
Dwight said the company sees Canada’s automotive marketplace as an interconnected ecosystem. “What the open marketplace will do is provide our dealers, commercial accounts, OEMs, and fleet companies with an omnichannel marketplace experience which puts the choice back in their hands,” said Dwight. “We layer that with a tremendous amount of data.”
In other Cox news, Soklis said the re-introduction of the next generation Dealer.com website platform brand to dealers (now sold directly by the company and not through a reseller agreement with Trader) is in full swing. “It’s going even better than we had expected,” said Soklis. “We were able to really invest in our Canadian platform to ensure it was up to the standard of our U.S. platform. There were a lot of welcome surprises for customers who were on our platform,” said Soklis.
In an interview, John Sidoti, National Sales Director, Cox Automotive Canada, said the company’s entire product suite, from their Advertising product and expert advice from their managed services team are designed to help dealers find, attract, and convert buyers. “Dealer.com is more than just websites. It’s a dealer’s digital footprint — it’s their showroom online.”
Sidoti said the Dealer.com team has been actively meeting with dealers across the country to help them better understand their own digital strategy. “One of the pieces that seems to be resonating with the dealers is that we are here to work with them, and help them to better understand the tools to ensure their voice is heard the way they want it to be heard,” he said. “We are a fully Canadian team, right across the country, and we are fully bilingual.”
At the ACE event, Cox also unveiled updates for Dealertrack, including enhanced digital contracting workflow, and an improved online shopping experience with Dealertrack’s Digital Retailing tools, including new features such as Reserve it Now and Protection Driver.
