Make an Effort, Not an Excuse – How to Merchandise Your Inventory Effectively
Last week, we hosted a webinar to discuss How to Merchandise Your Inventory Effectively. In this webinar, we talked about the fundamentals of e-commerce websites, different variations of structuring your inventory listings, and Strathcom’s four best practices for well-merchandised inventory. But rather than put the cart before the horse, we want to make sure we share this important public service announcement:
If you’re in the business of selling vehicles, you need to put your inventory on your website.
You were probably told this a few years ago, and we’re still telling you this now because it often doesn’t happen. The reasoning is pretty simple, too: if you can’t be bothered to put in the effort required to show a customer why they should do business with you, they won’t be bothered to put in the effort to go looking for it.
Think of it this way: buying a home is the largest purchase the average person will make in their lifetime. If you were selling your house, and your realtor didn’t put a listing of your house on MLS online, you’d probably be pretty upset, right? Chances are good that potential buyers wouldn’t even know your house was for sale unless they happened to drive by and see the sign on the lawn. And even then, they wouldn’t be able to go online and find the listing to learn about how many bedrooms or bathrooms it has, peruse the square footage or other house specifications, or look at pictures of how the house looks inside. Those potential buyers would probably have a greater chance of finding other homes, listed by other realtors, who did the best job possible of showcasing the house in that online listing so that the potential buyers would want to book a viewing and hopefully make an offer.
A vehicle is the second largest purchase that the average person will make in their lifetime. Why would your dealership want to do things any differently?
To learn more about how to best structure your online inventory for your customers, plus our Big Four Best Practices, be sure to check out the recording for “How to Merchandise Your Inventory Effectively”.
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