CARY, N.C. -

As we put together this third installment of “The State of the Used Car Industry” in late June, it appears life — societal, economic, automotive and otherwise — is slowing getting back to normal (fingers crossed; knock on wood).

And as the used-car industry emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, we take an in-depth look at the changed landscape of wholesaling, retailing and financing of used vehicles, as well as the collections and recoveries piece of the market.

Through this whitepaper, the Cherokee Media Group editorial team dives into how digitization continues to change the operations of the retail and wholesale segments of the automotive business, while also examining the legal and legislative developments from recent months that have implications for the auto finance and collections spaces

We begin with retail automotive, which saw increased digitization in 2020.

But it’s one thing to offer digital retailing as a car dealer. It’s quite another to be proactive and engaging in utilizing it.

And industry studies are showing the dealers who do the latter are finding greater success.

The third wave of the Dealer Impact Study conducted by Roadster and the National Automobile Dealers Association found that 89% of dealerships had digital retailing on their websites, but the majority are not “proactively” employing it.

There was a significant drop-off when it came to the percent who share links to digital retail (below 60%), remotely guide customers (in the 40% range), use it in the
showroom (below 40%), use it with every customer (in the 20% range) and use digital retail in F&I (below 20%).

“Dealers are seeing growth in online sales — but it significantly increases when they guide customers through the process,” Roadster said in slides about the study’s findings.

To read more, purchase the whitepaper on Cherokee Media Group's Intelligence & Insights page here.

NOTE: The whitepaper is free for CMG Premium subscribers, who will be emailed a copy of the report. More information on CMG Premium subscriptions can be found here.