Enabling dealerships to better serve the remote car buyer

Summer 2020

AutoVerify provides digital retailing solutions to automotive dealerships across Canada. The company aims to empower dealer businesses and consumers through data and transparency to help ensure smooth transactions.

As the lead designer on e-Commerce, I led user research, competitor research and design, while also informing and shaping business strategy.

Context

COVID-19 accelerates digital transformation in an industry long resistant to change.

AutoVerify found product-market fit by adhering to one principle — build products that deliver value without changing dealerships’ people, processes, and systems.

Pre-COVID, providing accurate and transparent pricing to online car shoppers was at odds with how the majority of dealers conducted business, making any e-commerce solution very disruptive to their people, processes, and systems.

COVID hit and suddenly dealerships were forced to adapt to new consumer needs and expectations. AutoVerify along with the entire automotive industry dove headfirst into the rapidly evolving world of automotive e-commerce.

Discovery

Buying a car is a complex and highly considered purchase. It’s also a hassle.

The traditional car buying process makes it challenging and inconvenient for consumers to get the information they need to make decisions about their purchase.

Now that dealerships are embracing e-commerce, this opens the door for more ease and transparency, but also introduces new obstacles for both dealerships and consumers.

Understanding this opportunity required extensive research including:

• Interviewing dealership employees from front-line to management

• Interviewing the VP of Customer Engagement for Honda Canada

• Interviewing and surveying consumers

• Prototyping and testing with dealer partners and consumers

• Attending automotive conferences

• Vetting data sources that enable “penny perfect” pricing across dealerships and manufacturers

• Exploring experiences that enable other highly considered purchases to be made online, like furniture and fine jewelry

• In-depth competitor analysis of first to market solutions as well as industry disruptors like Carvana

• Mapping the traditional and e-commerce car buying journeys

The Competitor Landscape

Existing automotive e-Commerce solutions are unnecessarily cumbersome.

E-commerce solutions were not entirely new to the automotive industry, but mostly targeted at “innovators” and “early adopters” in terms of product adoption. Investigating these experiences revealed some valuable insights.

One example is shown above, but there are common themes across these early solutions:

• The consumer is taken through a linear process that contains many steps

• It appears to be a real “checkout” but integral data and qualification is missing that will inevitably be required later and will likely change the deal

• Much of the information is gated by contact information, resulting a high quantity, low quality leads for the dealer

• Dealers experience low completion rates for a costly solution

Key Consumer Insight

Consumers want ease and transparency online and offline — not a checkout process.

The vast majority of consumers still want to complete the transaction in-store. The desire to see and drive a vehicle before buying is not going away anytime soon.  Consumers also value having a trusted expert guide the process, especially when it comes to financing.

What’s most important is empowering consumers with real, accurate information where and when they want it. This allows them to make decisions and engage with the dealership on their own terms.

Design

How might we provide value to all users, but only capture those with high intent to buy?

Existing tools gate early and produce lots of leads, but fail to deliver a better experience for the consumer. The challenge was strategically placing gates that only capture consumers who are ready to buy.

Mapping and analyzing competitor user flows helped to understand existing approaches and begin ideation.

Iterating on user flows and wireframes resulted in a “build your own adventure” approach. When on a dealership website, consumers can get accurate payment information on any vehicle by selecting one of three paths:

• Personalize my payment

• Explore a payment calculator

• Make an offer

A lead is only generated if a TransUnion credit check is completed or the user submits an offer — actions that indicate high intent to buy. Users that are still in researching mode can easily gain payment insights without submitting personal information.

All three paths lead to a payment calculator with varying degrees of personalization. The build a personalized payment path is the most structured, ensuring the most accurate payment is achieved. The explore a payment calculator path allows the most flexibility while still providing real rates and data from the dealership. The make an offer path is for the avid negotiator with less emphasis on credit up front.

Select screens from each of the paths are shown below.

This product utilizes an existing design system that aims to be agnostic across dealership brands. Simplicity and ease of use are prioritized above the latest trends. Both mobile and desktop prototypes were extensively tested on UserBrain ensuring no drop off would be due to poor usability.

Strategy

Enabling dealers to ease into a more collaborative way of doing business.

Knowing most dealers are driven to generate as many leads as possible, communicating the value of this strategic approach to e-commerce was critical.

Focusing on delivering valuable information to consumers rather than an intensive checkout process alleviates many typical e-commerce pains for dealers, while also contributing to a more attractive product offering.

Outcome

Turning website traffic into educated buyers who convert to sale significantly above the industry average.