Diary of a DMS Guy

The End of the Road for the Disruptors ?

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The above is a headline that is being seen across the Motor Trade press over the past few weeks. But have the wheels fallen off the Disrputors ?

Over the past few years, many "Disruptors" have joined the Motor Trade working to scale but on an online only environment. The Disruption claim is based on the contention that a good number of consumers would be more than happy to buy their cars online and have them delivered to their door, just like their weekly supermarket shop.

However, the reality has been that a good proportion of consumers still desire some physical interaction (eg seeing or test driving the car) during the sales process. This has caused challenges for the Disruptors.

In addition, they have not been able to buy and prepare the stock that they need to maintain their sales claims at the profit levels they require to maintain their businesses going forward.

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Time to Relax? 

So, is it time for the traditional Motor Trade to relax? Safe in the knowledge that the Disruptors do not seem to be taking over the industry ?

Absolutely not!

The Disruptors have shown that there are a good proportion of the marketplace that are more then willing to buy online - they are selling more than 100,000 cars per annum between them after all and this will increase!

The Disruptors are struggling to supply the service that a good dealer can provide, to carefully buy and prepare cars with great customer service. No doubt they will remain in some form and find their place in the market, but it looks increasingly more like they will change and be less "disruptive" and displace less of the traditional dealer than they expected.

Dealers should be using this time to improve their digital offering to provide the best hybrid solutions that they can.

The Disruptors have shown that there are improvements that can be made by dealers in the Digital realm.

Items like

- presenting stock quickly and well described online.

- to provide the ability not only reserve but also complete a purchase completely online.

- to integrate their CRM systems with their digital offerings and also their stock management and invoicing systems.

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Welcome to my World!
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My day to day role running Navigator is to enable a dealer to transact online simply, and in an integrated form by developing our CRM, Lead Management and Dealer Management System to join all the dots in he Digital Journey.

By providing integration at all points of the journey, it allows customers to mix Digital and Physical through the sales journey seamlessly - something that the Disruptors seem to be unable to achieve but which the consumer clearly desires.


Now is the time for dealers to act, and take over the road that the Disruptors have laid before them!