Changing Channels In The Automotive Industry: The Future of Automotive Marketing and Distribution
Who will be the winners and losers in the revolution that is radically reshaping the marketing, distribution and selling of automobiles? Will the vehicle manufacturers and their franchised-dealer networks be able to overcome years of inertia and complacency to pioneer and execute new concepts that will strengthen and extend the value of their brands? Or will nimbler, more imaginative retailers or software companies get there first?
The transformation of the business of selling cars and trucks is happening before our eyes at an incredible pace -- promising to change forever an industry that has long been noted for its high costs, poor service and extremely unpleasant selling process. Auto manufacturers have competed fiercely among themselves to drive out cost and meet consumer needs for cheaper and better cars and trucks. Now the survivors face new threats from outside the industry that might thwart their renewed interest in building strong, lasting relationships with their customers.
Entrepreneurs have dissected the cost-value equation and come up with new retail concepts. Their stories have been persuasive enough to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in public equity investment and persuade dozens of fiercely independent car dealers to sell out. Internet technology has lowered entry barriers for other entrepreneurs with new ideas about helping customers find, evaluate and buy new vehicles. These patterns are consistent with revolutions in other consumer durables markets that effectively transferred market power from manufacturers to retailers.
Consumers are the only clear winners in this battle. While we are not sure which vehicle manufacturers will survive, we are confident that winning will require a better understanding of the life-cycle value equations of both cars and buyers, and the development of innovative strategies to capture that value.
FORCES OF CHANGE
From the days of Henry Ford#39;s production line, the automobile industry has been based on a 'supply-push' philosophy -- a strong bias toward 'filling the factories' to cover high fixed costs.
Dealer networks were created as logical extensions of the 'supply-push' model. The networks were designed to hold inventory, leverage private capital (without threatening the manufacturers#39; control) and service and support what was then a less reliable and more maintenance-intensive product. Those networks generally were built around entrepreneurs focused on a defined geographic area, selling one or at most two brands.
Despite its longevity, the traditional dealer channel leaves many people unhappy. High customer acquisition costs motivate dealers to convert store traffic to sales using aggressive tactics that extract differential margins based on customers#39; willingness to pay. Frequent well-publicized rebates have taught buyers to mistrust sticker prices and negotiate from cost up, rather than sticker down. As a result, dealers often find themselves competing not against another brand, but against a same-make dealer across town. This acute competition has almost bid away dealer profit on the sale of new passenger cars in the United States (with some profits still available on sales of trucks, sport utility vehicles and luxury cars).
Shrinking dealer margins do not translate into happy customers: Most customers (approximately four out of five) dislike the purchase process, and many still come away feeling cheated and mistreated. This strong antipathy is largely responsible for the rapid growth of Internet-based services that offer alternative means of gathering information on cars, soliciting price quotes and, in some cases, conducting transactions.
SURFING THE NET FOR PROFITS
Obviously the Internet is a major enabler of change in auto distribution. Many of the most important auto industry innovators today are developing Web-based services, leading some to predict that the most important automotive company of the next century will be a software-based company. Republic Industries, for instance, expects sales to reach $1 billion on the World Wide Web by the year 2000. Estimates vary, but some studies have shown that with some cars, as many as 40 percent of customers gather information from the Internet. A smaller but growing percentage of customers demonstrate what is called shopping behavior, or soliciting price quotations and availability information prior to the actual purchase.
The dramatic growth and power of Internet technology have greatly reduced the cost of obtaining information on features, price and availability. Consequently, customers are better equipped to extract what they want from dealerships. One of the pioneers of Internet marketing, Autobytel.com Inc., is working to speed response time from its participating dealers because it has learned that a staggeringly high proportion of its customers -- 64 percent -- buy within 24 hours of using its service to get price and availability quotes. The Internet offers new and better ways to perform many sales and marketing functions and makes it possible for manufacturers to have more and richer two-way communications directly with consumers. It has also provided, for the rest time, the capability for channel marketing on a national or even international scale, attacking further the value of the traditional, geographically depend channel.
DEALERS STILL PART OF EQUATION
No one is suggesting, though, that auto dealers will disappear. Ironically, changes in cars and trucks themselves are making dealers more important. Consumers have more choices of brands and models than ever before. Improved durability and reliability and faster design cycles have narrowed the differences among competing products in the same category. B
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原文
Changing Channels In The Automotive Industry: The Future of Automotive Marketing and Distribution
Who will be the winners and losers in the revolution that is radically reshaping the marketing, distribution and selling of automobiles? Will the vehicle manufacturers and their franchised-dealer networks be able to overcome years of inertia and complacency to pioneer and execute new concepts that will strengthen and extend the value of their brands? Or will nimbler, more imaginative retailers or software companies get there first?
The transformation of the business of selling cars and trucks is happening before our eyes at an incredible pace -- promising to change forever an industry that has long been noted for its high costs, poor service and extremely unpleasant selling process. Auto manufacturers have competed fiercely among themselves to drive out cost and meet consumer needs for cheaper and better cars and trucks. Now the survivors face new threats from outside the industry that might thwart their renewed interest in building strong, lasting relationships with their customers.
Entrepreneurs have dissected the cost-value equation and come up with new retail concepts. Their stories have been persuasive enough to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in public equity investment and persuade dozens of fiercely independent car dealers to sell out. Internet technology has lowered entry barriers for other entrepreneurs with new ideas about helping customers find, evaluate and buy new vehicles. These patterns are consistent with revolutions in other consumer durables markets that effectively transferred market power from manufacturers to retailers.
Consumers are the only clear winners in this battle. While we are not sure which vehicle manufacturers will survive, we are confident that winning will require a better understanding of the life-cycle value equations of both cars and buyers, and the development of innovative strategies to capture that value.
FORCES OF CHANGE
From the days of Henry Ford#39;s production line, the automobile industry has been based on a 'supply-push' philosophy -- a strong bias toward 'filling the factories' to cover high fixed costs.
Dealer networks were created as logical extensions of the 'supply-push' model. The networks were designed to hold inventory, leverage private capital (without threatening the manufacturers#39; control) and service and support what was then a less reliable and more maintenance-intensive product. Those networks generally were built around entrepreneurs focused on a defined geographic area, selling one or at most two brands.
Despite its longevity, the traditional dealer channel leaves many people unhappy. High customer acquisition costs motivate dealers to convert store traffic to sales using aggressive tactics that extract differential margins based on customers#39; willingness to pay. Frequent well-publicized rebates have taught buyers to mistrust sticker prices and negotiate from cost up, rather than sticker down. As a result, dealers often find themselves competing not against another brand, but against a same-make dealer across town. This acute competition has almost bid away dealer profit on the sale of new passenger cars in the United States (with some profits still available on sales of trucks, sport utility vehicles and luxury cars).
Shrinking dealer margins do not translate into happy customers: Most customers (approximately four out of five) dislike the purchase process, and many still come away feeling cheated and mistreated. This strong antipathy is largely responsible for the rapid growth of Internet-based services that offer alternative means of gathering information on cars, soliciting price quotes and, in some cases, conducting transactions.
SURFING THE NET FOR PROFITS
Obviously the Internet is a major enabler of change in auto distribution. Many of the most important auto industry innovators today are developing Web-based services, leading some to predict that the most important automotive company of the next century will be a software-based company. Republic Industries, for instance, expects sales to reach $1 billion on the World Wide Web by the year 2000. Estimates vary, but some studies have shown that with some cars, as many as 40 percent of customers gather information from the Internet. A smaller but growing percentage of customers demonstrate what is called shopping behavior, or soliciting price quotations and availability information prior to the actual purchase.
The dramatic growth and power of Internet technology have greatly reduced the cost of obtaining information on features, price and availability. Consequently, customers are better equipped to extract what they want from dealerships. One of the pioneers of Internet marketing, Autobytel.com Inc., is working to speed response time from its participating dealers because it has learned that a staggeringly high proportion of its customers -- 64 percent -- buy within 24 hours of using its service to get price and availability quotes. The Internet offers new and better ways to perform many sales and marketing functions and makes it possible for manufacturers to have more and richer two-way communications directly with consumers. It has also provided, for the rest time, the capability for channel marketing on a national or even international scale, attacking further the value of the traditional, geographically depend channel.
DEALERS STILL PART OF EQUATION
No one is suggesting, though, that auto dealers will disappear. Ironically, changes in cars and trucks themselves are making dealers more important. Consumers have more choices of brands and models than ever before. Improved durability and reliability and faster design cycles have narrowed the differences among competing produc
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