The EVOX Blog

Dealership Customer Experience

How to Create a Great Dealership Customer Experience

While a dealership’s bottom line might be measured in how many sales it makes, the factors that go into those sales are full of vital data points that can bring in more sales and repeat business. Customers might even pay more if they know they are getting what they want

High-Quality Car Images

High-Quality Car Images Include These Features and Attributes

Images can help buyers understand more about a business’ products and different offerings. Images also can help consumers put a face to a name when working with a sales team member virtually. Car dealerships probably know that images heighten the online user experience, but not all images are impactful. Car

Studio Quality Car Photos

How Can Dealerships Find Studio Quality Car Photos?

Photos can elevate or diminish the impact of a dealership’s website. Ideally, car dealerships want to integrate high-resolution, professional imagery to ensure that every vehicle in the inventory is marketed and depicted with the most visual interest possible. Some dealerships might not be too concerned about the images they use.

Sustainable Cars

What’s Next for Sustainable Cars?

As climate change becomes more urgent for humanity to address, sharp eyes have turned toward cars, a leading contributor. However, vehicles are not a luxury, and many people rely on them to be able to survive, using them to go to work and perform errands to stay fed, clothed, and

Importance of Google and SEO

Does Your Dealership Understand the Importance of Google and SEO?

The dealership likely has a marketing plan that outlines the communication efforts for the year. Perhaps there is a healthy budget to finance vast online ad outreach. The inventory is being targeted to the right customer in the right geographic area. Maybe the dealership also has a company blog to

Car dealerships unloading inventory hasn’t been a problem. Inventory could be lower, demand is up. For the seller (aka the dealership), this low inventory combined with higher buyer demand means higher price tags. In fact, some car models have sold more than the sticker price. Kelley Blue Book reported that the average sale price for new cars is more than $48K, and used cars tend to be selling for higher prices, too. Some car dealership owners might see the seller edge and wonder if it’s time to move on and sell the dealership. For car dealerships, is it a seller’s market? What the Experts Say Andy Church, president of U.S. operations at DSMA, tackled this topic for Auto News. Church explained that he wasn’t going to discuss the personal aspects of selling; obviously, selling a business is a personal decision and there could be many reasons why an owner might want to sell. Church outlined the conditions in the market that could lead owners to sell. He explained that the high buyer demand, low cost of borrowing, the higher profit margin and the overall higher valuation of the dealerships all contribute to the market reasons for selling. The article, however, was written back in May. This was a time when the dealership had an edge on the buyer, when interest rates were lower and when the profit margin also favored the dealership. Is the tide turning? The Federal Reserve bumped interest rates yet again, and, unfortunately, this increase could impact the buyer. Higher interest rates mean higher borrowing costs. Buyers could afford less cars for their money. If car prices remain high, these higher borrowing costs could possibly motivate buyers to delay their purchase. However, some car buyers might need a car immediately and have to simply purchase what they could afford. The market conditions could change for some dealerships. Yet, the interest rates rising are only one part of the equation. Dealerships might still have the edge related to purchase price, and they also could still see higher margins. What the future holds, though, might be a mystery. Will demand fall? Will the prices go down? The Fed only bumped rates a few weeks ago. It could take time for the impact to reverberate. The chip crunch could still impact dealership inventory, though. This could mean that dealerships could have fewer inventories and still have high demand. Again, though, only time could tell. Sometimes Selling is Personal Church didn’t outline personal reasons for selling a dealership. These reasons could be vast. Some owners might be ready to get out of the industry, or they could be ready to retire to the beach with their family. Other issues could motivate a dealership owner to sell their business. Again, the personal reasons could be numerous and, obviously, very personal. Selling Isn’t for Everyone The car dealership could be a family business. Selling just might not be on the table. Dealerships might be fine with the market evening out. Economic shifts are a reality, and sometimes they are an unpredictable reality. As the housing market favored the seller and prices soared, the same could be true for the valuation of some car dealerships. Yet, even when home prices were high, some families were simply happy staying where they were. Dealership owners might feel the same way. Some Dealerships Might Be Evolving Dealerships that wouldn’t even consider selling at a market high or at any point might also change their marketing plans and strategies to evolve with any industry changes. The pandemic forced many dealerships to move the shopping experience online, and some dealerships might have discovered that customers responded favorably to these online experiences. Dealerships might be pursuing more dynamic online experiences to satisfy the tech-savvy buyer. Younger consumers—like Gen Z—might prefer augmented reality experiences that enhance their online shopping journey. Car dealerships could create augmented reality showrooms that can be accessed via smartphones and tablets; these experiences let shoppers capture the real world environment with their device camera and preview a product in that environment. Augmented reality car showrooms drop a 3D digital model of the vehicle in the user’s selected environment. The experience is navigated with the camera, and the consumer can walk around this digital image and some experiences even let them look inside or change the paint color. Car dealerships also could integrate other interactive experiences into their website to simulate the in-person shopping experience. For example, dealerships could use 3D spin photos to let shoppers explore the vehicle from home. Consumers can interact with these 360 degree spin photos by using either their computer mouse or their fingertip (for those on a smartphone or tablet). The photo can be rotated a full 360 degrees to view it from any angle. In addition, panorama spin photos can feel as though the user is sitting in the vehicle; the fingertip or mouse can navigate the experience to look all around the interior of the car. Panorama photos even let consumers look up at the moonroof. What Will the Future of the Car Shopping Experience Look Like? Car dealerships likely understand that the chip shortage won’t last forever. They also understand that the seller won’t always have the upper hand. Eventually, the market might even out a bit. Prices might come down, inventory might be normalized. Yet, no one knows what the future holds. The pandemic shook up the economy across the globe, and businesses had to figure out how to survive and remain afloat. Online experiences became the norm, but many businesses offered curbside pickup services. Car dealerships even offered virtual test drives. Again, buyers might now prefer online shopping for buying and researching a new car. Younger buyers might not want to go to the dealership. Will this impact the future of the car dealership? Maybe it already has. Who Might Buy? For dealerships ready to sell, who is ready to buy dealerships? As Church explained, dealership groups aren’t the only potential buyer. He noted that private equity groups and independent dealerships also could be interested. In some situations, though, selling might be the only option. Again, personal decisions for selling a car dealership could be vast. Some owners might decide to sell now if the market still favors the seller. Others, though, might not even consider putting their business up for sale even if they think they could make a good profit. Some car dealerships are family businesses; owners could be in it for the long haul. Some could be excited to see what the future holds. After all, the future could be electrified with standard engines being replaced by eco-friendly motors. The future also could be focused on self-driving vehicles. Regardless of what the future holds, dealership owners might be ready for the long journey. Others though could be more than ready to ride off into the sunset of retirement. Whether the owner sells and focuses on a new venture (or the beach) or stays the course, the future for the automotive industry could be exciting.

For Car Dealerships, Is It a Seller’s Market?

Car dealerships unloading inventory hasn’t been a problem. Inventory could be lower, demand is up. For the seller (aka the dealership), this low inventory combined with higher buyer demand means higher price tags. In fact, some car models have sold more than the sticker price. Kelley Blue Book reported that

Social Media Marketing Habits

Use These Social Media Marketing Habits to Help Increase Engagement

Social media is an integral part of a business’ marketing strategy. For car dealerships, a social media presence can help online shoppers find out more about the available inventory and interact with the dealership team and its other followers online. Car dealerships that aren’t engaged on social media platforms might

Used Car Images

How to Snap the Best Used Car Images

Professional car stock photos are high-resolution images that showcase the best angles of a vehicle. Stock photos include close-up looks at specific features of the car like the instrument panel, wheels or the gear shift. While car stock photos are the best image choice to use when marketing new vehicle

Content Marketing for Dealerships

Content Marketing for Dealerships: 5 Optimized Blog Articles to Increase Visibility

Car dealerships that are researching ways to enhance their visibility online and reach new customers might be focused on boosting advertising and becoming more active on social media. While both advertising and social media outreach are effective tools to promote the dealership and appeal to a wider audience, these aren’t

Stock Car Photos

Here’s Why the Best Stock Car Photos Library Should Offer XR Assets

Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies might be the future of the retail experience. For many companies and businesses, though, the future is now. Many have integrated extended reality (XR) experiences into their online hubs or feature this technology as part of their app offerings. Car dealerships need to offer

Car Dealership Instagram Marketing

Create These Car Dealership Instagram Marketing Videos

Instagram has recently changed its focus to favor short video content. With the success of TikTok, this pivot could have been a crucial move to help the photo-heavy Instagram evolve for a younger audience. While not every user has loved the updates, the social media world changes with online trends

Automotive Stock Photos

Be on the Lookout for Automotive Stock Photos for These Upcoming Vehicles

The new 2023 models are driving into dealerships. This means that photos of these vehicles could be available from EVOX Images soon. However, there are many new cars that are scheduled to make their debut soon. While manufacturers release a new model every year of popular cars in their lineup,

Where Can Designers Find Stock Car Images

Where Can Designers Find Stock Car Images?

Dealerships might be in search of photos for a particular car model to use online or in marketing materials. However, website designers or graphic designers also might need these images to produce web content, advertising materials or other communiqués for clients. Designers who need high-resolution car stock images might wonder

car API Vehicle Image API

Here’s How Car API, Vehicle Image API Provides a Hassle-Free Image Search

Car dealerships might choose to use car stock images to showcase new models that have arrived in the showroom or on the lot. Car stock images help enhance and improve the online user experience, some stock images are interactive to allow site visitors to explore vehicles inside and out. Finding

custom vehicle photo vs no photos vs stock images

Here’s When to Use a Custom Vehicle Photo vs. No Photo vs. Stock Images

Dealership marketing communiqués are inclusive of blog articles, advertisements, online content (website copy), social media content and more. Words communicate stories and even the description of new models, but photos are crucial to help customers visualize their new car options. Yet, are photos necessary for every marketing endeavor? Here’s when

Custom Vehicle Photo vs. Stock Images

When Should Dealerships Choose a Custom Vehicle Photo vs. Stock Images?

Vehicle photography gives customers a visual understanding of different models available at a dealership. Online research is now a natural part of the car buying process for many customers, and, as the dealership’s website might be the last online destination one in three customers visit, it should be an impactful

Dealership Marketing Ideas

Dealership Marketing Ideas to Drive Sales and Foot Traffic

Car dealerships might use a variety of tried-and-true marketing tactics to help increase customer traffic or to draw attention to specific vehicles, too. Online advertising, email outreach and even special promotions could help dealerships increase their visibility. Is the dealership in a marketing rut, though? If the same tactics are

Buy Car Stock Images

How Can Dealerships Buy Car Stock Images?

Some dealerships might take a DIY approach to the photographs on their website that showcases their inventory. While photos snapped on a smartphone or tablet could be an inexpensive way to showcase all the options on the lot, photography is an artform. Marketing vehicles requires photographs that highlight their best

Get Car Image API

Get Car Image, API Simplicity and More with EVOX Images

There are many downloadable photo galleries that let car dealerships access photos for their marketing needs. However, not all of them allow for quick and simplistic searches. Dealerships might find that it takes them way too much time to pinpoint the images that they want and need for a specific

Car Dealer Stock Image

Why Using a Car Dealer Stock Image Isn’t the Best Marketing Choice

Car stock photos are ideal for showcasing new models on a dealership website, via social media and even in online ads. These images are professional, high-resolution and often include close-ups of important details of the vehicle. Professional stock photos enhance the user experience, but there is one situation where these

Social Dealerships

Social Dealerships: 30 Post Ideas to Increase Engagement and Visibility

Social media platforms are a simple way for businesses to stay connected to past and current customers and reach out to new customers, too. Facebook remains the most popular social media site; it counts about 2.93 billion active users each month. In addition, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok also are

Car Stock Photos API

This is How Car Stock Photos API Technology Simplifies the Photo Search

Car dealership marketing pros have probably found themselves rummaging through files of stock photos online to find the precise photo that they need for a specific webpage or blog article. With some photo sources, the images could be identifiable only by name and listed by the hundreds in a main

How Dealerships Can Get Optimized

Here’s How Dealerships Can Get Optimized

A dealership’s website is its online portal and its primary internet hub for customers. Can customers or consumers looking for a new or used car find the dealership’s website easily? If website traffic is at a lull and dealerships aren’t seeing new visitors, there could be an optimization issue. Here’s

API for Car Images

EVOX Images: Intuitive API for Car Images

Searching for the best car image could be a bit of a hunt for dealerships if they are using the wrong image library. Some image providers make subscribers click through multiple folders and download a file full of different images just to find that one perfect snapshot of a model.

SEO Primer for Dealerships

The Complete SEO Primer for Dealerships

Dealerships probably know by now that content is important on their website and social media accounts. Great content keeps customers engaged, and this engagement and on-site exploration could convert to sales. How much does the dealership know about SEO, though? While keywords are important, search engine optimization is more than

Stock Images Cars

The Best Stock Images: Cars, Interactive Content and Color Options

When businesses were forced to shut down to abide by mandatory health orders during the height of Covid, survival meant creating experiences to mirror in-person shopping. Small and large companies might have previously offered an online storefront, but car dealerships might not have embraced the online shopping trend until mandates

Dealership Marketing Should Include YouTube

Here’s Why Dealership Marketing Should Include YouTube

Most dealerships probably understand that social media engagement is an important way to increase visibility and reach out to past, present and future customers. While many dealerships use Facebook for advertising and to stay social and visible online, dealerships might be overlooking another incredibly beneficial social media site for marketing.