When asked how he was able to create such wonderful sculptures, Michelangeo replied: 

“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”

Now two years into creating the vision that was Ai-Dealer, I keep stumbling upon references describing other's view of the apparition that is our dealer eCommerce product.  Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I'll express no opinion on whether ours is lovely or not.  While I'm proud of what we've built, I care more about it being effective at selling cars for our dealers.

What does sculpting have to do with Internet car sales by dealerships?  Well here is a quote from 2003 that I came across yesterday:

It should come as no surprise that a large number of dot.com companies are in trouble. Much of the investment made in the last few years was focused on attempts to become a market leader, beating out all the other companies. There are compelling historical parallels. The 1930s saw the bankruptcy of scores of automobile companies, but it was the takeoff point for the explosive growth of the auto industry. There is no reason to suspect that the current situation in e-commerce is any different. Moreover, the winners in e-commerce may not be the pure play dot.coms, but instead might be the "clicks and mortar"companies that use the Net to sell directly to consumers. In this case, pure-play dot.coms might not grow significantly, but e-commerce would.

If you are interested, here is the link to the full Congressional Subcommitte report.  While rather long, its observations are as interesting today as they were then.

http://energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/107/hearings/09262002Hearing732/print.htm

In the intervening years since the dot.com bust, not only has their prediction proven true in a great many other industries, but in retail automotive the 3rd party Internet lead providers who wrap themselves in the eCommerce flag have not made much of a dent in the business.  They certainly have not impacted auto the way Amazon changed the book market or Dell changed the computer market.  Why?  Well, the consumers are on the Internet in overwhelming numbers.  However leads are not eCommerce, they are an inquiry and a fairly weak expression of interest and leaves the real selling effort to the dealer.  3rd party lead provider hype to the contrary and some e-Dealer exceptions, feedback shows that the various dealer strategies remain highly inefficient in obtaining the desired results (profitable, efficient sales results from consumers' leads).

Regardless of how you feel about dealer "click and mortar" strategies, Ai-Dealer's software is the first, dealer-enabling, software for car dealers that is commercially available in the market.  I'm sure their will be others.  One large dealer group who studied our model liked it so much they felt they had to build their own.  If the large dealer groups are on the move, how is your store going to be competitive on the Internet in the 21st century?

At Ai-Dealer we do not advocate scrapping everything you have done to date.  Just the opposite actually.  To date, most dealers have focused their adoption of a click and mortar strategy around efficient systems and processes to handle Internet leads.  At Ai-Dealer we believe this to be an essential precondition to maximizing total profitability + efficiency from the click and mortar effort. 

Why do we say that a well-functioning Internet department is an essential precondition to maximum results?  While it has nothing to do with our product, the most profitable, effective implementation of our product involves a hybrid strategy designed to supplement rather than replace the existing Internet department.  Accessed off of a car dealer's existing website, consumers have to validate their email in order to get in.  That way they can either Buy direct or not.  If they idle their shopping cart, the dealership still gets the selling opportunity (lead) since we have their validated email address and what they were looking at.  To get maximum effect, the dealership still has to have effective surrounding processes, people and supporting technology.  Non-response to idle shopping carts and ineffective processes don't sell cars. 

Actual implementation experience is also that our system has not cannibalized other leads from the dealer's website.  The conclusion here is that there is a sizable component of the consumer population who will not provide their contact details to a lead submission web page, but whom are comfortable doing the complete exercise themselves. 

Now back to the "click and mortar" concept.  One interesting observation a dealer expessed to me this week was, "No additional cars are going to be sold in the market as a result of doing this, but wow is it ever likely to change from whom they are bought!"

Our point exactly + why we provide franchise-exclusive territories for your dealership to be able to market its competitive advantage.

While you have to want to adopt a "click and mortar" strategy in your dealership for your own reasons, I do encourage you to think about it.  If you are not responsible for the long-term profitability or competitive advantage of your store, please feel free to forward this to those who are.

Exactly how many incremental vehicle sales do you need to derive from this to make it worth doing?  How does the risk of doing this compare to the risk of running a newspaper or radio ad to get additional business?

Since I started with Michelangelo I'll end with another quote of his that I draw particular inspiration from:  "The greatest danger for most of us is not that we reach to high and fail, but that we reach too low and succeed."

I remain in awe of the great visionary that he was.  Being more of an ordinary mortal who has been wrong before on all kinds of things, I'll end with questions not statements.  What are your thoughts on "Click and Mortar?"  Are those thoughts strong enough that you feel compelled to act upon them?  Are your answers to these questions consistent with the 30,000ft view of what your responsibilities are?

Just something interesting to think about at the mid-point of your summer.