Are Car Dealerships the Safest Retail Experience?

Since car dealerships opened on the 1st June there has been a bounce across all KPIs including website traffic, Leads into the dealerships and importantly guests returning to showrooms and transacting.

It’s encouraging that consumes have felt that dealership were a safe environment and testimony to the hard work, effort and investment/costs of implementing the safety measures to ensure the dealership is Covide secure

Looking across the sector you can see the excellent work that dealerships have implemented from sanitising each car every time a vehicle is opened , and the taking of both associates and guests temperatures demonstrating to guests that our guest and associate safety is the number one importance across the dealerships and proving to be a rapport builder with the consumer

Where the industry has stood out is the way this has been communicated and promoted, (email/website/ social channels and safety videos) again providing that trust and reassurance to the consumer that car dealerships are a safe retail environment.

The way the industry has pulled together in delivery of this has been humbling, the first class webinars from Auto retail, Autotrader and car dealer to name a few has helped dealers understand the importance of ensuring that dealers were covid secure, not only that, dealers all know the importance of Trust, this is reflected in dealer reviews, especially Google My Business which provides a true assessment of a dealers reputation and is a key footfall traffic driver. Dealers also know the importance of ensuring vehicles are correctly merchandised online providing transparency and trust in the vehicle advertised, however now there is another indicator which is key – Trust in the dealer safety processes.

My belief was that this was process was followed by all retailers in line with government guidelines, it was not until the weekend where I had the pleasure of visiting some out of town retailers that I was somewhat dismayed at the lack signage, poor queuing systems resulting in confusion across the store that made me realise how efficient our industry is. With the majority of retailers reopening on June 15th retailers would not go far wrong from reviewing and taking the learnings from the automotive industry, which I believe that car dealerships are the safest retail environment.

Ian Godbold

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