ralphpaglia
Newbie

Posts: 2
Visit me at www.DigitalRalph.com
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« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2008, 11:57:29 PM » |
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Brian,
Thank you for the favorable mentions in your most recent newsletter.
In regards to your question on percentages of sales to Internet leads that comprised the total vehicles sold at Courtesy Chevrolet in 2006... first of all, the dealership sold a total of just over 11,000 new and used vehicles in 2006. The only sales excluded from that number were wholesale transactions. If the deal generated sales tax, it was included in that 11,000+ unit count.
Of those 11,000+ vehicle sales, 4,008 were to customers who had submitted Internet leads or called our BDC from an online web site assigned phone number within 90 days prior to buying the vehicle at Courtesy.
Over 3,500 of those sales were commercial and fleet deals, leaving about 7,500 retail passenger vehicles sold.
So, it is safe to say our Internet Sales we greater than fleet and commercial (4,000 vs. 3,500) and that they were greater than walk-in retail sales (4,000 vs. 3,500)...
Or, you could describe our performance in 2006 as selling 36% of the dealership's total retail, commercial and fleet vehicle mix. Or, alternately, you could say that we sold 53% o the dealership's pure retail sales mix.
It is important to note that before Courtesy ramped up their Internet sales department, their sales looked very similar to what they are today without the Internet sales and marketing operations they have in place. In other words, regardless of how you slice and dice the store's historical numbers, they are a Chevy store whose sales have grown over the past 10 years by an amount equal to their growth in Internet sales.
It is one of the best examples of incremental same store sales growth I have ever seen, with almost a 1 for 1 increase in total stores sales volume matching their growth in Digital Marketing generated sales.
Another important point to all of this is that Courtesy Chevrolet has not cannibalized their showroom, commercial or fleet sales volumes by transferring business from each of those market segments into the Internet sales department or BDC... The growth in total eBusiness sales at Courtesy Chevrolet over the past ten years has been both organic and incremental.
I want to state here and now that I do not lay claim to this remarkable dealership success and digital marketing growth example... I was merely the running back who was called in by Mark and Scott Gruwell to receive the hand off from Robert Revere... Then, I carried the ball to a few touchdowns and the series of plays has been given to the 3 managers I recruited and/or promoted and trained; Rich Lucy (BDC), George Salman (New) and Bryan Long (Used) who now run the BDC and Internet Sales Teams at Courtesy Chevrolet.
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