Blogs

It’s clear that the importance of digital platforms in the customer journey has increased in the last few years, and the automotive retail industry is responding accordingly. In a recent survey commissioned by CitNOW, 87% of motor retailers said they believe it’s now more important than ever to invest in their digital communications. The use of video as a communication ...

The automotive retail sector is suffering from a fundamental lack of investment in systems and staff – and dealerships must adapt to survive in a post-Brexit, post-pandemic world. Whilst issues around the major shortfall of lorry drivers remains in the public eye, a range of other sectors – including car dealerships – are also paying the price for decades of ...

Over the past few weeks we have a series of results from dealer groups showing how they have performed in the first half of the year. The results have been positive in many cases. Pent-up demand and rising consumer confidence have been good for business. But some have warned that the second half is going to be – is – ...

The sustained lack of new and used car supply is unprecedented and is causing an ongoing headache for motor retailers with little improvement in sight. One consequence is a dramatic rise in used car residual values, the other is the need to keep prospects within the sales funnel for much longer than usual. However, with other dealers just a click ...

The usual uplift in new registration sales will not start to be felt until next month at the earliest. While it is true that 71-plate vehicles are flying out of the showrooms, stock is in short supply with manufacturers struggling to approach anything like pre-pandemic production levels. The global shortage of semiconductor processing chips, crucial for everything from infotainment to ...

The arrival of the online car retailer has certainly had an impact on the used car market over the past couple of years. Indeed, many traditional dealerships have been inspired to adopt parts of their digital first approach as they scrambled to shift more of their services online during the darkest months of lockdown. Their influence has allowed traditional automotive ...

The fourth quarter used car market looks likely to set the tone for the 2022 as the sector enters the real post-pandemic economy. The next few months would bring a number of economic headwinds – notably the end of furloughing but there would also be potential benefits, including the easing of the semiconductor shortage. For some time, we have all ...

The pre-plate change holiday month of August is typically the quietist month of the year for new car sales, so these low numbers have little significance on the broader health of the new car market. What’s far more significant is the outlook for September, and whether the uptake for the biannual number plate change will be enough to sustain the ...

Bumper has expanded its partnership with CitNOW which will see its Buy-Now-Pay-Later platform embedded in vehicle health check videos sent to aftersales customers across Europe. The service has been launched in the UK, where it is already available at over 700 sites, and will debut shortly in Germany and Spain followed by other European countries. The integration with CitNOW Workshop, ...

The pandemic created a watershed moment for the automotive industry that saw manufacturers and retailers rapidly accelerate their digital plans to offer customers buy online functionality and the enhancement of digital customer journeys. While it may be a natural reaction to pause and take a breath after a period of significant change, there is evidence to suggest the move to ...