Despite the fact that the second-hand vehicle market is booming, not only maintaining but also increasing a dealership's sales is a real challenge.
Factors such as digitalisation, stricter environmental regulations, growing demand for electric vehicles and changes in consumer behaviour have created new challenges for dealerships.
In this changing environment, dealerships can no longer rely solely on traditional sales techniques: they need to adapt, innovate and optimise every point of contact with the customer.
In this article, we explore the simplest and most effective sales strategies for attracting customers if you want to expand your business.
Online strategies
Create a company profile on Google
This is a free option offered by Google to create an online listing for your business.
We recommend filling in as many fields as possible. It will include important information such as contact details, opening hours, location, a description of your business, your website (if you have one), images of your premises, images of your products, videos, reviews, etc.
Take your time filling it in, paying special attention to the description. Use keywords that define your business, what you offer and why they should choose you.
This is an excellent opportunity to increase your visibility, gain potential customers and generate security and trust.
Optimise your website
Nowadays, creating a website is so easy that anyone with little knowledge of the subject can do it.
There are already easily customisable templates where you can create an online shop, upload your products, add descriptions and manage your stock.
To have a website that sells, it is essential that:
- It is responsive, i.e. adapted for mobile devices. If you opt for a template, most of them already are.
- It is optimised for SEO. This refers to optimisation in search engines such as Google. Some basic rules to get started with SEO:
-Do keyword research to help improve your ranking.
-Create optimised URLs: not too long, with keywords and avoiding strange characters.
-Take care of the internal linking of the website, prioritising the products that can give you the highest return.
-Upload good quality images and videos, reducing their file size.
-Keep your vehicle inventory up to date.
-Never lose sight of what your competition is doing.
- Highlight what sets you apart and what you offer.
- Pay attention to aesthetics and don't add unnecessary information. In these cases, simplicity is best.
Create a social media profile
Instagram, for example, can be an excellent showcase for your fleet of available vehicles.
To optimise your profile, we recommend:
- Add a brief description of what you offer, where your business is located, a link to your website and your contact details.
- Upload high-quality images showing the entire vehicle and close-up photos showing details.
- Add the technical specifications of each vehicle in the caption and contact details at the end.
- Create videos and live streams showing each vehicle.
- Respond to direct messages and comments, inviting people to make an appointment in person.
Link your products to other online sales platforms
In addition to displaying your products on your website, you can upload them to second-hand sales platforms.
This will help increase your reach and visibility.
Offline strategies
In addition to online strategies, you can also increase sales with on-site actions.
Prepare responses to customer objections
An objection is something that prevents the customer from making a purchase.
During the purchasing process, it is normal for questions or concerns to arise, especially with high-priced products.
As these objections tend to be repeated, we recommend writing them down and creating response templates to calm and resolve customers' concerns so that we can bring them closer to making a purchase.
Some techniques include:
- Listen first, respond later
- Respond with real arguments and data
- Anticipate the ‘buts’ with the benefits they will get
- Respond with a question: ‘Can you tell me your concerns about this?’, ‘How do you think we can improve the service?’
Upselling, Cross-selling and Downselling
On many occasions, the vehicle initially chosen by the customer does not fully meet their needs or budget.
Before losing a potential customer, you can offer them other alternatives:
- If the potential customer's final objection is financial, you can offer them another vehicle that meets most of their needs at a lower price (downselling).
- Another way to increase the ticket is through cross-selling. This consists of offering additional services or products that complement the vehicle they are going to buy. For example: seat protectors, additional insurance or warranty, Certificate of Conformity, preventive maintenance, etc. This technique usually works best just before closing the sale.
- If the vehicle initially chosen by the customer does not meet all their needs and/or the price is not an issue, offer them another one with better equipment or from a higher range (upselling).
Financing
For high-ticket products, offering financing plans is essential to encourage the sale.
Easy payment terms are an excellent technique for overcoming objections about price and can set you apart from your competition.
Follow-up
Even after implementing all your strategies, you will not always close the sale right away.
Obtaining the customer's contact details is especially important so that you can remind them that you are the best option without being intrusive or pushy.
You can do this through a form on the website or in person if they visit the dealership.
Customers often need time to decide and compare other options. This is a critical moment because they are likely to be evaluating other options from the competition.
We must know how to choose the right moment to re-establish contact and, if necessary, offer them an extra service that we had not previously offered.
Conclusion
Objections should not be seen as insurmountable barriers, but as an opportunity to delve deeper into customers' needs, find out what they need and determine what we are missing or where we can improve.
In addition, developing good online and offline strategies is essential to first gain visibility and reach online, and then increase the sales closure rate offline.
