F&I's newest battle: Online shopping
 | Jim Henry is a special correspondent for Automotive News |
Reprints
Print
Respond
- 2 million extra doors was the best call Daimler made during 'marriage of equals'
- Nissan lures feathered pickup customers with fish, no rebates
- In the Land of Many Buicks, one in particular stood out
- With Mercedes, there's nothing bigger than S-class launch
- How a pope inspired Zetsche to become a Mercedes man
Now that consumers are shopping for auto loans online in the same way they shop for cars online, the F&I pricing model is changing. Internet shopping is ushering in a new level of competition, comparison-shopping and transparency for auto loan deals.
The auto finance track at next week's Consumer Bankers Association conference in Austin, Texas, promises a heavy emphasis on the online channel.
More customers are walking into showrooms with a strong preference for a particular lender or with finance approval already in hand. That presents a new set of challenges for dealerships, which rely on negotiating indirect loans for a great deal of their F&I profits, not to mention overall profits.
Meanwhile, at other recent auto finance conferences, auto lenders have said they're taking more and more credit applications online. A lot of those loan applications will get switched to indirect loans when customers actually enter dealerships, but some lender-direct loans are bound to stick.
That means F&I managers have a real fight on their hands.
You can reach Jim Henry at autonews@crain.com.
