Cox launches Accelerate digital tool in Las Vegas

Dealers and dealership staffers arriving in Las Vegas for the NADA Show will see billboards promoting Cox Automotive's Accelerate as a way to do more of the car-buying process online.

But the ads aren't aimed at convention attendees. Instead, they're targeting car shoppers in Las Vegas.

On March 5, 24 Las Vegas-market dealers using Cox's Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book websites began offering Accelerate, with the promise that shoppers can do more at home, shaving up to an hour off the time spent in the dealership closing the deal.

More than 10,000 vehicles — an estimated 43 percent of the inventory in the Las Vegas area on Autotrader — will be available using Accelerate, Cox officials said.

By the time the NADA Show begins, Cox hopes to have real-world results from those dealerships to prove to attendees that Accelerate works. It chose Las Vegas for the initial run not just because of this year's NADA Show, but also because the city is a relatively isolated car market, in contrast to, say, San Diego, which bumps up against several other Southern California markets.

Consumers can do as much or as little online with Accelerate as they choose, but Cox officials assume most will still go to a dealership eventually. Research has shown that consumers like to do certain portions of the purchase process, such as the test drive, at dealerships.

Accelerate lets consumers perform these tasks away from a dealership:

• Receive an accurate value for their trade-in through Kelley Blue Book's Instant Cash Offer, which is immediately applied to their monthly payments.
• View videos and other content on finance and insurance products, with dealer-specific retail pricing.
• Secure online financing and approvals, thereby reducing paperwork at the dealership.
• Determine actual monthly payments, incorporating their credit scores, financing terms, applicable discounts and incentives, any F&I products they chose to buy, and taxes and fees based on their ZIP code.
• Accept the deal's terms and reserve the vehicle via a credit-card deposit and a scheduled appointment within 72 hours for a test drive and completion of the purchase.

All information entered online via Accelerate is transferred to whatever dealership management system the retailer uses, eliminating redundant form-filling.

Cox research shows that 83 percent of shoppers are interested in learning about F&I products before entering the dealership, and that 63 percent of them are more inclined to buy those products if they have had a chance to acquaint themselves with the benefits online beforehand, at their own pace and outside the dealership.

The typical U.S. car buyer spends more than three hours in the dealership from start to finish, Cox Automotive's 2018 Car Buyer Journey Study found. Half said that's too long.

"We know our customers are doing research and shopping for cars online, so we want to meet them where they are, in ways convenient for them," Darren Johnston, general manager at Henderson Nissan, southeast of Las Vegas, said in a Cox news release. "We think the new Accelerate approach is the right one, as it can make the car-buying process even more efficient for us and for our customers."

Cox will promote Accelerate to consumers via radio and online ads in addition to billboards. Consumers in the Las Vegas market who visit autotrader.com or kbb.com and search for vehicles will see a blue or green button beside each vehicle offered by a dealership using Accelerate. Click on the button, and they're able to start the process.

Cox plans to roll out Accelerate nationwide by year end. Once enough dealerships are using it in a given market, Cox will promote it to consumers there with more marketing, said Autotrader General Manager Jessica Stafford. It probably will be in enough markets to allow national advertising in the third quarter, she said.

"It's a balancing act," Stafford said. "We're creating demand on the consumer side, and you have to have enough cars that are Accelerate-enabled" to do that.

In addition, Accelerate tools will be made available across many of the dealer websites powered by Dealer.com in 2018. Dealer.com, another Cox Automotive brand, supports more than 60 percent of franchised dealership websites across the U.S., or more than 13,000 total.