Group 1 launches online sales platform

After experimenting with more than half a dozen digital retail vendors over the past several months, Group 1 Automotive launched AcceleRide, its online car-buying platform, the dealership group said last week.

As customers' buying preferences evolve, dealers and automakers seek ways to make vehicle purchases simpler and more digital. And the plethora of digital retail vendors entering the market over the past few years has given dealers many options.

"Up to this point, what we've really tried to do is test the functionality of the process," said Daryl Kenningham, president of U.S. operations for Group 1. The company, headquartered in Houston, ranks No. 4 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups with retail sales of 170,517 new vehicles last year.

As Group 1 narrowed its vendor options, it asked: "Is this the functionality we want to be able to support the kind of process we want?" Kenningham told Automotive News.

AcceleRide will be highly visible on Group 1 dealerships' websites, Kenningham said. It is available at 79 Group 1 dealerships nationwide and will be available at all 116 of its U.S. stores by the end of summer.

"Customers really want to do business this way. Once you give them a convenient way to do it, they tend to be buyers," Kenningham said.

Other public new-vehicle retailers also have experimented with digital retail platforms.

• AutoNation launched AutoNation Express.
• Asbury Automotive Group partnered with Drive Motors.
• Lithia Motors is testing a digital retail platform at its Baierl stores in Pittsburgh.
• Sonic Automotive launched an app for vehicle appraisals and plans to offer an online car-buying tool that includes prequalifications from lenders.
• Penske Automotive Group plans to launch digital retailing sites in the United Kingdom and at its used-vehicle outlet in the U.S. this year.

Through AcceleRide, customers can browse Group 1's inventory of more than 38,000 new and used vehicles, customize features, select financing and payment terms and coordinate delivery to their home, office or local dealership.

AcceleRide also integrates factory rebate and incentive offers and allows customers to fill in trade-in details online, a company statement said. Through the platform, customers can upload all required information digitally, without visiting a dealership.

AcceleRide is powered by two digital retail vendors, but Kenningham declined to name them. "I hesitate to say, 'This is our partner' because it may not be forever," he said.

The tool itself will also evolve, he said. "What you see today could be different a week from now ... just based on what we're seeing and the traffic patterns from customers and the progress they're making with it," Kenningham said.

Group 1 executives thought the company needed a digital buying option to keep up with customers' expectations, Kenningham said. But buying a vehicle online is different from buying a pair of shoes. "You have to put [in] a lot of personal information when you're purchasing a car. Some aren't as comfortable putting that online for such a big purchase," he said.

Most customers want to at least test drive the vehicle in-store before they commit to the purchase, which makes creating a seamless online-to-in-store experience more crucial, Kenningham said. Group 1 has trained its dealership employees on the tool and the change in process for digital customers.

Even if customers don't complete every step online, during the pilot, customers who started the transaction online were more likely to buy than those who chose a more traditional shopping process, Kenningham said.

Launching AcceleRide aligns with Group 1's mission of working with customers on their terms, Kenningham said.

"We staff our dealerships so that we're ready to do business when our customers want to do business, not when we want to do business," he said. "That's why Saturdays are our biggest day. That's why we've hired so many new technicians with our four-day workweek."

"We feel like AcceleRide just fits right into that."