Digital platform dove into deep end

Andy Hinrichs didn't plan to launch automotive e-commerce startup Digital Motors during a pandemic.

But just as the coronavirus accelerated dealerships' adoption of digital retailing processes, it also sped up Hinrichs' timeline to bring Digital Motors to market. Digital Motors was founded in late 2018, and its team spent a year and a half developing its online retailing platform before going live months earlier than planned.

The Irvine, Calif., startup is privately held, and Hinrichs, its founder and CEO, did not disclose financial details or the number of customers, other than to say the company is "rapidly growing." Before launching Digital Motors, Hinrichs, a Automotive News All-Star, also founded financial technology company AutoGravity and held leadership roles with Daimler Financial Services and Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA.

Digital Motors primarily offers a software-as-a-service digital retailing platform to dealerships, both individual stores and at the group level, and also can work with automakers, he said. He calls it a "plug-and-play" platform, and it can be stamped with the client's own brand.

Hinrichs, 49, talked with Staff Reporter Lindsay VanHulle. Here are edited excerpts.

On the term "digital retailing":

Digital retailing is an invention by the automotive industry for something that other industries didn't need. Other industries just naturally evolved into the online commerce space, and it's a seamless experience. We can order a pizza online and track it from the pizza oven to your doorstep. That's no big deal. But the auto industry, for some reason, always has to invent terms like "digital retailing." This frustration led to the creation of Digital Motors.

On Digital Motors' model:

Let's say you want to start selling widgets that you make in your basement online. You don't have to worry about creating the online store from scratch. You spin up a Shopify solution, and you're in business online. Similar philosophy behind Digital Motors. We enable a dealership to create an online, transactable store presence within 24 hours.

It creates calls to action like, "configure a deal online," "buy from home," "shop from home" or whatever the dealer would like to say, and it launches an online store as a separate browser tab right on the domain name of the dealer. So it's an integrated experience with the website. And it facilitates the entire process, from identifying the right vehicle, valuing your trade-in, selecting the right protection products, getting instantly approved for a lease or finance deal and scheduling your delivery.

On launching during a pandemic:

We launched the product in response to the crisis. After about a year and a half of development, we went live with the product [in March] 2020. This was a full quarter earlier than planned, and it was in response to the first shutdown. We had several dealers that needed a solution while their business and showrooms were closed down. Within the first week, we sold several cars on the first [dealership] that went live.