Dealer Image Pro, a leader in professional photo, video and 360 software for automotive dealerships, announced results from an industry survey it commissioned to better understand how dealers are using vehicle photography and video to best merchandise cars and trucks in today’s digital retailing landscape.
Dealer Image Pro presented an online survey to more than 3,000 automotive dealer professionals during June. Only 12% said they use a software or application to take and upload their own vehicle photos, with another 30% saying they have to train someone new to take photos every week. Nearly 20% also said it takes them a day or two to get their photos and videos loaded onto their website.
53% of those dealers surveyed use a photo vendor service, showing that this older form of merchandising can be convenient, but certainly not optimal.
Almost 26% of respondents said they currently spend $30,000 to 40,000 per month in digital advertising, another 24% say they spend over $40,000 per month in ad spend and a whopping 75% say they bring their cars to market with photos only three days per week or less. These figures ultimately show that automotive dealerships are missing crucial time to bring their vehicles to market each week, as the advertising dollars spent on vehicle listings are a direct reflection of the time lost. This lost time posting new inventory is costing dealers thousands in additional revenue each month.
The average dealership spent over $312,000 on online advertising in 2021, according to Statista. Automotive professionals are not maximizing the time they spend on bringing the vehicle to market versus the amount of advertising dollars spent.
31% of automotive dealer professionals surveyed said they see their vehicle detail pages (VDPs) up significantly this year, with 33% seeing their gross profit margin increase 10% to 15% above sticker price.
“We still see dealerships using a physical camera when taking vehicle photos and videos, which shows just how obsolete the process is for some in today’s digital world,” said Peter Duffy, founder and CEO of Dealer Image Pro. “We used to be the photo vendor using cameras. We loved this experience. It’s how we cut our teeth in this industry. The data is clear though, the path of least resistance is taking your content in-house with software on a mobile device. Cars should be brought to market the day they’re out of recon. Full stop. This trend was evident two-three years ago, but after the last two years, it’s crystal clear. The trick now for dealers is to find the right photo software to streamline their big lot operations. Basically, getting an end-to-end solution that helps all automotive dealerships list and sell their vehicles faster.”
