Dealers missing out on digital F&I sales, study finds, from Automotive News.
TAMPA — Dealerships could be losing out on F&I sales because of their traditional reluctance to introduce products to vehicle shoppers before they come into the store to purchase a vehicle, a new study commissioned by a Cox Automotive offshoot finds.
For decades the selling of F&I products has been conducted almost exclusively in-store, said Mike Burgiss, founder of MakeMyDeal, a Cox Automotive-owned company that sells software that allows shoppers to negotiate online with dealers the prices of vehicles and trade-in values they’ll accept.
But the new study by MakeMyDeal indicates that consumers want to learn about F&I products online before getting to the store. And if they could, they would be more willing to look at them seriously from a distance rather than in-store, where they say they are skeptical of the information because it is being introduced at the end of a long buying process, Burgiss said.
