The Denver auto-retail market is competitive and aggressive, says Jared Pleva (left) of Mike Shaw Subaru.
Mountainous terrain and snowy weather make Colorado a perfect spot to sell all-wheel-drive Subarus.
The 5-store Denver market has two of the top five volume producers of the brand’s 2015 retail sales of 582,675 units in the U.S, according to WardsAuto data.
Subaru gained the most market share in 2015, closed last year with 3.4% of the U.S. light-vehicle market, up from 1.4% in 2008.
Mike Shaw Subaru, in Denver’s northern suburb of Thornton, slipped under the wire to claim the No.100 slot on the WardsAuto e-Dealer 100 ranking of sales handled by a designated Internet department or originating from submitted Internet leads.
The dealership chalked up 1,512 Internet sales in 2015 (1,086 new, 426 used). The store tallied 3,000 total unit sales in 2015.
“It’s a Subaru market, a very aggressive, competitive market,” says Jared Pleva, Shaw’s Internet manager. “We’ve actually had deals coming in via our website and online sources from South Dakota, North Dakota, Nevada, and New Mexico. We’ve had some deals come in from the East Coast.”
Pleva speculates about 70% of consumers still walk in without submitting an Internet lead, but they still used the Internet in preparation for their dealership visit. “Even if they didn’t submit a lead online, they still went online to search for and gather information.”
He discusses the store’s Internet strategy in a WardsAuto interview. Here’s an edited transcript.
WardsAuto: How do you reach out to markets in different states?
Pleva: To be perfectly honest, they reach out to us through (third-party lead aggregators and search results). The Denver-area market has a reputation for good deals, good pricing and a great inventory of Subarus.
WardsAuto: Describe your e-commerce strategy.
Pleva: First and foremost to take inbound leads. We try to have all of our inventory online and make sure everybody on our team is up to date on that inventory. We shop pricing for the market fairly frequently, about once or twice a week, to make sure we are competitive.
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