How come we don’t market directly to consumers? We’ve got website tools that capture customer information. We could easily create a separate website and drive traffic there, then distribute out those leads to our customers, right?
We don’t market our trade-in and payment tools directly to customers for three big reasons.
Reason #1 – No B2C Experience
The first and the most humbling is that we have zero in-house expertise in running a consumer facing business. We know our strengths, and that isn’t one of them.
Reason #2 – Need More Money!
The second is that we’d have to raise a shitton of money. We’d need to spend millions and millions to compete with the consumer-facing brands like KBB, Cars.com, CarMax, and Carvana. That just breaks our business model.
Reason #3 – We Don’t Compete With Our Customers
Speaking of a business model, that’s the third and final reason. If we went after consumers directly, that means we’re competing directly with our customers for the same lead.
Yes, this already happens today as national brands spend millions to be the first destination for consumers to buy or trade a vehicle, and then re-sell those leads back to dealers who wanted them in the first place. This is one of the weirdest things about retail automotive.
I suppose we’re fortunate with reasons 1 and 2 that we’ve never had to debate the value of competing with dealers for buyers.
