Share
Insights from our annual webinar: vehicle stock locators gain traction in a difficult ‘push’ market
Car brands who see customer-direct sales as a ‘failed project’ could be generating many more leads from ecommerce tools, according to the latest data from Sophus3.
Analysis of digital channels such as stock locators and offers pages — many of which were optimised as part of the so-called agency model pilots in the past two years — shows that customers will embrace automotive ecommerce if best-practice principles are followed.
The insight comes from Sophus3’s annual webinar of the latest trends and developments in the automotive sector’s digital strategy, attended by more than 30 companies, predominantly the automotive OEMs and their agencies.
In this first follow-on article, we share some insights into the growing importance of vehicle stock locators in the car buying journey.
Traffic to dedicated ecommerce pages on automotive brand websites remains low. In the last six months less than 0.5% of car site visits within the European Big 5 markets have included pages that facilitate online vehicle purchase.
However, one ecommerce-related site section that has seen significant improvements in traffic over the last two years has been the stock locator.
This is functionality that allows an online shopper to review in real time the inventory of vehicles a manufacturer holds, and to quickly find cars that match their preferences in terms of model, price, equipment level, colour, and location.
Sophus3’s data has recorded a tripling in the number of visits to stock finder pages over the last 24 months as the sector has returned to a push market — one in which supply outstrips demand. As shifting their existing stock has become more of a challenge, many brands have added or improved locator functionality, and made these pages the target destination for their online marketing.
Yet our review of online stock locators found considerable variation in the capability and effectiveness of different brands’ offerings, and even several brands without this key feature.
Volkswagen, is one brand that stood out in this area both through the functionality its stock locator offers, but also through its integration within the site making it accessible at key points within the buyer’s journey.
Over the coming weeks we will be sharing further insights from ‘Game-changers in Automotive Digital 2025’, here, on the Sophus3 website.
The webinar covered the following topics:
- The evolution of online car buyer behaviour
- The digital legacy of the agency experiment
- Audience quality versus audience size
- The factors shaping the EV market in 2025
- Which Chinese brands are succeeding in Europe
- The growing interest in OEM mobility services
- New approaches to managing customer consent
If you missed the event we are planning to host a repeat webinar in the near future. Additionally, we are happy to conduct a presentation tailored for individual clients to meet the needs of their digital and marketing teams. Contact patrick.fuller@sophus3.com to find out more.
Further content from ‘Game-changers in Automotive Digital 2025’: