Auto Trader has bolstered its offering for dealers with the integration of CitNOW Web video technology.
Using the intuitive CitNOW Web app, dealers using Autotrader.co.uk with a video subscription can now add videos of the vehicles they have for sale alongside still imagery.
Adding personalised video to showcase used vehicles offers a bespoke service for individual customers and is proven to increase trust between the buyer and the seller, as well as speeding up the sales process by shaving two weeks off the amount of time a car spends in stock.
Auto Trader offers dealers a halo audience of 11.5m unique monthly users but CitNOW’s clever system automatically disseminates videos to multiple destinations, including the AA’s Vcars.co.uk used sales site, Motors.co.uk, dealer and manufacturer websites and portals, meaning that a single, easy-to-make video is exposed to a much bigger combined audience.
As part of the collaboration pilot, CitNOW worked with dealer group Drive Vauxhall on Autotrader.co.uk and discovered that 45% cars that received one or more video plays at any point went on to be sold. Among cars that did not receive a video play, that figure dropped to 33%.
It also found that users who viewed a video during their session on the site viewed 5% more advertisements and two thirds of all videos tested on site were rated very or extremely useful by consumers.
Chris Elvidge, Managing Director at Drive Vauxhall, said: “Incorporating CitNOW’s Web technology on Auto Trader will significantly enhance our digital presence and the customer feedback from the initial trial bodes extremely well.”
Alistair Jeff, Commercial Director at CitNOW, said: “The popularity and importance of video in car sales is only going to rise; forward-looking dealers are already encouraging their customers to use it and, by the end of this year, consumers themselves will be driving the demand for video as it evolves into a medium for a two-way conversation.”
Overall, 4,400 CitNOW product subscriptions are now live in 2,750 dealerships and the company works with 31 OEMs globally as well as 91 of the top 100 dealer groups in the UK. Today, more than 50% of the dealer network in the UK now uses video technology.
CitNOW recently predicted that by 2020 the entire process of buying and selling a car would be by video and published the findings in a White Paper which can be downloaded at http://www.citnow.co.uk/white-paper/
