TOGETHER WITH:
Howdy, Fam!
Would you actually buy a car fully online?
A new survey asked shoppers exactly that, and the answer everyone's quoting is misleading them. There's a real gap between "open to it" and "would actually do it," and it matters more than the headline number suggests. For instance, I’m open to running away to join the circus, but my knees ain’t what they used to be, so I doubt I ever will. 🐯
Also in today's email:
The AI leadership habit quietly eroding executive judgment, and how to build real guardrails against it
A 14-year-old outproducing dealership social media, and an independent dealer who built his own fix for a wholesale blind spot
VW's U.S. pickup plans, a used-car pricing squeeze hitting all six major public dealer groups, and Mitsubishi joining the humanoid robot race
Keep Pushing Back,
—Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi
Reading time: 4 min and 09 sec
First-time reader? Subscribe Here!
Would You Buy a Car Fully Online? That Question Is Lying to You.
A new Urban Science and Harris Poll survey of over 3,000 buyers and 252 dealers found shoppers now research up to three months before buying, and 31% prioritize price over brand loyalty entirely.
Auto buyers are more willing to cross-shop across brands, dealers and marketplaces, extending the buying journey over one to three months.
Want the full conversation?
🎙️ Listen to today's Automotive State of the Union episode for the complete discussion.
The most misleading number in the survey is the one asking whether buyers are "open" to purchasing fully online. Only about a quarter said yes, and that's a hypothetical, not a behavior. If online buying were genuinely easy and appealing, that number should be far higher, since the friction's been gone for years.
What This Means for Your Store
Give shoppers real online tools, research payments, browse inventory, start paperwork, but build every one of those flows to end in a seamless human handoff, not a checkout. The data says that's still what most buyers actually want.
Fix what's costing you sales – all in one platform!
iPacket helps create smoother follow-up conversations with transparent, trust-building vehicle presentations. iPacket Value removes the guesswork from appraisal decisions with 100% OEM-verified competitive pricing data. iPacket OnTargeting keeps your inventory top-of-mind with highly targeted, low-funnel remarketing.
And iPacket Recon accelerates pre-owned operations through intuitive workflow management software tailored to your team’s reconditioning process.
"Work Slop" is the New Leadership Risk
74% of executives now trust AI's business advice more than their own colleagues, and 44% would defer to its reasoning over their own, according to research from SAP.
Consider this today
Set real guardrails before this becomes a habit. Decide as a leadership team how AI-assisted work gets reviewed before it goes out, and make sure your team knows their pushback still counts even against a confident-sounding chatbot answer. The goal isn't less AI, it's making sure a fluent answer never quietly replaces the harder work of checking whether it's right.
A 14-Year-Old is Creating Next Gen Dealership Content
Peter McKay runs @CarDealershipKid on Instagram, 1,400+ followers since February 2024, and has partnered with 15 dealerships across three states in exchange for mentorship instead of pay.
Pull up your store's last month of posts. Would they impress anyone half as much as Peter's product knowledge does?
From Auto Collabs: An Independent Dealer Got Tired of Waiting for Wholesale to Catch Up to Retail
Third-generation independent dealer Travis Baldwin built his own arbitration-transparency platform after watching the same bad vehicle cycle through auction five times with nobody the wiser. A good listen for anyone who's felt that exact frustration and assumed nothing could be done about it.
🚘 Car Stuff
Volkswagen plans to bring a U.S.-built pickup truck to market before the end of the decade, with new American leadership incoming and Ford floated as a possible development partner.
Used-vehicle prices climbed 4.5% to nearly $31,000 in June, and the six largest public dealer groups are each taking a different approach, off-lease supply, certified pre-owned, and "value" vehicles aged 9+ years among the strategies.
Kia's PV5 electric van now owns 37% of Europe's small electric van market, the best-seller in 12 countries just months after launch.
💰 Not Car Stuff
1793: The Louvre Museum in Paris opened to the public for the first time.
1846: The Smithsonian Institution was founded in Washington, D.C.
2015: Google restructured into a holding company called Alphabet, spinning its search business out from its other research ventures.
Thanks for reading, Friend!
