Suppliers must be smartphone ready
Motor industry suppliers must ensure that customers can shop for their products and services through their smartphones, says iVendi.
The company points to statistics from CAP Gemini showing that, in the space of a year, the number of mobile customers willing to complete an e-commerce transaction through their smartphone had risen from one in five to one in four.
James Tew, CEO at iVendi said, ‘In recent years, a lot of dealer, car portal and manufacturer effort has gone into ensuring that e-commerce works well on tablets but the fact is that tablet sales are stagnating while smartphones continue to rise.
‘Whatever car-related product or service you sell, now is the time to ensure that they work excellently well on both Apple iPhones and Google Android smartphones. If you don’t, there is a good chance that customers will go to competitors who do.
‘There are some people working in the industry who will tell you that customers don’t feel confident in buying a car or making a finance application through to purchase using just their smartphone – but we see it happen every day.
‘Some people will complete their mortgage application on a bus or train using their smartphone, so it is unsurprising that people will buy cars and related products.’
James said that iVendi had spent considerable resources over the last year ensuring that its Quoteware online finance calculator and Car Finance Checker finance prequalifier provided a high quality experience on a wide variety of smartphones.
He said, ‘Preserving a high level of functionality on a smartphone screen isn’t always easy but we have arrived at solutions that we see working well. Motor industry web designers need to be as imaginative as possible to produce good, useable products.
‘A key area to monitor is security. Research shows that one of the reasons that people do not use smartphones to complete e-commerce transactions is because they are worried about this. You must ensure that your smartphone processes are as watertight as possible and that the customer has a high degree of confidence.’
