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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Internet drives consumer choice

Jennifer Saranow The Wall Street Journal

Auto makers are playing matchmaker.

With the Internet increasingly influencing what people buy and how they buy it, the auto industry is revving up online efforts to help consumers pick that perfect new ride — and in the process, they hope, boost sales and customer satisfaction.

The latest push is aimed at helping people figure out exactly which vehicle — down to the trim, or level of features a vehicle comes with, color and other available options — is right for them before they ever step into a dealership. And when people finally make it to the dealer armed with their list of options and prices, they’re finding that dealers themselves have changed gears, offering a streamlined sales process.

“The big thing is getting consumers into the vehicle that is right for them,” says Dennis Galbraith, senior director of research for J.D. Power & Associates, the Westlake Village, Calif., market-research firm. “Customers need to know which model, which trim level, which options, which accessories — there are a lot of decisions that go into the car-shopping process — and so the sites are making it much easier to facilitate that decision making.”

The focus on matching people with products comes as the majority of car buyers now do some or all of their research on the Web. According to J.D. Power, more than 60 percent of consumers use the Internet in the car-shopping process. And Internet users spend, on average, 4.9 hours online shopping for a new vehicle and visit seven sites.

Meantime, the process of picking out a car has become more complex. Automobiles themselves have become more complicated in recent years, with new technologies from navigation systems to seats that remember the right angle for your back. And the amount of information available online about cars and the number of models and options car companies are offering have proliferated.

WardsAuto.com, an automotive-data company in Southfield, Mich., estimates there are about 545 cars and 1,657 light-duty trucks available for sale in the U.S. market for the 2005 model year, including all body styles and trim levels, compared with 496 cars and 1,512 light trucks for the 2001 model year.

When you add in the various options available for each model, the number of possible combinations would be even higher. So it can be hard for a consumer to know where to even begin.

That’s where matching tools come in.

Last year, Ford Motor Co. rolled out an “SUV Smart Guide,” where customers can see which of the company’s sports-utility vehicles would best fit their needs, depending on what they’re looking for in terms of seating, horsepower, cargo capacity, towing abilities and other qualifications.

The guide is basically a grid displaying the different vehicles. Depending on what characteristics users specify, matching models become highlighted in a deeper yellow and rejects are grayed out. For instance, enter that you’re looking for a V6 engine and a seven-seater, and the Ford guide tells you the 2005 Explorer would fit your needs. Ford rolled out a similar guide for its cars earlier this year and plans to launch one for its pickup trucks late this summer.

Chuck Sullivan, Ford’s director of business development marketing, says the company found in consumer research that users felt the Internet provided too much information and “they wanted a way to sort through all the clutter in a very intuitive and simple way.” About 52,000 visitors a month now go to Ford’s Smart Guides, according to Sullivan.

Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus division is working on developing a similar selector tool for its site — called, for now, “Which Lexus is Right for Me?” — where users would answer a series of questions about what they are looking for in a Lexus (say, an SUV versus a sedan) and about their lifestyle, and then get a choice of models and trims that might fit them best.

Nancy Inouye, interactive marketing manager for Lexus, says that as the product line expands, “it’s getting more difficult for a consumer to distinguish between the vehicles.”

Toyota already has an online tool for its Toyota-brand vehicles. A “model selector” grid allows customers to sort through the 18 Toyota models by price, miles per gallon and passenger seating. Based on customer feedback, Toyota says it realized that not everybody is familiar with its lineup — for instance, that a Camry is more expensive than a Corolla but that they both fit five people.

General Motors Corp. also recently relaunched its site, FindYourStyle.com, where it now matches up users with cars based on lifestyle characteristics, such as whether they prefer formal wear versus casual wear or going to the symphony versus listening to the radio.

According to the site, someone who prefers casual wear, the radio, meat and potatoes, wood finish and a road trip would be best served by a GMC Canyon or a Chevrolet Colorado, while a fan of formal wear, the symphony, surf and turf, marble finish and a round-trip flight to Paris might prefer a Cadillac STS. The site bases its model recommendations on years of GM data and is similar to an older “Vehicle Advisor” tool on the main GM site that helps customers sort through the company’s more than 80 models.

For some consumers, however, deciding on the right car is about more than one’s lifestyle. So, many sites also are rolling out more in-depth product information.

This summer, Toyota’s Scion brand plans on adding more fully interactive views of its vehicles where a user can see different views of a car by, for instance, changing the color, spinning the model around and looking underneath it. The auto maker has added such details to the sites of its Lexus and other brands as well. The Lexus site also has online demos that show how some of its key technologies, like adaptive front headlights, work.

“People want every possible way they can interact with the vehicle,” says Adrian Si, interactive marketing manager for Scion.

Dealerships say customers coming in now are, indeed, much more educated about what vehicle they want. “We have customers that come in daily and say, ‘I want a 27G package on a LXDH48,’ and you just look at them and say, ‘Why the heck would these people know these terms,’ ” says Wes Lutz, owner of Extreme Dodge in Jackson, Mich. “But they are on the corporate Web sites and they are researching the product-information sites, and they know what packages and options are available.”

Many auto makers also are allowing dealers to put these tools on their own sites. All 210 Lexus dealer Web sites offer the model-comparison tool and will be able to offer the planned lifestyle-matching tool when it starts. Ford says over 99 percent of its dealers subscribe to a package where the auto maker provides their Web sites with content from Ford’s site.

A number of third-party sites are ramping up their selector tools as well.

Last August, CarsDirect.com launched a car-information and comparison Web site, called Autos.com, that it claims is “specially designed for those consumers still fine-tuning their short-list of potential new vehicles.” The site ranks more than 500 models across 12 different categories, including cargo capacity, passenger space and comfort and convenience, with more categories to come this summer.

“If you compare it with dating sites, we’re really a matchmaker,” says Stanley Holt, vice president of publishing at CarsDirect.com, which is owned by Los Angeles-based Internet Brands Inc. “In the dating world, you say, ‘I want someone who is rich and 40 and likes sunsets,’ and in the automotive world, you say, ‘I want safety, roominess and towing capacity.’ “

To its own car-buying site, CarsDirect.com in recent years has expanded its comparison tool so that customers can compare new and used vehicles side by side and let customers see the most popular trim levels for various vehicles.

This summer, Kelley Blue Book of Irvine, Calif., made some minor enhancements to the comparison tool on its kbb.com site and plans to do a complete redesign of the tool next year so it provides more vehicle information. And Edmunds.com Inc., of Santa Monica, Calif., is looking at adding a more personalized search process within the next six months, where the search criteria selected will narrow the choice of vehicles displayed. Last year, Autobytel Inc. began allowing customers to compare any number of vehicles side by side on its Web sites. Previously, visitors were limited to 10 vehicles.