The belief that adver­tis­ing com­pet­i­tive prices for new vehi­cles online is fuel­ing a race to the bot­tom sim­ply isn’t hold­ing up under ana­lytic scrutiny.

An AutoTrader.com dig­i­tal audi­ence analy­sis of over 6,605 new vehi­cle sales across 1,000 deal­er­ships showed:

• New cars priced below MSRP get 34 per­cent more page views than new cars priced at MSRP
• Deal­ers who priced their new vehi­cles below MSRP sold 20 per­cent more new cars than their coun­ter­parts who used MSRP instead
• Buy­ers trav­eled an aver­age of 10 more miles to deal­ers who listed their news cars below, rather than at, MSRP

“Hav­ing an effec­tive pric­ing strat­egy online doesn’t equate to a race to the bottom—it results in win­ning the race to the con­sumer,” said Scott Her­nal­steen, senior direc­tor of enter­prise ana­lyt­ics at AutoTrader.com.

Read on …

Dri­vers expect the very best thing on their mobile device – dri­ving direc­tions with the best real-time traf­fic data they can find.

There’s another annoy­ing, trou­ble­some dri­ving expe­ri­ence that is find­ing help from mobile apps – find­ing a park­ing spot.

Startup com­pa­nies are offer­ing the lat­est apps to find open park­ing spots and reserve them.

Automak­ers like Audi, BMW, Daim­ler, and Renault-Nissan are get­ting into the game.

BMW has put a lot into park­ing apps – and it will tie into launch­ing its i3 elec­tric car into the US next year for dri­vers who want to park and charge their car.

Read all about the cool offer­ings from automak­ers and mobile star­tups that can reduce motorists’ frus­tra­tions as they look for park­ing spaces……..

With the lat­est Tele­phone Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion Act (TCPA) rules set­tling into place, we’ve got to remem­ber that not all texts are cre­ated equal. Is your dealership’s tex­ting up to snuff? Do what it takes to get there…because 97% of texts are opened and read within 3 min­utes vs. 22% of emails!

First Things First: What Are the New Rules? 

The TCPA is often updated to reflect changes in tech­nol­ogy and use, and the 2013 updates say…

• Mes­sages (phone calls and texts) must include the abil­ity to imme­di­ately opt out – effec­tive Jan. 14, 2013
• You must get unam­bigu­ous writ­ten con­sent before send­ing tele­mar­ket­ing calls or text mes­sages via auto­matic tele­phone dial­ing sys­tems (ATDS) – effec­tive Oct. 16, 2013
• Estab­lished busi­ness rela­tion­ships with con­sumers no longer relieve you of that writ­ten con­sent require­ment – effec­tive Oct. 16, 2013

What can you do to stay com­pli­ant? Check out these seven point­ers, then make sure you do your research and talk with an attor­ney for spe­cific legal advice.

At Issue:

Female car shop­pers are as impor­tant to your suc­cess as the male demo­graphic. They’re impor­tant indi­vid­u­ally as car buy­ers, and they are pro­foundly impor­tant in influ­enc­ing their partner’s choice of car. Accord­ing to Forbes, women influ­ence 85% of car-buying deci­sions and, in 2012, they pur­chased nearly 40% of both used and new cars.

The key to appeal­ing to today’s female car shop­per is to under­stand that she doesn’t need a dif­fer­ent sales process. Instead, she needs more infor­ma­tion ‒ it’s sim­ply how she operates.

Glenn Pereira, man­ager of indus­try edu­ca­tion at AutoTrader.com, shares insights on the pref­er­ences of female car shop­pers with deal­ers. Drill down fur­ther to get great mar­ket­ing tips on the female psyche.