Why Monitor Parts Views vs Vehicle Views for Auto Accessory Sales

When your bottom line is a significant department focus, it's vital to have tools that give you a well-rounded picture of what you're selling. Insignia Group is that tool for selling accessories at a dealership. In addition, we have many different reports available that managers can use to monitor their teams and move products faster than ever before—including the report for parts and vehicle views.

This report is available for all of our dealership customers, directly connecting to their website and collecting information for in-store and online shoppers. It showcases how many times vehicles or accessories have been viewed. At the most basic level, a view is a measurement of interest.

What Does a View Tell Dealerships?

Views are behavior analytics to anyone trying to sell something. For example, it's a metric that a parts manager or sales manager can use to close more customers with accessory sales.

How?

We break our views into two categories: accessory views and vehicle views. At any time, you can pull the report to find out which vehicles and accessories are being searched in the accessory system within any time frame. For example, if you're at a Toyota dealership, you might see that the Tacoma is the most popularly viewed vehicle and possibly the third highest sold. That could mean a few things, you might not have the inventory to match the views, or you have customers using the system to look at vehicles as a research tool.

You can also see your top three viewed accessories for each vehicle you sell. If they are frequently viewed and not frequently bought, you'll need to talk to the sales team to determine where the disconnect is happening. It could mean that customers are shocked with price points (possibly not told they can finance the accessories with the vehicles). However, for the most part, the top three viewed are typically the top three bought, so any differences should be investigated to improve those close rates.

When trying to move more inventory, knowing what the views are will help you strategize exactly how to…move more inventory! As we said above, the top three viewed accessories are typically the top three bought, so extra effort into getting more of those sold isn't going to make much of a difference. What will make a difference is looking at the accessories with the middle or low views and making bundles out of them. This could be a bundle with air deflectors, all-weather mats (a brand that isn't selling as well as others), and a cargo area liner—add them all up at MSRP, with a 5% markup, and start getting rid of that inventory. Shoppers love a good deal, so if they can get protective accessories in a bundle that would be cheaper than getting them separately (or middle-of-the-road brands instead of the more premium ones), they'll take the deal. You won't know what to add to a bundle without knowing what products are getting views!

What if We Have Less Than 200 Views?

Most dealerships have roughly 200 total views of vehicles or parts each month (much more for ones that sell 20+ cars each month).

The most likely of answers is that the new salespeople haven't been properly trained or aren't being monitored in their activities by the sales manager. As with any new process, there needs to be set expectations of how the departments will use the system and that managers will make it so. The only other option would be that you've, at worst, had three cars on the lot for the last three or four months, and so you don't have many customers trying to buy from your dealership. 

If lack of vehicle inventory isn't the problem, then it's time to do some digging. Whether it's why the system is not being presented to customers or isn't visible on the dealership website anymore—there is a solution to this problem.

How Do We Find These Reports?

To see these reports, you need to be an Insignia Group customer with a login. 

Not sure what your login is? Contact us, and we will help you get access.

Once you've logged in, you can go to "Reporting" and click on either "Popular Parts by Views" or "Popular Vehicles by Views."

Both of those reports will show you the top ten parts and vehicles being viewed in your system.

Popular Vehicles by Views Report in Insignia Group

Popular Parts by Views Report in Insignia Group

We're Not an Insignia Group Customer

We're glad you wanted to look at a snippet of what we provide to our customers. As we're always evolving our reports, our system, and even the design of everything—this is simply a small fraction of what you can do. When signed up with us, your store will have instant updates from OEs, photorealistic configurators, integration with your digital retailers, and so much more.

If you're interested in signing up for our system, schedule a demo today, and we can tell you all about the Insignia Group program!