The Challenge
Our aggregator client required a mechanism to reliably quote a price that the dealer and the vehicle transport business handling the shipment would accept.
This transportation cost should be factored into the car's sale price.
Dealers should therefore be able to offer automobile shipping at the same price.
Dealers should then be able to book auto transportation using the transporter that is included in the lead from the aggregator when the consumer buys the car.
The cost of auto transportation fluctuated at a considerably greater rate than the cost of a car.
As a result, the offered price was only valid for a limited time.
Since aggregators moved a large number of dealership inventory, the solution needs to scale and the transporter of the vehicles should be able to handle large quantities of vehicle shipments.
In addition, the user experience for the car buyer should be easy and seamless.
The Strategy
Build a solution that integrates all the pieces of car buying including, financing, lease/buy, car price, title, insurance, tax, with auto transport cost.
Identify a real-time quoting and booking system for auto transport and perform end-to-end integration.
Make sure the customer is quoted with an accurate price while quote expiry and requoting is managed properly.
Scaling must be addressed from a technology perspective as well as on the logistics end.
Finally, a scalable pricing model needs to be developed that addresses the needs of aggregators, dealers and logistics operators
The Execution
API integration between the aggregator's customer-facing commerce site and the dealership transportation portal
Provided a mechanism for the consumer to acquire real-time transportation prices at the moment of quoting the car price
The aggregator to dealership interface is modified to address the transportation add-on
When the dealership was ready to book the customer's car, it reconnected to the portal to place the auto transport service order
Dealerships have a portal from which they can track their shipments
Invoices and payments are set up between dealerships and transportation companies.
Dealers are able to work with any transportation company of choice, which allows for significant scale
In case of returns, a solution for returns was built into the system
An end to end solution that is optimized for online buyer experience was developed with the following key functionalities:
The Results
Online car selling companies added a new revenue stream on their existing platform without significant investment
Dealerships are able to move cars much faster out of their lots because of the national coverage for sales
Transportation logistics companies got benefited by the new inflow of shipping orders.
Oftentimes this are lucrative moves as customers are willing to pay for the cars they love to buy
Dealerships sold more automobiles and lowered repo expenses
This became a win for online car buyer, online car seller, dealerships and transportation logistics companies
The implementation was highly successful and achieved the following results.
