The GM Digital Retail Platform, originally intended to sell EVs when it launched in 2021, is proving to be a successful sales platform for all types of vehicles. With nearly 1,000 GM dealers using the platform, customers are more engaged, and it’s creating a more efficient stream of sales that benefits both buyers and dealers.
With the Digital Retail Platform, potential car buyers can browse new and certified pre-owned vehicles, make a financing plan, and even purchase insurance, all online. For now, General Motors’ Digital Retail Platform is limited to Chevy and Cadillac dealers, but will launch on Buick and GMC brand websites in 2025.
Dealer feedback has been crucial to the development of the Digital Retail Platform. Cincinnati-based Chevy retailer and co-chair of GM’s advisory Dealer Executive Board Keith McCluskey told Automotive News that GM has been “super attentive” to receiving feedback from the dealers using the software. “There’s no doubt that it’ll continue to refine as things evolve,” McCluskey said. “It’s not over the day they launch it.”
Dealers are also noticing higher conversion rates when turning leads into sales. GM says buy rates from retail leads generated through the Digital Retail Platform are approximately double what’s been typical for Chevy and Cadillac. While a standard lead turns into a sale 12 to 14 percent of the time, Lansing, Michigan-based dealers Shaheen Chevrolet and Shaheen Cadillac have tracked a whopping 50 to 60 percent of customers who fill out a credit application on the Digital Retail Platform end up buying a car.
During the 2022 GM Investor Day presentation, President Mark Reuss said that the Digital Retail Platform will save $2,000 per vehicle, helping to boost the profitability of EVs as well as ICE models. He planned to achieve these savings through inventory management changes, placing certain models in certain parts of the country where they’re more popular. The Digital Retail Platform is part of this strategy, and it helps speed up vehicle delivery times, which reduces distribution costs.
By providing user-friendly online tools, offering greater transparency, and responding to feedback from dealers, GM is off to a good start in its latest effort to integrate e-commerce into the car-buying process.
Comments
Hey Mark. You want to save even more money on inventory and making sure the right vehicle is in the right part of the country? Let me order my truck under the incentives available at that time. Don’t make me roll the dice and guess what “deal” might be available when it gets built. Would be a great way to get the “right” vehicle in my garage. Seems like a simple solution to me.
how would you feel if the incentive you got when ordering it turned out to be lower that the current offering when you picked it up 3-7 months later at the dealer?? It works both ways
Although I’d much rather skip the negotiation process, I’m concerned that digital sales means the car price will remain over-inflated with car companies/dealers charging whatever they please.
So, they made a website? Good thinking.
May work, Great cars, but hard to find an honest dealer.
first thing you do when pulling up to a dealer is look for the “add on” sticker next to the factory sticker. If you see the dealer has those add on stickers, leave as fast as you can and go find a dealer that does not have those. Dealers with those stickers WILL suck your wallet dry for everything they can.
When researching vehicles online, the dealers never put the dealer markup add on prices on their websites. The $2K paint protection, the $1K nitrogen in the tires, the $4K service contract, the $1K tire warranty, and the $1K flashing brake light all all mandatory surprise charges you see at many of the dealers in person.