With the advancement of technology and sudden wave of consumer adoption, the automotive retail sector is experiencing a global revolution and that can only be attributed to digitization. Thanks to digital platforms and solutions, dealers have experienced many recent changes.

Total retail sales in the United States are projected to be upwards of $5.94 trillion by 2024 . Digital applications have reshaped the customer’s shopping experience. Consumers can now make decisions quickly and informatively online, while also enabling retailers the ability to interact with customers at key touch points while they are making shopping decisions.

The automotive industry has been improving operations and focusing on customer experience. Digital retailing strives to eliminate the friction in services by offering advanced technologies and tools to create more personalized customer experiences.

Digital transformation covers a more comprehensive and effective range of revenue opportunities for dealers. Retail has had to rapidly adopt digital retailing solutions in order to revolutionize the entire process. These new business models help retailers focus on an astute sales strategy rather than a single technique or approach.

Advances in technology, such as artificial intelligence, automation and analytics have made their way into even the most basic sales strategy. Thus, processes have become more streamlined and efficient, which will help deliver better results to the customers.

The digital transformation has started to compliment traditional technologies' limitations allowing dealers to be more responsive to the current online shopping trends and consumer demands.

One of the most important aspects of a digital retail solution is an attentive and engaging customer experience. Car shoppers want transparency. We have known this for over a decade and the digital shopper is no different. The consumer that chooses a digital path to a car purchase wants advanced tools and applications that can answer their questions before they ever set foot in a dealership. Operations have to become even more customer-centric in order to capture that sale.

Thanks to digital transformation, the retail industry is being completely revolutionized. The way consumers shop has changed for both in-person and online platforms. Far fewer consumers are deciding between the two and embracing at least some if not all digital functions along their shopping journey. The process of shopping has become more convenient, seamless and easy for the customers with the use of a multi-channel approach and advanced methodologies

Nowadays, the automotive Industry is moving beyond mobile and connecting more devices. Technological adoption has completely changed how people shop. Even the in-store shopping experience has transformed with as some dealerships now provide screens or iPads to view product specifications and provide sales information.

Retails changing nature makes it necessary to integrate advanced technologies into operations to maintain a competitive edge. The digital transformation is continuously evolving with the infusion of evolution of new technologies. These technologies have majorly contributed to changing the retail industry dynamics and simplifying operations to a great extent. Dealerships should strongly consider adopting more avenues within the online sales process to keep up with the experience that consumers are increasingly getting used to and demanding or they may find themselves scrambling to catch up when customers move on to another dealership.