The Idea that Dealers Offer “Digital Retailing” is Fake News

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Over the last several years, the retail automotive industry has told itself a story: that dealers have made the leap to digital retailing. In fairness, many dealers have invested in the tools available to them. They have added payment calculators, credit applications, trade-in forms, chat tools, lead forms, and online inventory experiences. They bought what the technology providers told them was “digital retailing.” But after working with dealers across the country, and seeing firsthand what happens when a truly customer-first digital process is deployed, I believe we need to be honest with ourselves: Most dealerships are not offering digital retailing. Instead, we are offering digital steps attached to a legacy process. That distinction matters.

Showing inventory online is not digital retailing. Letting a customer estimate a payment is not digital retailing. Allowing someone to fill out a credit application online is not digital retailing if, the moment they are ready to buy, the process effectively says, “Great. Now come to the dealership so we can start over.”

It’s unfortunate that many technology providers stopped short when the work became difficult. They digitized the easy parts of the transaction but never fully solved the harder parts: trade values, deal structure, F&I transparency, compliance, state-specific paperwork, and the operational realities inside the store. As a result, many dealers bought tools in good faith, implemented them, and called it digital retailing. That is not a criticism of dealer intent. Most dealers I know genuinely want to create a better buying experience. The issue is that the industry has confused adding technology to the process with redesigning the process around the customer.

What I saw inside Carvana’s newly acquired Stellantis stores got my attention, because they truly offer digital retailing. This is not a theory. I walked those stores. I watched customers buy cars. I saw what happened when a digital-first operating model was applied inside franchise dealerships that many people had written off.

Stores that had been struggling to sell a few dozen vehicles a month were suddenly selling multiples of their previous volume. In some cases, stores that had struggled around 40 units per month were regularly selling more than 100 new vehicles per month. Same brands. Same markets. Very different process. So, what changed?

The process is built around how customers want to buy, not how dealerships have historically preferred to sell. Customers are not intercepted, controlled, qualified, and pushed through the traditional path. They are supported. They can go online, select a vehicle, structure their down payment, choose the term of their financing, understand their payment, and receive a transparent value for their trade. That last point is critical.

In many dealerships, the trade-in is where customer trust begins to deteriorate. The customer fears the number will change. They fear the process is subjective. They fear they will lose control. Carvana’s model reduces that uncertainty by making the trade experience feel transparent, consistent, and customer-controlled.

That is a real issue. It’s not a reason to stop trying, though. Carvana is subject to those same requirements. They did not eliminate the wet signature. They simply designed the experience so the signature became the final administrative step, not the beginning of a multi-hour negotiation. That nuance matters. The customer does not need every legal requirement eliminated. The customer needs to feel informed, respected, in control, and confident before arriving at the final step.

Perhaps the most important lesson from these stores is one many dealers find hard to believe: Customers are committing to vehicles they have not seen or driven. Likewise, Carvana is acquiring vehicles from customers without first physically seeing or driving them. To many traditional dealers, both ideas seem almost impossible. Yet when friction is removed and trust is maximized, this becomes common sense. The lesson is not that test drives no longer matter. The lesson is that customers do not need a test drive to create confidence when trust already exists in the process. Likewise, customers do not need to negotiate endlessly over their trade when they trust the valuation methodology.

Customers are not necessarily demanding a fully digital experience. They are demanding transparency, certainty, and control. Digital retailing is simply one of the most effective ways to deliver those outcomes. This is where franchise dealers should be encouraged, not discouraged.

The opportunity is not to become Carvana. Dealers have advantages that Carvana cannot fully replicate: local presence, community relationships, service capacity, product expertise, and human connection. Those advantages still matter. But they only remain powerful if they are combined with a buying experience that customers actually love.

The future does not belong to the dealer with the biggest showroom, the most desks, or the most complicated process. It belongs to the dealer who can create the greatest amount of trust with the least amount of friction. That means transparent pricing. Transparent trade values. Transparent payments. A process that lets the customer move forward without feeling trapped, slowed down, or forced backward.

The risk for dealers is not that customers suddenly hate dealerships. The risk is that customers will stop tolerating dealership processes once they experience something better. And once that happens, they rarely choose to go backward.

But, “How would we design the process if the customer’s confidence, control, and trust were the starting point?”

The dealers who answer that question honestly will not just survive the next decade.

They will define it.

Okay, check out the timing. The same week Carvana removed the salesperson from the floor in Dallas, Tekion put an AI salesperson inside the CRM. Two companies, two directions, one conclusion — the human-heavy, friction-heavy sales process we've all defended for forty years is getting designed out from both ends at once. Jay Vijayan said the quiet part on stage: "AI isn't a trend car buyers are waiting on." It's already shaping how they shop, decide, and transact. The dealers who treat that as a vendor pitch will be the last to notice it already happened to them.

Kyle shares how strategically reducing digital friction and streaming ultra-fast mobile experiences can dramatically improve lead quality, resulting in skyrocketing showroom show rates.

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