Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A TRANS-MODAL OUOTE REQUEST CHANNEL
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to retail sales. More particularly, the present
invention is
directed to a method and apparatus for providing improved communication of
price and
availability information between retailers and buyers in an economically and
geographically
fragmented marketplace.
Discussion of Related Art
In the United States new cars are marketed by both the manufacturers and the
manufacturer's franchised dealers. This marketing effort involves both
advertizing expenditures
on mass-market media such as radio,;~elevision and newspapers, and investments
in point of sale
awareness features, such as providing well-trained customer service staff, and
attractive
. showrooms and maintenance facilities. The domestic auto manufacturers and
importers spend
enormous sums on their advertizing campaigns, but that advertizing does not
direct the
prospective buyer to a specific retailer. That advertizing is directed toward
creating product and
brand awareness.
In the United States, the dealers who sell the automobiles then spend
approximately $6
billion each year on local advertising to encourage buyers to purchase those
new cars from them.
Much of this $6 billion is spent on newspaper advertising. Small classified
ads are used to sell
individual cars, most often used cars, and as a supplement to the dealers'
display ads. The
display ads are traditionally, and preferably, published on Sundays. However
competition for
space in those Sunday papers is intense, and costly. Therefore the Sunday
automobile ads most
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often identify the advertiser as merely "your local authorized [manufacturer's
brand] dealer"
followed by a list of the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the local
franchisees of that
auto manufacturer or importer. Those ads are funded collectively by local
franchisees through
their advertizing cooperative, sometimes with matching contributions from the
franchisor.
Advertising cooperatives are active for all 33 major automobile brands in most
of the 56 major
regional markets in the United States.
However, some things are changing in this traditional set up. More will have
to change.
The past four years are part of the longest continuous economic expansion in
United States
history. During this period of consistent economic expansion, new car
dealership operations
have consistently lost money, according the National Association of Automobile
Dealers.
During that period a substantial portion of automobile advertising activity
has been
redirected toward the Internet. This is, in part, to serve the public's
interest. In 1998 it is
estimated that 40% of all new car purchasers visited Internet web sites as a
constituent part of
their market search. However, financial self interest is also served. For each
new car sold, the
amount dealers spent on traditional media channels was reported to be $400. In
contrast, the
average advertizing expenditure for a new car sold over the Internet by an
independent Internet-
based retailer was reportedly $83.
Market-service (MS) web sites such as autobytel.com (Autobytel) and
Microsoft's
carpoint.msn.com (CarPoint) generally provide automobile price quotes on line
by passing the
requests for quotes to existing retailers as exclusive sales leads, for a fee.
Carpoint allows the
prospective purchaser to select one or more retailers from a given list of
CarPoint members who
are located near to the buyer's stated address. These web sites have been
popular because they
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reduce buyers' search costs somewhat in a market that is at once both
geographically dispersed,
so as to make the search time consuming and, as a practical matter,
geographically specific to the
buyer's neighborhood since travel time for warranty service is also an issue.
Although the franchise structure that controls the marketing of new cars has
little effect
on the market for used cars, a buyer's potential used-car market is also
geographically specific,
and the available used car inventory is still geographically dispersed so
that, as with new cars, the
market search costs for buyers are high. Thus, these web sites also list used
cars. Moreover, the
perceived ability of these web sites to reduce search costs for the potential
buyer depends on the
apparent completeness its information. Thus, they often include not only both
the used and new
car inventories of subscribers, but also for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) classified
ads on their
websites.
The proliferation of subscription and fee-for-service automobile marketing
websites, such
as those called "AutoAdvantage", "Autobytel", "Autoweb", "CarOrder",
"CarPoint",
"CarSmart", and "CarsDirect", etc. has led manufacturers to launch the
GMBuypower.com web
site and the "Buyer Connection" section of Ford.com, among others. However,
the
manufacturers' web sites are at a disadvantage relative to these marketing
service web sites,
because the manufacturers have been granting exclusive territories to their
franchisees since the
beginning of this century when each franchisee had to configure each car they
delivered to a
customer. In effect, this contractual legacy requires manufacturers to ignore
factors such as
model availability in referring sales leads to franchisees, consumer-oriented
factors that might tip
the balance in favor of referring a prospective buyer to another franchisee in
the same general
area.
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A management consultant was quoted recently in the Wall Street Journal who
summed up
the situation as follows: "It's much more difficult to modify an existing
system than starting with
a clean slate. If an automaker could start over now, none of them would create
a franchise
system that looks like the existing one." In the present market, auto makers
would prefer an
"earn and turn" distribution plan that allocates vehicles on the basis of
sales success, rather than
territorial demographics, allowing market forces to determine who sells the
manufacturer's
products. However, these manufacturers cannot sell directly to buyers in the
same way that the
Dell.com web site of Dell Computer Corporation direct-markets Dell computers,
for example,
though various attempts have been made.
This past year, marketing services such as CarsDirect and AutoNationDirect
have been
ignoring territorial assignments by sel~ang new cars on-line directly to
buyers, nationwide.
However, because "just-in-time" manufacturing is more a theory than a reality,
when popular
models are in short supply, manufacturers require dealers to add unwanted
vehicles to their
inventories to obtain prompt delivery of the popular models. Furthermore, the
franchise laws of
some states have been changed to specifically prohibit these Internet-based
automobile sales, or
ban Internet car sales generally.
The hazards encountered by CarsDirect, AutoNationDirect, and others who have
attempted to take advantage of the nationwide scope of the Internet have
redirected the evolution
of web-based automobile marketing on the web toward acquisition of local
franchises. Republic
Industries (AutoNation) has purchased clusters of franchises to create
regional "superstores".
Ford and GM have also sought to integrate their retail outlets in selected
regional markets.
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Ford's attempt to acquire a minority stake in Ford franchises in five mid-size
markets was
shelved when problems arose in integrating their operations. Further
acquisitions of minority
positions in Ford franchises was also either hampered or blocked by
legislation tightening local
franchise laws. GM's plan to buy outright 5 to 10% of the dealerships in the
Untied States' top
130 retail markets over the next ten years, announced just two months ago is
also in trouble. The
chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), representing
nearly all the
franchised dealers in the United States, has called on GM to rethink this
"flawed" policy saying,
furthermore: "The idea that GM will now compete at the retail level reaffirms
the need for strong
state franchise laws to protect dealers and buyers."
GM argues that this move will benefit franchisees by providing a place where
GM can
test new sales techniques, and further,~ievelop Internet marketing techniques,
and reducing the
total number of GM dealerships to a number more consistent with GM's reduced
market share.
GM also claims that these factory stores will target the customers of rival
automakers. However,
over the past year GM's internal reorganization of its own sales force,
combined with persistent
computer problems, has cut into franchisees' revenues by creating artificial
shortages of popular
models and GM has had little success in attracting customers away from its
rivals in the past.
Furthermore, one fifth of GM's 7,700 dealerships account for four fifths of
its sales. The plan to
buy large dealerships in the nation's 130 largest metropolitan areas, even 10%
of such
dealerships, was seen as a threat. GM has now back pedaled, seeking only a
minority interest
and giving franchisee's the option of buying back that minority interest.
Having encountered resistance in all these areas, the present immediate goal
of those
attempting to expand the Internet's role in automobile marketing appears to be
vertical
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integration. A website called carorder.com (CarOrder), proposes to
horizontally consolidate as
many as 100 franchises into five regional distribution hubs which will then
serve as "virtual"
dealerships, retaining little or none of the franchises' investment in bricks,
mortar or personnel.
Eventually, the only inventory will be a few test-drive vehicles and all other
cars will be shifted
directly from the manufacturer's truck to a CarOrder truck that delivers them
to the buyers. All
that will occur at staging areas having no showrooms dr maintenance shops.
They appear to be,
in effect, just another attempt at direct marketing. Anticipating intense
legislative opposition to
its innovations, a CarOrder executive quipped "we well may be one of the only
Internet
companies with more lawyers than software engineers". However, the survival of
these bare
bones "virtual" dealerships depends on their successful vertical integration
with manufacturers
who are willing to provide no-inventory "just-in-time" manufacturing for their
buyers. CarOrder
projects that vertical integration could cut $2,000 to $4,000 from the price
of each vehicle.
The manufacturers aren't far behind. Apparently abandoning its attempt at
horizontal
economic integration of franchisees in favor of a cybernetic virtual vertical
integration with them,
Ford has just announced formation of an e-commerce alliance with Microsoft to
implement "just-
in-time" manufacturing. GM has also announced plans to market made-to-order
vehicles on line,
but only in Taiwan and other emerging market countries, not in the United
States. GM argues
that the third world factories there are newer, better suited to this kind of
e-commerce, but these
markets are also likely to be less ham strung by GM's contractual commitments
as a franchisor.
All these market development strategies are costly. Investments in horizontal
and vertical
integration, and the dislocations they cause, are likely to increase buyer's
costs in the near term,
not reduce them. The Internet, too, has potential for reducing retailer
overhead, but stale and
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inaccurate information is merely a waste of time the adds to the cost to
potential buyers. A web
site must earn buyer confidence by accurately providing the kind of
information the buyer wants,
to attract potential buyers to the site, not just the idle and the curious.
Dealer-independent quote
request sites spend a lot to police dealers' compliance with their data
quality and maintenance
standards. The cost of policing dealer input to the web site is inescapable,
the cost of staying
competitive in the very fluid e-commerce marketplace'.
For example, Autobytel requires sellers to include a digital picture of each
item listed,
and requires a daily purging of dealers' lists to remove obsolete information.
Autobytel
estimates that only 50% of the sales leads they supply to the dealers who do
have Internet
departments produce a reply to the buyer within their 24 hour commitment. Most
web sites can
only promise a 48-hour turnaround. Moreover, despite dealers' lack of
profitability, and the
increasing importance of the Internet to the automobile market, many auto
dealers don't even
have Internet departments and the rest are slow to reply to Internet queries.
Motivation may well be part of the response latency problem encountered by
these web
sites. Whenever sales people are asked to provide quotes over the Internet to
invisible people,
they 'have no sense of whether or not these invisible people may be potential
buyers.
Furthermore, experienced Internet sales staff have observed that the on-line
sales they do make
are seldom for the specific models cited in sales leads. The sales are
actually made in subsequent
personal contact with the buyer, at the dealership or over the phone, not
"over the net". These
are not purchases that are made by simply pressing a button next to a picture
of the preferred
vehicle, like buying a can of soda from a machine.
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Manufacturers' recent attempts to reduce overhead by acquiring franchises that
would
allow them to sell on line in competition with their franchisees have been
checkmated. Their
made-to-order sales are also subject to the factory delays and delivery
problems of conventional
automobile manufacturing, still far from a "just-in-time" manufacturing
process.
Independent automobile e-commerce web sites claim they provide great
convenience to
the buyer, although some give the buyer little more thin an opportunity to
fill in a new car order
form without the help of a sales assistant. They claim that great savings will
become possible
when just-in-time manufacturing is fully implemented but, in the meantime,
they charge non-
competitive list prices for made-to-order vehicles. Aside from the claim that
e-commerce can, in
theory, reduce search costs, the net value of automobile e-commerce to new car
purchasers, in its
present form, appears to be its entertainment value. However, the purchase of
an automobile is
too expensive to be amusing to most people.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a trans-modal quote request channel
is provided
for an advertizing co-operative. The advertizing co-operative provides an
advertisement to
members of the public that includes an Internet address. Quote requests are
submitted in
response to that advertisement by requestors using the Internet quote site
indicated by that
Internet address. The quote requests submitted by requestors in response to
the advertisement are
distributed to members of the advertizing co-operative by an administrator.
Preferably the Internet quote site provides means for submitting a quote
request including
narrative information. The narrative information enables a member of the
advertizing co-
operative to provide a price quote based on a recommendation. In a particular
embodiment, the
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Internet quote site provides means for submitting a quote request including
narrative information
in addition to a specification, that enables a member of the advertizing co-
operative to provide
price quotes based either on a specification submitted by the requestor or on
a recommendation.
Preferably, recommendations and price quotes received from members of the
advertising
cooperative in response to a quote request are distributed to the requestor by
the administrator.
In a particular embodiment, the Internet quote site provides means for the
requestor to request
that members of the advertizing cooperative contact the requestor to discuss
the quote request.
In a particular embodiment, the identity of a requestor is encrypted in a
quote request
received by members of the advertizing co-operative. Preferably the identity
of the requestor is
encrypted in the quote request by assigning sequential values to quote
requests in the order in
which they were distributed by the adrninistrator and deleting the requestor's
contact
information.
Preferably, particular telephone area codes are assigned to each member within
a large
advertizing cooperative, so that members who are too far from the requestor do
not receive the
request.
The present invention provides a self policing e-commerce web site that
reduces buyers'
search costs, and increases the productivity of on-line sales leads without
additional advertising
expense and administrative cost. Because the web site address is included in
the co-operative's
traditional advertizing media and not readily obtained on line, fewer idle
requests are received
and members of the co-operative can provide personalized recommendations in
their initial
quotes.
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The invention also provides a third-party channel that can be used for
communicating
price and availability information without regard for the geography of
members' exclusive
territories, so that potential buyers receive quotes from multiple members of
the advertizing co-
operative. Also, because the potential buyer receives multiple quotes for a
given request, the
quotes are directly competitive in accuracy and timeliness, as well as price.
Because fewer idle
requests are received, the invention increases the productivity of the
members' Internet
operations and narrative information can be processed by the members and their
quotes can
compete in suitability, as well as price and timeliness.
Preferably the administrator of the third-party channel in accordance with the
present
invention is paid a fee for each sale made to a requestor by a member of the
co-operative who
received a request from the requestor~rThus the administrator is an
independent agent, able to
sanction a member of the co-operative in response to buyer complaints, so as
to protect the
quality of the e-commerce service provided to the buyer.
In a particular embodiment, a trans-modal print/internet, quote request
channel is
provided for expediting automobile sales by manufacturer-franchised dealers.
The quote request
channel provides non-exclusive sales leads to all franchisees of a given
franchisor who subscribe
to a local advertising cooperative. The sales leads are generated in response
to quote requests
from buyers visiting a web site advertized by that local advertising
cooperative in local media.
The quote request channel web site also provides a searchable, regionally-
specific presence for
the franchisor on the Internet that is consistent with the franchisor's
obligations to its franchisees.
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Because the quote request channel provides non-exclusive sales leads to all
franchisees
subscribing to a given local advertising cooperative, a buyer can determine
what suitable vehicles
are available within the entire market area quickly, without physically
leaving home. Because
the co-op web site is specific to one manufacturer, the details of each quote
request can be
considered in depth, without quoting multiple brands. This also makes the
purchaser's search
more efficient, faster. In particular and brand loyalty is a major feature of
the automobile market
and, in contrast to the marketing services that do not represent more than 20%
of the franchises
in a given area, the co-op web site has access to virtually all co-op members.
Thus, the purchaser
enjoys all the advantages of one-stop shopping for the brand of vehicle he
wants.
Quotes provided in response to a request may require acceptance within a
specified time
constraint, but quote requests may also be held open, permitting franchisees
to revise their initial
quotes. Furthermore, because quotes initially provided by the franchisees in
response to each
request are stored on line and the channel is only paid a flat fee by the
successful franchisee, the
channel can improve market efficiency for the franchisor who subsidizes the
local advertising
cooperative, and also improve its own profitability, by sanctioning
franchisees who provide stale,
inaccurate or unresponsive replies to quote requests.
The quote-request channel improves the efficiency of traditional advertizing
in attracting
and satisfying car buyers, by providing buyers who are ready to buy constantly
up-dated price and
availability information for the entire geographic sales region represented by
the advertising
cooperative, without the capital outlay required for the franchisor to acquire
the franchises in that
area. Because the channel is interactive, but uses the traditional cooperative
print-media
advertising to attract buyers and define its market area, and it provides non-
exclusive leads
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within that area, it also improves market efficiency and inter-brand
competitiveness for the
franchisor by rewarding those franchisees who respond promptly to the requests
for quotes
generated by those cooperative advertisements.
The interactive sales contacts provided by the quote request channel in
accordance with
the present invention also permit the independent franchised dealers to manage
new-car
inventory more efficiently, again without the capital outlay required for the
franchisor to acquire
the franchises in that area. For example, buyers may provide a narrative
description of color and
configuration preferences, and the intended use of the vehicle, rather than
ordering a specific
model and a specific combination of features. That method would allow dealers
to propose
"suitable" vehicles that are on their lot. Otherwise, they would be quoting
made-to-order vehicle
prices whenever the exact match is ngt found. In this way, franchisees can
improve their turn
over rate by offering suitable vehicles that are actually in their inventory
and available
immediately, so that they close sales more quickly and the risk of end-of
season backlogs is
reduced.
1 S In this way, the channel provides service-based incentives to both the
franchisee and the
buyer, which permit more efficient management of existing local new-car
inventories without
suicidal price cutting and without violating franchise commitments or
antitrust constraints. For
example, the franchisee who more promptly provides an appropriate response to
a quote request
and the franchisee who more often has an appropriate vehicle in its inventory
are both rewarded
by increased numbers of buyer contacts. In particular, because this channel
also provides
guidance for quoting vehicles that are actually in that franchisee's
inventory, and immediate
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delivery is, in itself, an incentive to buyers to consider models not actually
requested, the channel
enables franchisees to reduce end-of season backlogs as well as increase
turnover rates.
Because the channel stores the prices and features initially quoted in
response to each
buyer's request, a buyer's identity need not be disclosed until the buyer is
ready to buy. The
buyers decide when and if their phone numbers are disclosed to sellers, but
all quotes would
include the seller's contact information.
On the other hand, however, because the quote-request channel administrator
that stores
the identity and contact information of each person requesting quotes manages
multiple quote
request channels for several cooperatives, perhaps representing the products
of multiple
franchisors, patterns of requests that suggest unproductive frivolous or
anti=competitive behavior
can be discouraged by the administraxer. Because the administrator is only
paid when a sale is
made, it has a commercial interest in promoting prompt quotes and all other
efficient sales
~ practices that enhance.competition, not just price cutting.
In lieu of interactive quote requests, buyers not ready to buy may be given
the option of
selecting a hyperlink to a page of the franchisor's international web site.
These sites provide
routines that interactively allow a prospective purchaser to determine which
of the vehicle
models available from the franchisor are suitable for them, possibly using
expert-based decision-
making routines and other complex special purpose software. The design and
operation of this
type of program is best left to the franchisor, to minimize overhead and
assure that the most
current model specification are used: Thus, in a particular embodiment of the
invention, where
the members of the advertizing co-operative are franchisees of a franchisor
having an Internet
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site, the Internet quote site further comprises means for including
information selected by the
requestor on the franchisor's Internet site in a quote request submitted to
the administrator.
Brief Description of the Drawings
The invention will be better understood when the detailed description of a
preferred
embodiment provided below is considered in conjunction with the drawings,
wherein:
Fig. 1 is a schematic system diagram of a prior art quote request web site;
Fig. 2 is a schematic system diagram of a quote request channel in accordance
with a
preferred embodiment of the invention;
Fig. 3 is a flow diagram of the quote request channel shown in Fig. 2; and
Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating the territorial extent of a large
advertizing co-
operative's media coverage and the allocation of quote request area codes to
its members for the
distribution of quote requests in accordance with a particular embodiment of
the invention.
In these drawings, like structures are assigned like reference numerals.
Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment
In accordance with the present invention shown in Fig. 2, respective trans-
modal third-
party quote request channels 10, each have a co-op web site 11. Each co-op web
site 11 either
directly or indirectly supplies quotes 12 of vehicle price and availability
generated by members 13
of a respective traditional regional advertizing co-operative to potential
buyers 14. The members
maintain respective showrooms 13a and maintenance facilities (not shown). The
channels 10 are
maintained and operated by an independent e-commerce administrator 15 having a
quote service
(QS) web site 16 that includes a hypertext link 1 la to each co-op web site
11. Groups of
traditional regional advertizing cooperatives are managed by advertizing
agenciesl7 funded by
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respective automobile manufacturers A, B who also have branded web sites 18
that advertize
their products. The agencies 17 supply radio, television and print advertizing
copy 19 for a
respective automobile manufacturer A, B to the advertizing cooperatives.
Each regional advertizing cooperative is assigned a respective universal
resource locator
address (URL) 11 a for its co-op web site 11. The URL of each co-op web site
11 a is also
included as a hypertext link on the respective manufacturer's web site 18. The
URL of the co-op
web site 11 a, and an invitation to submit quote requests 20, 21 at the co-op
web page 11 on the
Internet are provided by the advertisements 19 published in the local radio,
television to
potential buyers 14 in print media advertizing spaces bought by the
cooperative. The URL of the
respective manufacturer's web site 18a is also included as a hypertext link on
the cooperative's
web page 11, as discussed further below and, unlike the co-op web sites 11,
the manufacturer's
web sites are usually registered with all the major web search services 22.
The URLs of the
regional co-ops' web sites may also be provided as hyperlinks inside the
manufacturers' web
sites 18, as a courtesy to persons seeking local price and availability
information for the vehicles
nationally advertized there. Preferably each quote request is assigned a
sequence number 24.
Conventional automobile marketing web sites 30 such as the one shown in Fig. 1
are used
to generate sales leads 32 and therefore, unlike the co-op web sites 11 shown
in Fig. 2, are
registered with as many search engines 22 as possible to make them more
visible to browsers 34
who "surf' the web looking for miscellaneous information. These web pages are
also provided
with headers containing words that are "meta tags" 36 specially selected to
make the content of
the web site 30 identifiable to web crawlers, the indexing robots that are
used by some Internet
search services to locate resources on the web that are not already registered
with them.
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Unlike the sales leads 32 generated by the conventional automobile marketing
web site 30
shown in Fig. 1, quote requests are provided to the dealers 13 who do not
close a sale free of
charge he sales leads provided by the quote request web site 11 in Fig. 2.
Although the quote
request web site 11 in Fig. 2 is not paid for all the quote requests 25 it
provides to the dealers 13,
it is a viable independent service because, by design, it enjoys a lower
operating overhead as well
as greater latitude in its dealings with underperforming members of the co-op
than franchise
agreements permit the manufacturers A, B, to have.
In particular, because the URL of the co-op's web site 11 is specific to that
co-operative,
it can be included without charge in the co-operative's traditional media
advertizing 19. Thus the
administrator 15 need not spend money for branding or even registering the co-
op web sites 11
shown in Fig. 2. It need not be listed with those Internet search engines 24,
and may prefer not
to even provide identifiable meta tags 36, as discussed further below.
Also, because the co-op web site's service is directed to sales of the
products advertized
by the manufacturer's advertizing agency 17, the administrator 15 can require
co-op members to
self assess the fees owed for sales made to persons who requested quotes 13.
Thus, its
accounting and collections overhead is minimized. Furthermore, because the co-
operative's web
site is maintained in co-operation with the advertizing agency that provides
the co-operative's
advertizing media, the advertizing agency's own internal tabulation of co-op
members' sales, a
tabulation that the advertizing agency 17 uses to track the success of
advertizing campaigns, can
be used for auditing members' compliance with this self assessment agreement.
Thus, if the fees paid to the administrator for sales in each month decline as
a proportion
of total sales over several months, this is known to the administrator from
the records of the co-
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operative. The administrator then need only contact the requestors who were
not reported to
have purchased a vehicle from a member of the co-operative to determine
whether the requestor
purchased a vehicle, and from whom it was purchased. Alternatively, new
entries in the
Reynolds & Reynolds or Polk automobile registries can be scanned for
automobiles sold to those
requestors if they are unavailable for this purpose. A member/franchisee
having consistently low
sales to requestors who is found to have breached their agreement to pay the
administrator's
quote service fee can be summarily dropped by the administrator, unlike the
manufacturer/
franchisor. Members of the co-operative can simply be summarily dropped from
the
administrator's quote distribution process, because the administrator is
independent of the
manufacturer A, B and its ad agency 17, avoiding the legal costs incurred when
franchisor's
attempt to sanction non-compliant franchisee's.
On the other hand, the channel provides better quality quote requests than the
marketing
service web sites, suc h as the one shown in Fig. 1, because the quote request
channel 10 shown
in Fig. 2 is a trans-modal channel that is accessed by potential 'buyers 14 in
response to the co-
operative's traditional media advertizing campaign materials 19, only a small
percentage of the
quote requests 20, 21 that it distributes to co-op members are likely to come
through from
browsers 34. Like the telephone inquiries traditionally generated by the co-
op's advertizing, the
quote requests in Fig. 2 require potential buyers to put down the Sunday paper
and go on-line to
use this service.
These quote requests are not generated by the operation of meta tags 26 and
search
engines 22, thus they are not available to satisfy idle curiosity. In
particular, narrative requests
21 are less likely to be submitted frivolously than multiple choice or guided,
fill-in-the-blanks
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requests for specific models 20 and it is likely to be obvious when narratives
are concocted for
the sake of entertainment rather than to obtain information. Preferably, the
web site is visually
simple and purely functional in its design, to discourage browsers.
The opportunity to concentrate on individual requests, without the distraction
of frivolous
requests is particularly important in used car sales, where each request must
be individually
researched. In general, the quote request channel 10 shown in Fig. 2 adds a
new dimension to the
co-operative advertizing campaign in that each quote request received from the
co-op's web site
11 can provide the members' sales people preliminary information on buyer
needs and
preferences before the initial telephone or face to face contact. This
information was not
previously available to members 13 through the advertizing agency's 17
advertizing campaigns.
The quote request channel 10 is also clearly a convenience for potential
buyers 14.
Quotes 12 are provided by multiple dealers in response to the submission of a
single, computer-
aided quote request 20, 20. This eliminates the need to call every listed co-
op member just to get
a few quotes on suitable vehicles in stock. However, the requestor can submit
multiple requests,
when there are different types of vehicles that might satisfy the requestor's
needs. Alternatively,
a specific request and a more general narrative may be jointly submitted, or
submitted separately
by a requestor as shown for SALE #1 in Fig. 2.
Because the quote request web site is specific to the manufacturer's brand,
informational
displays used on the manufacturer's web site may be hyper-linked to the
retailers' co-op web
page. In particular, integration of multiple-choice model specification
routines implemented on
the manufacturer's web site onto the co-op's quote request web page gives the
buyer the option
of specifying details such as the number and location of cup holders in the
vehicle. Thus,
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although the administrator preferably does not build and maintain such
elaborate product design
data bases, if the potential buyer completes a specification on the
manufacturer's web site and
actuates radio-button to return to the co-op web site, the detailed
specification selected on the
manufacturer's web site can be copied to the co-op web site as a request for a
made-to-order
price quote from the members of the local co-operative, if the requestor so
desires.
Preferably, the co-op's web site 11 is one of a plurality of quote request web
sites 11
managed by the administrator 15 for the products of more than one manufacturer
A, B. Also,
because more expensive vehicles are not sold in large number, and sales by
cooperatives for
those brands will occur less frequently, the administrator's service fee may
be set as a percentage
of the list price on actual sale price of the vehicle sold. Specifically,
under agreements negotiated
by the administrator 15 with the advertizing agenciesl7, or the individual
cooperatives, the
administrator 15 should be paid approximately 1 % of any sale made within
forty-five days after a
request 20, 21 was supplied to the seller. For used car sales, and other small
transactions, the
minimum fee for this quote service would be approximately US$100 at current
rates.
Thus, only the members of the advertizing cooperative 11 who succeeded in
making that
sale; not cooperative members who do not yet have an Internet department, or
those members
who find that they are unsuccessful in using the quote request channel 10 or
choose not to use it,
for any reason, pay for the quote request service. Moreover, because the quote
request channel
10 is paid for the sale made through each successful contact provided, the
content of the quote
does not affect the fee. Thus requests can be narratives and quotes can be
freely added and
revised without paying additional fees, as further information becomes
available to the dealer.
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Thus dealers are encouraged to update the quotes they provide to the
prospective buyer 20
through the administrator 12.
If a buyer does not wish to be contacted by dealers, price and availability
information 12
quoted by the members 13 in response to a given request 20, 21 will be
collected by the
administrator 15. Preferably, the administrator 1 S automatically relays that
information back to a
requestor, either by sending it to the requestor's e-mail address, or when the
buyer checks the
cooperative's web site 11 for replies to the requestor's quote request 20, 21
using the quote
request number 24 as a password. Alternatively, the requestor can click a
"call me" button on the
web page where the request is entered and the information needed to contact
the requestor will be
forwarded with the narrative or model specification information provided in
the quote request to
members of the co-operative.
The quote requests 20, 21 can provide either a detailed specification 20 of
the vehicle's
configuration based on a multiple-choice inventory-pricing routine provided by
the web site 18
maintained by that respective manufacturer A, B, or a request for vehicle
recommendation 21
that is a narrative which may or may not specify a particular model. In
requests for vehicle
recommendation 21, buyers may provide a narrative description of color and
configuration
preferences, the intended use of the vehicle, with or without a specific model
or particular
manufacturer's options. These, recommendations 21 are advantageous because
they allow each
franchisee 25 to quote a price for a suitable vehicle that is currently in the
franchisee's inventory,
for example one of those vehicles that the franchisee had to accept as
inventory in order to obtain
prompt delivery of more popular models ordered by previous customers. Thus,
requests for
recommendations 21 allow price-sensitive buyers to specifically inquire about
vehicles that are
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available at reduced prices. They also provide information needed whenever the
model specified
by the buyer is not found by the cooperative in its inventory. They become
critically important to
making the sale when the buyer is pressed for time.
Thus, when prospective buyers request recommendations 21 franchisees can
improve
their turn over rate by offering suitable vehicles that are actually in their
inventory and available
immediately, so that they close sales more quickly and reduce end-of season
backlogs. At the
same time, accepting such a recommended alternative permits the buyer to avoid
the delivery
delays and factory invoice-based pricing that the made-to-order vehicles are
subject to.
For the viewpoint of the prospective purchaser, it is advantageous to have the
quote
requests 20, 21 provided by the administrator 15 to all franchisees 13 in the
advertizing coop as
non-exclusive quote requests, rather than sales leads, particularly exclusive
sales leads. The
resulting quotes 12 are more likely to include truly competitive prices than
quotes provided in
. response to exclusive sales leads, particularly made-to-order quotes which
may be little better
than factory list prices.
Preferably, quotes 12 provided by the franchisee are accessible to the
prospective buyer
on the web site 11 or provided by telephone, e-mail or other means, within
forty eight hours
after the initial request is submitted. Preferably these quotes include
information for contacting
franchisees, including a name of a specific sales person familiar with the
quote, the direct
telephone number for that person, and a hypertext e-mail link. The quotes
provided in response
20 to a request may require acceptance within the 48-hour time constraint, but
at the end of that 48-
hour period, a prospective buyer may opt to receive further quotes by e-mail
and, in that event the
franchisees may opt to revise their deadlines and/or their respective price
quotes.
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In small and mid-size advertizing cooperatives, all quote requests 18 entered
on the
cooperative's web site 11 are sent to all members 13 of the cooperative,
unless a member 13 asks
to be excluded from receiving quote requests for certain types of vehicles,
etc. In Fig. 4,
however, the shaded area represents the sales territory of a geographically
large advertizing
cooperative having four members #1-#4, each representing a geographical
cluster of a half a
dozen dealerships, or more, for the sake of convenience: The broken line
represents the limit of
the area effectively covered by the cooperative's advertizing media, a
metropolitan area including
telephone area codes A-P. The most densely populated areas have the area codes
A-C. These
clusters of dealers would preferably be assigned quote requests having some
subset of the
telephones area codes within the effective reach of the co-operative's
advertizing, for the
convenience of the requestor and in the interest of fairness among the
members:
# 1: A-L, P, O.
#2: A-I, K, L, M.
#3: A-N.
#4: A-J, N-P.
In New York, for example, there are 37 members of the local Volvo dealers'
advertizing
co-operative, three in Connecticut, twenty-one in New York, and thirteen in
New Jersey, having
territories extending from Bridgeport in south central Connecticut, to Red
Bank in east central
New Jersey. It can take more than three hours to travel between the outmost
dealerships in this
co-operative. Thus, except in special circumstances, southern New Jersey and
eastern
Connecticut dealers would not receive the same quote requests. New Jersey
member would
receive quote requests with area codes located in Pennsylvania and areas of
New York state near
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its border. Connecticut and the members on the northern edge of the New York
sales territories
would receive any quote requests that have upstate New York area codes.
The invention has been described with reference to a presently preferred
embodiment
thereof, but it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that variations and
modifications are
possible within the spirit and scope of the invention. For example, the co-op
web sites may be
implemented as pages within a particular URL-designated site. Also, the
administrator may, in
some instances, be a part of the advertizing agency, in instances where the
convenience of such
integration outweighs the value of having a quote request interface that is
neutral in the
relationships between manufacturers and their franchisees, and familiar to
purchasers from its use
by other brands and/or other products. Furthermore, the competitive advantages
of the improved
responsiveness and reduced request-response time provided to customers in
accordance with the
present invention, and the low additional cost of operating a trans-modal
channel could be
beneficial to any cooperative retail advertizing group, not just automobile
retailers.
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