Rewriting the rules on vehicle search

iVendi’s new product for vehicle retailers aims to “rewrite the rules” for online car, van and motorcycle search.

ENGAGE completely changes the process through which relevant vehicles from current dealer stock are shown to the consumer.

James Tew, CEO, explained: “We’re describing this as a product that enables the right vehicle to find the customer. What we mean is that it enables the user to narrow the search so rapidly and successfully that the best choice becomes apparent much more quickly than through other search technologies. It rewrites the rules.”

ENGAGE is inspired by research that shows six out of 10 people enter the market without knowing the vehicle they want to buy and uses advanced technology to offer a much more intuitive and effective approach to finding the right outcome.

James said: “Traditional vehicle search has barely moved on since the earliest days of the internet. It is largely driven by the idea that you already know what you want. But for customers who don’t know exactly what they want, it is much less successful.

“What we have done with ENGAGE is to turn the process on its head. Customers can search using the traditional method of make, model and derivative, or they can search by lifestyle or keywords. For example, you could enter ‘fuel efficient seven seater with £200 monthly budget’ and it would deliver a range of viable options immediately.”

James added that the technology also effectively learnt about the user through the search process to refine their results over time using a relevancy filter.

“You might type in ‘fast car with black alloys.’ For some people, that means a Fiat 500 Abarth and for others, a Lamborghini. By looking at the results you click on, it works out which you are looking for and narrows what it is showing you.’

ENGAGE also includes a range of marketing features that can be managed by retailers, such as including suggested search terms – for example, to promote particular or similar vehicles - or adding marketing banners to results pages.

A further innovation, is that ENGAGE allows new and used vehicle results to be shown side-by-side – something almost unknown currently.

James said: “For historical reasons, vehicle search technology tends to strictly demarcate new and used cars, vans and motorcycles but consumers rarely make the same distinction. Most are happy to consider nearly-new stock alongside new and ENGAGE makes it easy for retailers to list the two side-by-side.

“Also, the product is designed to be simple to adopt for dealers and can be dropped into almost any existing vehicle retailer web site without any major changes needed.”