GForces has signed-up its 200th customer for its NetDirector Auto-e online car retail platform after reaching the milestone in “record time”.

The speedy roll-out of the online retail solution mean that more than 1,100 car dealership locations are now operating the platform in a move that the software business said “marks a defining shift in the industry’s acceptance of ecommerce”.

GForces now claims that nearly 20% of the UK’s top 200 dealers are now using the NetDirector Auto-e platform it launched at the start of 2019.

Tim Smith, Chief Commercial Officer at GForces, said: “With over two hundred retailers using NetDirector Auto-e, our platform is helping change the uncertainty around selling vehicles online.

“And, our clients are seeing significant business as a result. We’ve already seen one retailer sell in excess of a hundred used vehicles through the platform.”

Among the retail group’s now using the Auto-e online retail platform are RRG Group, Chorley Group, Croyland Car Megastore, and Vantage Motor Group.

GForces claimed that, in many cases, consumers who embrace the online sales offer are new customers to the retailer, often from traditionally ‘showroom-shy’ demographics such as women and older buyers.

Many are also not local to the physical locations, with orders made by customers based hundreds of miles from the retailer, it added.

Speaking at the AM Awards 2019 roundtable Pauline Turner, managing director of Chorley Group, praised the Auto-e system, but said that many customers the group had worked with so far with the system – launched with the group in March – still valued human interaction.

Agreeing with Suzuki GB Managing director, Dale Wyatt, on the point that some online platforms go against the common sense view that “it’s never going to be the case that one size fits all”.

But she revealed that a team of four customer contact specialists, working on a rota until 11pm in the evening, were adding a valuable personal touch to ensure that there were options away from a purely online sales funnel.

She added: “Offering that online platform for our customers was a step that we had to take. Customers nowadays demand that option.”

  • Read AM's full report on the AM Awards 2019 roundtable meeting in the September Edition of the magazine.