Markethaus Musings

What Will Be Big This Year?

Starting Thursday (tomorrow) dealers and exhibitors and car companies descend on New Orleans. We (Motoralley) will be there too to meet with current and potential partners and it's always fun to wonder aloud about what will be "hot" at the show.

A couple of thoughts...from our e-commerce perch:

1. New challengers to the current DMS providers (Dealer management systems). About 80% of the market is controlled by Reynolds & Reynolds, ADP and UCS. But there are some new companies jumping in that bring new ideas. In all disclosure, one of them is a partner of ours, NeoSynergy. We like their web approach and like even more that they like the idea of letting consumers buy a car directly from their dealer, online. We've helped them by building a consumer interface into their DMS.
   
2. e-Commerce gets ever more serious. Ok...this isn't "new" news, but more and more dealers see websites, finance, used and new car leads as critical components to their business and so I think we'll start to see more and more of the dealer's budget moving from "off-line" to "on-line." More e-commerce, leads, email, etc...and a little less traditional media. The car companies are doing the same.

I'll write more about my observations at the show and if I remember, share some photographs too.