Car Sales

AUTOMOTIVE: From Renting To Owning

| admin

There’s a shift happening in the U.K. motor trade right now, and it’s a bit more serious than the usual platform grumbling.

Dealers aren’t just questioning spend with Auto Trader Group anymore. Some are actively cancelling. The reasons are stacking up in the same direction:

  • Rising costs
  • Increasingly complex packages
  • ROI that no longer justifies the outlay

On its own, that would be a familiar cycle. Platforms get expensive, dealers push back, things rebalance.

But this time there’s a second force hitting at the same time.

Search itself has changed.

Platforms like Google are now answering queries directly through AI summaries. Buyers are getting what they need without clicking through to marketplaces or dealer sites at all. In a previous article I explained ‘Zero Click and Position Zero’. Early research, comparisons, even shortlists are being shaped before anyone enters the traditional Internet funnel.

So dealers are facing a double hit:

Paying more for marketplace exposure

While a chunk of demand never reaches marketplaces in the first place

That’s not a pricing problem. That’s a structural one.

The instinctive move is to look sideways. Reach out to other dealers. Test CarGurus or Motors see if the numbers improve. Some do, briefly. But most feedback lands in the same place. Variable lead quality, unclear attribution, no consistent step change in performance.

Because the underlying issue hasn’t been addressed.

Demand is shifting upstream.

More buyers are starting and finishing their research in environments where the answer is presented instantly. No click required. No listing viewed. No enquiry made until much later in the journey.

Which raises a simple question.

If fewer people are clicking… what exactly are you paying for?

There is another way to look at it.

Instead of continuing to rent demand through third-party platforms – e.g. the increasingly expensive Autotrader, dealers can start to build visibility in the places where decisions are now being shaped. Not by chasing rankings in the old sense, but by creating content that answers the exact questions buyers are asking in a format AI can use.

For example:

  • “Do EV batteries fail outside of warranty”
  • “Best used SUVs under £20k”
  • “Are BMW diesel engines reliable”

Right now, most dealer websites don’t compete on any of this. They’re built to display stock, with a narrative made up of specification, not to demonstrate understanding.

That’s the gap.

And increasingly, it’s where influence sits.

Because the real prize now is not just appearing on page one. It’s being included in the answer itself. The source behind the AI summary – AKA AI Summary Citation or Position Zero.

The voice that shapes the shortlist before a buyer ever clicks.

Early signs suggest that reallocating even a portion of marketplace spend into this kind of approach, content built for answers, structured properly, technically clean, can start to build visibility that compounds over time.

Not instant. But owned.

AUTOMOTIVE: How AI Is Changing the Rules of Search

| admin

If your dealership website is seeing fewer visitors than it was a year ago, you’re not imagining it. Some of that declining traffic is a direct result of how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the way people search online and the rules are changing faster than most dealers realise.

Over the last 18 months as a research project I’ve been studying the effect of AI technology on Internet search. New agency disciplines like Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) Conversational Search (CAI) and Answer Optimisation (AO) all drive AI Search Summary results including the citation links.

The fact is – Customers are increasingly getting the answers they need in the AI Summary at the top of the search results (SERPS) without ever clicking through to your website. That’s not a temporary blip, it’s a structural shift in how search works. There’s every chance you are burning your Pay Per Click (PPC) budget.

Here’s another steer – don’t chase every new AI tool that lands in your inbox, an endless wave of shiny new products promising to revolutionise your digital presence. Instead go back to basics.

Review what you already have, identify the gaps, and fix your foundations first.

UK dealers are being targeted by an ever-growing number of AI marketing vendors, many of whom are selling solutions to problems dealers haven’t fully understood yet – I wrote an article called The Comprehension Gap. Understanding the landscape clearly is the essential first step. Some solutions don’t even need AI to resolve them.

The Language You Need to Know

To make sense of what’s happening, it helps to get comfortable with a handful of key terms that are increasingly shaping how dealers think about their digital presence.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the practice most dealers are already familiar with – building website content that ranks well in Google keyword searches and earns free, organic traffic. It remains important, but it’s no longer the whole picture. In fact Semrush, a leading analytics provider, recently  quoted a 1/3 drop off in search appearances for popular search terms because of ‘position zero’ AI summaries. Those enquiries are going to the forward thinking supplier who, ahead of the game in the world of GEO, is already being cited in AI search and AI App results – and will benefit from early adopter status forever.

Position Zero refers to the featured AI generated snippet that appears at the very top of Google results, providing a direct answer to a search query without the user needing to click any link. Appearing here means visibility without traffic, which is precisely the problem.

LLMs (Large Language Models) – as explained by Prof. Hannah Fry on the BBC this week – are the AI tools driven by state of the art electronic chips that are increasingly influencing how people search and make decisions. These include Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, platforms that millions of UK consumers now turn to for recommendations, comparisons, and buying guidance.

Schema Markup (sometimes called Website Schema) is structured data added to a website’s backend that consistently labels content, vehicles, reviews, services – so that search engines can properly understand it. It helps generate richer search results and improves click-through rates. Many dealer websites in the UK lack this entirely.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is perhaps the most important new concept for dealers to grasp. Where SEO is about ranking in traditional search, GEO is about structuring and creating content so it can be easily understood, cited, and summarised by AI tools. Think of it as SEO for the AI era. Unlike traditional SEO, which tends to return the same results for the same keyword, GEO is highly personalised, the same query from two different buyers can produce completely different AI-generated answers, pulling from reviews, forums, and third-party sources alongside your own website.

Prompt Visibility refers to how frequently and prominently your dealership, brand, or specific information appears in AI-generated responses. If an AI tool is recommending dealerships near a customer, does your name come up – and in what context?

Agentic AI is the next frontier. Unlike AI tools that simply provide information, Agentic AI can independently plan, make decisions, and execute multi-step tasks. In a retail automotive context, this means AI that could guide a buyer through the entire purchase journey, from initial research to booking a test drive, with minimal human involvement. This is not science fiction; early versions of this capability already exist. LLMs were initially created to drive Chatbot conversations.

Hallucinations are incorrect results appearing in AI search summaries that could affect a contact or even a loss of reputation. AI is in the ‘Model T Ford’ era, it is not always correct and you need to be testing search terms for accuracy as part of your reputation management.

What This Means for U.K. Dealers

The practical implications are significant. Every positive customer review matters more than ever, because AI tools draw on that content when forming recommendations. An authentic dealer with consistently strong, genuine reviews is far more likely to appear in AI-generated responses than one whose online reputation is thin or inconsistent.

Critically, responses to reviews also need to feel human and genuine – AI can detect overly automated or templated replies, and this affects how credibly your dealership is represented. You cannot rely on AI in most cases ChatGPT writing your content – it’s great for writer’s block, but rewrite ideas in your personal tone.

Your website content needs to answer real questions clearly and directly. Generic manufacturer copy doesn’t help AI understand what makes your dealership distinct. Pages that explain finance options, compare models, or provide genuinely useful local information are the kind of content that both search engines and AI tools favour.

From a technical perspective, your website needs to be accessible to AI crawlers in the first place. A significant number of dealer sites inadvertently block tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI systems through robots.txt settings or security configurations – meaning those tools simply cannot recommend them, regardless of how good their stock or pricing is. Does your supplier understand llms.txt and is this included in your website back end? These are now questions you need answers to.

The fundamentals; fast loading websites, clean data, honest content, and a credible presence across all digital platforms haven’t changed. What’s changed is how much they matter, and what gets built on top of them.

Steve Coulter is a four decades Sales and Marketing expert with a career in the Automotive Industry and involved in state of the art Digital Marketing since 1999.

OPINION: Cars As iPhones

| admin

On a recent trip to the cinema I was presented with two new car adverts, both glossy. My cynical joke about the Range Rover that the owner was driving into the dealer for warranty work was soon overshadowed by the normalisation of a homogenised MG ‘SUV’ being £35000 as the basic price. But of course nobody pays the cash price nowadays, they mentally justify the purchase as multiples of their iPhone monthly payment. Cars as iPhones is a masterclass in behavioural psychology. 

Sometime in the last decade I described modern car buying as the iPhonication of the forecourt and if anything the idea has aged better than most of the vehicles now sold under it.

There was a time when the first question was the price. The full price. A number large enough to demand a pause and some moral arithmetic. Today nobody asks that. They ask how much a month, and the rest is treated as background noise, like terms and conditions or the weather.

The trick is simple. We no longer evaluate cars as capital purchases but as subscriptions. The monthly payment is quietly reconciled against the iPhone in your pocket. Fifty quid a month for a phone feels normal. Three hundred quid a month for a car becomes six phones. You already live with one. Why not six sitting outside?

This is not financial logic so much as consumer conditioning.

PCP and PCH did not just change how cars are paid for, they changed how they are justified. Ownership became vague, temporary, almost impolite to mention. What mattered was whether the number could slip into the standing orders without causing an argument. Once it could, permission was granted.

Electric cars pushed this model to its logical conclusion. On paper many are startlingly expensive. In practice they arrive softened by language about efficiency, tax, sustainability and the future. The monthly figure does the heavy lifting. Nobody emotionally processes fifty or sixty thousand pounds. They process four hundred a month by comparing it to phones, streaming services and a gym membership they forgot to cancel.

The iPhone model also smuggles in another assumption, that upgrading is natural and permanence is old fashioned. You do not keep a phone for a decade. You refresh it, guilt free, because you were never meant to own it outright. PCP borrows that psychology wholesale. Three years, hand it back, move on, feel modern.

Electric cars lean into this harder than most. Big screens, software updates, range improvements promised just around the corner. They are sold less as machines and more as devices, which makes their disposability feel progressive rather than wasteful.

The danger is that when everything is framed as affordable monthly, nothing feels expensive anymore. Stretch the term, adjust the mileage, tweak the deposit and almost anything can be made to behave. The decision shifts from judgement to tolerance. Not can I afford this, but can I live with it?

That is a profound change. It moves cost out of focus and replaces it with habit. Comparison does the rest.

‘The electric transition is often presented as a clean break from the past, but it has been powered by the most contemporary consumer mechanism of all. Permanent payment and planned obsolescence, wrapped in virtue and delivered by direct debit.’

The propulsion may be changing, but the mindset is familiar. We have not made cars cheaper. We have just learned how to stop looking at the whole number, and how to measure our lives in iPhones instead.

AUTOMOTIVE: The Autotrader Deal Builder Double Whammy

| admin
A sharp, forecourt-level look at how Autotrader’s Deal Builder and the rise of Zero Click behaviour are squeezing used car dealers from both sides, eroding autonomy, visibility and buyer engagement in a fast-shifting digital marketplace.

Autotrader Deal Builder


Autotrader’s Deal Builder isn’t just another product tweak. It’s a disruptive structural shift in how used cars are bought and sold online and dealers can feel the ground moving under their feet. For years Autotrader played a fairly neutral host, the marketplace where dealers paid increasingly handsomely for leads but kept ownership of the tango between buyer and seller. Deal Builder flips that. It pulls negotiations, finance steps, part-exchange valuations and the vital early dealer-customer chat into Autotrader’s own funnel adding a new commission to variable costs.

Dealers are no longer shaping the first conversation. They’re reacting to it.

At a glance that might simplify the process for the buyer – even more appealing to some? But for dealers it means the nuances that make a sale happen; gauging buyer intent, framing the value of the car, uncovering their real needs, building rapport, have already been flattened by a scripted online journey. Price becomes the headline act. Specification, condition and service history become afterthoughts. The sales wizard on the phone or forecourt who can turn a researching caller or hesitant browser into a committed buyer no longer gets to weave their magic until it’s far too late. Many dealers see that not as convenience but as a strangulation of their craft. No wonder this has become the straw that broke the camel’s back for already disgruntled dealers and Autotrader contracts have been cancelled.

But even with Deal Builder, removing yourself from Autotrader in 2025 is like stepping off the M25 at 8am weekdays and hoping the A-roads will deliver the same traffic. You cut yourself out of the busiest shop window in the country. That risk is amplified by the rise of so-called ‘Zero Click’ behaviour. To an increasing extent searchers are no longer hopping from platform to platform, comparing listings, digging into dealer sites or ringing up on a whim. They’re skim reading synthesised summaries generated by AI that sit above the results. If a car search query gets answered directly in a neat little paragraph; price ranges, typical condition, popular models, even directing them to the dealer with the greatest AI savvy, the user might never reach the listings at all.

This is the new hazard. It’s not simply that buyers won’t click through. It’s that discovery is now mediated by machines distilling the market down to a few tidy facts. Dealers who once relied on strong photography, punchy descriptions and a competitive price for that particular car now find their efforts abstracted into an AI-authored digest that doesn’t mention them, their car or their service. Even when shoppers do hit a listing page, in our ADHD world they’re being conditioned to make faster decisions with less context. Cars outside those first handful of ‘best fit’ results are ghosted before they’ve even had a chance.

Put Deal Builder and Zero Clicks together and the picture gets darker. Dealers leaving Autotrader lose control over a funnel they disliked, but they also lose access to the only marketplace still large enough to push past the AI summaries and land real eyes on stock. Meanwhile the secondary platforms they retreat to don’t have the critical mass to surface above the Zero Click fog. A dealer might regain their autonomy only to find there’s no-one left to talk to.

It isn’t terminal for the trade. Those who invest in their own digital presence; take social media seriously, craft richer websites and vehicle pages, create informative video walk-arounds, encourage reviews, restructure their websites to answer conversational searches, build first-party email lists and get serious about local search can carve out their own lane.

Community reputation, repeat custom and transparent after-sales support still matter in ways algorithms cannot capture.

But make no mistake. The combination of Autotrader centralising the sales journey and search engines becoming subordinate to AI search is a huge double whammy. Dealers will be squeezed from the marketplace side and the discovery side.

Navigating this reality will take sharper thinking than the industry has been asked for in years.

—

Steve Coulter is a four decade Automotive Industry professional now running a creative agency specialising in AI Search, Digital Transformation and Brand Engagement.

BRAND POSITIONING: Ferrari’s Sweet Spot

| admin

Ferrari stands apart in an industry obsessed with scale. While most manufacturers fight for volume, Ferrari has mastered a different discipline: limiting supply, elevating value and turning every car into a high-margin work of desire. This article explores how the company builds demand and preserves profitability, and what SME owners can learn from its approach.


How Ferrari Creates Demand and Delivers Exceptional Profitability.

Ferrari occupies a position in the automotive world that most manufacturers can only admire from a distance. While mass-market brands chase volume and market share, Ferrari has built an entirely different model: one centred on scarcity, high margins and the careful cultivation of desire. The result is an output that is small in number yet immense in profitability, with profit per car that vastly exceeds that of other manufacturers.

Ferrari’s approach begins with the most basic principle of luxury: make less than people want. The company has long limited production to preserve exclusivity. This is not an afterthought but an intentional design. By keeping supply below demand, Ferrari ensures that its cars retain their status and that waiting lists remain part of the experience. The company does not allow the market to dictate volume. It sets its own pace, and customers follow.

This scarcity underpins Ferrari’s pricing power. Other manufacturers often rely on discounts, incentives and high-volume strategies to keep factories running. Ferrari has no need for any of that. Its prices are high because the brand has earned the right to command them, and because customers know that owning a Ferrari is not simply about buying a car but joining a very particular world.

Personalisation plays a major part in this. Each car can be tailored to an extraordinary degree, through bespoke colours, materials and technical options. These additions are not mere extras. They contribute a substantial share of Ferrari’s margins, turning each vehicle into a highly profitable commission rather than a standard product rolling off the line.

Financial results reflect this model. Ferrari consistently posts operating margins that resemble those of luxury fashion houses rather than car companies. In recent years its operating margin has approached levels that other manufacturers would consider out of reach. On a per-car basis its profitability is exceptional, far above that of both mass-market and premium brands. Where many manufacturers make modest earnings on each unit and rely on scale to survive, Ferrari achieves remarkable profitability from a relatively small number of cars.

The strength of the brand is central to all of this. Ferrari has built a mythology over decades of racing heritage, iconic design and uncompromising performance. The emblem alone carries weight that few other marques can match. Customers are not simply purchasing horsepower or engineering. They are buying history, identity and the sense of belonging to a long-established tradition.

This strategy also brings resilience. Because the business is not dependent on huge volumes, it is less vulnerable to the fluctuations that affect the wider automotive market. The company generates strong cash flow, allowing it to invest steadily in new technologies while maintaining the exclusivity that supports its market position.

Ferrari’s success offers a clear lesson for other industries. Growth does not always require expansion in numbers. A tightly controlled supply, supported by a strong brand and meaningful personalisation, can create a more stable and profitable model than sheer scale. It is a reminder that in certain sectors, demand is not simply found. It can be cultivated through patience, discipline and a clear sense of identity.

The Lesson For Business… especially micro-business and SME is not to imitate Ferrari’s glamour but to embrace its discipline. Look closely at where your real value lies, raise the standard of what you offer and consider whether scarcity, specialisation or personalisation could work in your favour. You do not need thousands of customers. You need the right ones who recognise the worth of what you do. Now is the moment to review your positioning, refine your offer and build a business that commands respect rather than chases attention.

If you would like to explore how these principles can be applied to your own business, get in touch with me. I can help you refine your positioning, strengthen your value proposition and build a model that supports higher margins and stronger demand. Reach out and let us develop this further for your organisation.

AUTOMOTIVE: Porsche Profits Apply The Big Stoppers

| admin
Porsche, once the golden child of German engineering and luxury performance, has hit an unexpected crisis in 2025. After years of record profits and unmatched prestige, the carmaker has reported a devastating fall in earnings, with operating profit plunging by more than 99 percent. The decline raises urgent questions about Porsche’s electric strategy, global sales slump, and future in an increasingly uncertain automotive market.

There was a time when the air in Zuffenhausen smelled of success and the confidence of endless growth. Porsche was the brand that never stumbled, the company that made perfection seem routine. Yet this year the balance sheets told a very different story.

For the first time in living memory, Porsche has posted a loss. Not a minor dip or a brief misfire, but a full-blown financial skid. In the third quarter of 2025, the company recorded an operational loss of nearly one billion euros. Across the first nine months of the year, profits collapsed from around four billion to just forty million. The figures landed like a crash through the guardrail at La Source.

The roots of Porsche’s decline lie in its costly electric gamble. Determined to lead the luxury EV revolution, the company poured billions into its own battery programme and an ambitious range of electric cars. The goal was clear: by 2030, eighty percent of new Porsches would run silently rather than roar. The market, however, had other ideas.

Buyers loved the Taycan’s design and speed, but hesitated at the price and limited range. High costs and lukewarm demand forced Porsche to retreat. The battery division was scrapped, new electric SUVs cancelled, and the firm took a three billion euro write-down. The pivot back to hybrids and combustion engines restored a little sanity, but the damage was done. Investors saw indecision. Customers saw confusion.

External pressures made things worse. In America, new tariffs on European luxury cars have already cost Porsche hundreds of millions of euros. Prices have risen, and demand has fallen. Across the Pacific, China’s once-booming market for Western prestige cars has cooled sharply. Sales dropped by more than twenty-five percent as domestic electric brands took centre stage.

Europe offered no comfort either. Economic fatigue and tighter emissions laws have hit the high-end market. Even the 911, the timeless heartbeat of Porsche, faces an uncertain future in a world determined to phase out petrol. Volkswagen Group, Porsche’s parent company, has reported its own steep drop in profit, much of it linked to this turmoil in Zuffenhausen.

The response has been fast and severe. Around four thousand jobs have already gone, and restructuring costs have topped three billion euros. Meetings that once celebrated lap times now focus on cost savings. Michael Leiters, Porsche’s new chief executive and a former McLaren man, has inherited the unenviable task of restoring confidence while steering a bruised and bewildered company back to growth.

Behind the scenes, engineers are refocusing. Porsche will rely on its most loyal strengths: craftsmanship, performance, and the feel of quality that no algorithm can reproduce. Future cars will blend petrol and electric power rather than replace one with the other. The idea is to rebuild gradually, balancing innovation with identity.

For decades, Porsche was defined by certainty. Every car, from the 911 Turbo to the Macan, carried the same message of precision and purpose. But the modern world is no longer so simple. Customers expect luxury, performance and sustainability in a single package. Governments demand cleaner cars. Markets demand profit. Somewhere in that storm, Porsche lost its footing.

Yet history suggests the brand knows how to recover. In the early Eighties, Porsche faced a similar reckoning. Sales were weak, costs were high, and purists feared the end of the 911. The company survived by listening to its engineers rather than its accountants. It rediscovered its essence. That may be the lesson Zuffenhausen needs again today.

If Porsche can blend its heritage with a clearer, more measured path to electrification, it could regain its balance. The 911 remains a global icon, and the Taycan, for all its struggles, proved that electric Porsches can still thrill. What the brand needs now is consistency and patience. The next great Porsche story will not be written in spreadsheets but in steering feel, design integrity and engineering bravery.

For now, though, Porsche’s halo has dimmed. The numbers are harsh, the markets unforgiving, and the pressure immense. Yet if any marque can turn a loss into a lesson, it is the one that made imperfection an art form.

What Porsche Could Do Next?

– Refocus the product line: Build hybrids and performance models that maintain the emotional core of the brand while easing customers toward electric power.
– Control production costs: Simplify supply chains, delay unnecessary launches, and invest only in platforms that deliver profit and flexibility.
– Strengthen brand storytelling: Reignite the emotional link between car and driver through heritage design cues and motorsport engagement.
– Win back key markets: Adjust pricing and marketing strategies in the United States and China to match shifting buyer sentiment.
– Prepare for the long term: Develop a steady, sustainable EV roadmap that doesn’t gamble the company’s identity on unproven demand.

If Porsche manages to balance its heart with its head, it will emerge stronger. The figures may be grim today, but the brand’s legacy of resilience remains intact. The brand is used to the smell of victory.

NEWS: Pro-Motor: A Smarter Way to Sell Your Car in West Sussex

| admin

After more than four decades in the automotive industry and many years as a digital marketer, I am excited to launch Pro-Motor – a new service designed to help car owners in West Sussex sell their vehicles faster and achieve significantly better returns.

Why Pro-Motor?

Selling a car today can feel like a choice between two extremes:

  • Accepting a quick but low-value offer from “instant buy” sites
  • Or struggling to create a listing that attracts serious buyers

That’s where Pro-Motor comes in. With 45 years of experience in automotive sales and marketing – right up to manufacturer level – I know exactly what buyers look for and how to showcase a car to its best advantage.

By combining that industry knowledge with modern digital marketing expertise, Pro-Motor offers something unique: a professional car selling service that achieves on average 30% more for clients than quick-sale disruptors.

What the Service Includes

From only £250, Pro-Motor provides:

  • A pre-sale valet to ensure your car looks its best
  • High-quality photography and video
  • Professionally written copy tailored to engage buyers
  • Your own Sales Manager for advice throughout sale
  • Advertising on national platforms for maximum reach
  • Local, personal service for sellers within one hour of Littlehampton

The Difference Professional Marketing Makes

Presentation is everything. Buyers are more confident and willing to pay more when a car is clean, photographed beautifully, and described with care. My background in digital marketing ensures your listing isn’t just well presented – it’s strategically placed to reach the right audience at the right time.

A Local Service with National Reach

Based in Littlehampton, Pro-Motor is designed for sellers across West Sussex. While I work closely with local clients to prepare and market their cars, the adverts themselves reach buyers nationwide.

Sell Smarter, Not Cheaper

Pro-Motor is all about creating value. Instead of underselling your car for the sake of speed, this service combines professional presentation with targeted marketing to deliver stronger offers.

If you’re based in Southern England* and thinking of selling your car, I’d love to show you how Pro-Motor can help you achieve the best result.

📞 Call 07407 038877 or e-mail steve@stevecoulter.co.uk

* A practical service for anyone within one hour of Littlehampton, West Sussex, so includes Hampshire, Kent and Surrey.

Steve Coulter Pro-Motor Up To 30% More For Your Car!