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Digital car buying has changed the showroom - dealers have yet to change the funnel

Jun 09, 2026 Kriben Reddy, Kredo Mobility


Digital car buying has changed the showroom - dealers have yet to change the funnel

 

Opinion piece by Kriben Reddy, Founder and CEO of Kredo Mobility

There was a time when buying a car meant spending weekends moving from one dealership to the next, comparing vehicles in person, taking notes, and slowly narrowing the options. But today, the showroom has moved upstream.

 

Most customers now arrive at a dealership long after they have started the process. They have searched, compared, checked pricing, looked at photographs, watched reviews, asked friends, and probably changed their minds a few times before a salesperson ever hears from them. That is not a bad thing. A more informed customer can be a better customer. The mistake is assuming that digital interest automatically translates to buying intent.

 

The South African used car market is large enough for this to be important. Autotrader’s 2025 Industry Report puts used vehicle sales at around R160 billion. The same pattern can be found internationally. Cox Automotive’s 2025 Car Buyer Journey Study found that only 7% of buyers completed the entire purchase online, while 63% said their ideal process combines online and in-person steps. That tells us the future of vehicle retail is not purely online. It is a more selective mix of digital research and physical engagement.

 

For dealers, that distinction is critical. The old ‘tyre-kicker’ has not disappeared. He has simply become a virtual tyre-kicker. A dealer may no longer have ten people walking onto the floor to look at the same car. Instead, there may be 50 digital enquiries, and somebody still has to work out which of those people are serious, can afford the vehicle, and have a trade-in that makes sense.

 

That is where many digital retail strategies fall short. They focus on generating more leads when the real commercial issue is the quality of those leads. A person who makes an online enquiry is not automatically a customer. If dealers treat every digital signal as equal, they shift the inefficiency from the showroom floor to the CRM, WhatsApp inbox, or the sales team’s call list. That wasted effort has a real cost. Salespeople spend time following up on weak enquiries. Managers struggle to prioritise stock and prospects. Banks and insurers only enter the picture later, often after effort has already been wasted.

 

The next step is giving consumers the right information early enough to know whether they are ready. If a customer knows the trade and retail value of their current car, they have a better sense of whether they can enter the market. If they know their settlement position and affordability, they know whether the deal is realistic. This does not weaken the dealer’s position. It strengthens the sale. An informed customer is not the enemy of margin. A poorly qualified customer is. A person who knows where they stand financially, understands the value of their vehicle, and has already done basic checks is easier to serve than someone arriving with no information and unrealistic expectations.

 

This is where we need to rethink the role of digital tools in vehicle retail. They should reduce friction. In a digital buying journey, trust must be built before the customer walks into the dealership, not after. At Kredo Mobility, this is the thinking behind the development of our newly launched consumer-facing platform, CarFree. We want to help more of the right customers reach the dealer at the right time, with enough information to make the conversation useful.

 

Not more leads, better leads - for the trade, that is the real opportunity. Digital car buying is not simply about moving more of the transaction online. It is about improving the quality of the transaction before it reaches the dealership. The future does not belong to the dealers with the busiest inboxes. It belongs to those who know which conversations are worth pursuing.

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