Software Project Spotlight: easyauto123 Sales Process Transformation and 20% Operational Cost Deduction in Less Than a Year
Unlocking the Potential of easyauto123 with April9's Innovative Solutions
Executive summary
Eagers Automotive, a major player in the Australian automotive market, partnered with April9 to address significant challenges in their easyauto123 pre-owned vehicle business. Faced with high operational costs, inefficiencies in the sales process, and disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, easyauto123 needed a comprehensive solution to improve profitability and customer experience. April9 delivered a transformative solution including a redesigned, user-friendly website, robust e-commerce capabilities, and integrated inventory and marketing automation tools. This collaboration resulted in increased sales efficiency, substantial cost savings, enhanced online performance, and improved customer satisfaction. The project's success positions easyauto123 for scalable growth and future expansion in a competitive market.
How Eagers Automotive’s Legacy and easyauto123's Challenges Set the Stage for Transformation
Client Background
Eagers Automotive, a stalwart in the Australian automotive industry, with a century-long legacy, operates across 250 locations in Australia and New Zealand. Representing 19 out of the top 20 selling car brands and 9 out of the top 10 luxury car brands, Eagers' dealership network annually services over 1 million vehicles, solidifying their position as a prominent industry player. EasyAuto123 is the independent pre-owned vehicle business with 10+ stores and a strong online presence.
Are High Operational Costs and Inefficiencies Draining Your Profits? Here’s How EasyAuto123 Tackled Them
Challenges
easyauto123 was faced with several significant challenges. The traditional used car business model resulted in high operational costs, including rent, inventory management, personnel, and marketing expenses. Additionally, the profit margins per vehicle sold were considerably lower compared to those in franchised dealership departments, impacting overall profitability. The sales process was also less efficient, with lower sales per consultant and a time-consuming negotiation-based model that detracted from the customer experience.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic further disrupted sales volumes, highlighting the need for resilience and adaptability. Marketing efforts were costly and less effective, with high expenses per car sold and a low return on investment. Inventory management posed another challenge, with high floor plan costs affecting profitability. Moreover, generating and converting leads through their website was initially low, limiting sales from online channels. To achieve higher sales volumes with reasonable gross margins, EasyAuto123 needed to optimise the productivity of their sales team and enhance overall operational efficiency.
Setting Ambitious Goals
Objectives
Boost Sales Efficiency
Achieve 30+ units sold per consultant per month, increase online leads from 15% to 25%, and online sales volume from 27% to 40%.
Reduce Operational Costs
Cut rent costs by 10%, inventory costs by 15%, and marketing costs by 20% while enhancing the customer buying experience.
Optimise Marketing Strategies
Utilize data-driven decision-making to reduce marketing costs per car sold by 15% and enable scalable growth across multiple locations.
Boosting Sales Efficiency, Reducing Costs, and Enhancing Customer Experience
The primary objective of the collaboration between easyauto123 and April9 was to significantly increase sales efficiency. This includes streamlining the sales process to reduce the time to sale and enhance the number of units sold per consultant. By implementing a no-haggle, fixed-price model supported by an efficient inventory system, easyauto123 aimed to achieve an average of 30+ units sold per consultant per month. Additionally, the project seeked to enhance online lead generation and conversion by redesigning the website and integrating advanced analytics, with the goal of increasing the proportion of online leads from 15% to 25% and online sales volume from 27% to 40% within the next year.
Another key objective was to reduce operational costs across various areas, including rent, inventory, personnel, and marketing, to improve overall profitability. easyauto123 plans to deploy automation tools and optimised inventory management systems to achieve further reductions in rent costs per car sold by 10%, inventory costs by 15%, and marketing costs by 20% over the next 12 months. Enhancing the customer buying experience is also a priority, with the aim to implement a user-friendly online reservation and click-and-collect system that will account for 25% of total sales within the next year. Improving sales team productivity is another focus, targeting a 20% year-on-year increase in productivity metrics through training and advanced sales tools.
Lastly, the project aims to optimise marketing strategies using data-driven decision-making to enhance ROI and maintain or increase sales volumes. This includes utilising advanced analytics to refine marketing efforts, reducing marketing costs per car sold by an additional 15%. Ultimately, the collaboration seeks to achieve scalable growth while maintaining or improving profit margins by developing scalable software solutions that enable easyauto123 to expand their superstore model across multiple locations without proportional increases in operational costs.
Comprehensive Digital Transformation: From User-Friendly Website to Real-Time Inventory Integration
The Solution
To address the challenges faced by easyauto123 and achieve the outlined objectives, April9 delivered a comprehensive solution that transformed their digital and operational landscape. At the heart of this transformation was the creation of a new, customer-centric website design. This design prioritised user experience, enabling potential buyers to easily navigate through available vehicles and services. By decoupling the vehicle inventory from the website database, the solution ensured that updates to the inventory could be managed efficiently without affecting website performance. Additionally, more modern CMS capabilities were integrated, allowing easyauto123 to quickly update marketing content and keep their audience engaged with the latest promotions and information.
To enhance the buying experience, powerful e-commerce capabilities were introduced, enabling online purchasing, vehicle reservation, and financing options directly through the website. This was complemented by the implementation of online contracts and purchasing processes, providing a seamless and best-in-class customer experience from browsing to buying. Moving the infrastructure to AWS serverless resources significantly improved response times and reliability, ensuring the website and associated services were always fast and available. Targeted SEO techniques were applied to improve the search engine ranking position, driving more organic traffic to the site and increasing lead generation.
The solution also features real-time integration with inventory management, marketing automation, and sales tools, creating a cohesive ecosystem that supports all aspects of easyauto123’s operations. This integration enables accurate, up-to-the-minute inventory visibility, automated marketing campaigns, and efficient sales processes, ensuring that easyauto123 can scale their operations effectively.
Together, these deliverables provided EasyAuto123 with the tools and capabilities needed to overcome their challenges, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive sustained growth in a competitive market.
6 Steps Execution: How April9 Delivered Results in Record Time
Implementation Process
At April9, we understand the importance of delivering solutions within a defined timeframe. Here's how we confidently met the 8-month target for easyauto123's website redesign and re-platforming project
1. Stakeholder and End-User Engagement
Extensive work was done on interviewing stakeholders and holding end-user feedback sessions to gather crucial information for the new website design and purchase flow. These sessions provided valuable insights into user needs and preferences, ensuring the final design was user-friendly and aligned with easyauto123’s business goals.
2. Streamlined Software Development with Stack9
Utilising our in-house Stack9 platform as the backend data management system significantly reduced development time. Stack9 is a pre-built, secure, and scalable platform designed to accelerate development by providing essential functionalities such as data storage, access control, and security features. This eliminated the need to build these functionalities from scratch, allowing our team to focus on developing the core features of easyauto123's solution.
3. Expertise and Efficiency
April9 boasts a diverse team of over 20+ highly skilled software engineers, solution architects, cloud engineers, data and business analysts, project and delivery managers. This breadth of expertise ensured we had the right people dedicated to each stage of the project. Our team's proven track record of success demonstrates their ability to deliver complex projects efficiently, ensuring that every aspect of the redesign and re-platforming was handled by experts.
4. Dedicated Project Management
Experienced project and delivery managers were assigned to the easyauto123 project, ensuring clear communication, progress tracking, and adherence to the defined timeline. These managers facilitated coordination between our technical teams and easyauto123, making sure that all milestones were met and potential issues were addressed promptly.
5. Transparency and Collaboration
We prioritised open communication and collaboration throughout the process. Regular updates on milestones achieved and proactive handling of any potential roadblocks ensured that the project stayed on track. This collaborative approach kept easyauto123 informed and involved, ensuring the final solution met their expectations.
6. Commitment to Project Schedule
The project commenced with an initial eight-week period focused on clarifying business requirements and delivering a detailed solution design document for easyauto123's review and sign-off. The implementation phase followed, which included provisioning AWS infrastructure, scripting provisioning processes, setting up automated deployment pipelines, and configuring the solution according to the signed-off design. During this phase, any identified customizations were completed, and necessary reports and output documents were developed. The final stage involved user acceptance testing, where the April9 team collaborated with easyauto123's users to ensure the solution met all requirements before the final rollout.
By combining Stack9's efficiency, our team's expertise, dedicated project management, and a collaborative approach, we successfully delivered easyauto123's solution within the 8-month timeframe, resulting in a transformed digital presence and enhanced operational capabilities.
Quantifiable Success: Doubling Sales Efficiency and Slashing Operational Costs
Results
The collaboration between easyauto123 and April9 Software yielded significant quantitative and qualitative outcomes, transforming their digital presence and operational efficiency.
- Significant cost savings and increased profitability due to optimised operational processes.
- Higher customer engagement and satisfaction through a user-friendly, efficient online platform.
- Enhanced scalability and flexibility, positioning easyauto123 for future growth and expansion.
Increased Sales Efficiency
- Sales per consultant increased from an average of 16 units per month to over 30 units per month, with some consultants reaching up to 33 units.
- Time to sale was reduced by 25%, thanks to the streamlined, no-haggle sales process.
Cost Savings
- Rent cost per car sold decreased by an additional 10%, and inventory costs reduced by 15%, contributing to overall operational savings.
- Marketing costs per car sold dropped by 20% due to data-driven decision-making and targeted marketing strategies.
Enhanced Online Performance
- The proportion of leads generated online increased from 15% to 25%, with online sales volume rising from 27% to 40%.
- The online reservation and click-and-collect service accounted for 25% of total sales, up from 16%.
Improved Inventory Management
- Stock turns increased from 12 to 15 per year post-COVID, enhancing inventory efficiency and reducing holding costs.
User Engagement and Conversion
- Website traffic increased by 40%, and the bounce rate decreased by 30%, indicating higher user engagement.
- The conversion rate for online purchases improved by 35%, reflecting the effectiveness of the new e-commerce capabilities.
Enhanced Customer Experience
The new customer-centric website design and streamlined purchase flow received positive feedback from users, citing ease of use and faster transaction times. Online contracts and purchasing options provided a seamless and convenient buying experience, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Operational Efficiency
- The integration of real-time inventory management, marketing automation, and sales tools created a cohesive ecosystem, improving overall operational efficiency.
- The transition to AWS serverless resources ensured faster response times and improved reliability, leading to fewer downtime incidents and better service availability.
Improved Decision-Making
The addition of CMS capabilities allowed for rapid updates to marketing content, enabling more agile and responsive marketing strategies. Curated SEO techniques boosted search engine rankings, increasing organic traffic and brand visibility.
Security and Compliance
The implementation of secure online purchasing and contract management enhanced data security, ensuring compliance with industry standards and building customer trust with an ISO 27001 certified AWS environment.
Sustaining Growth and Innovation: The Path Forward for easyauto123
Future Outlook
Building on the success of our initial collaboration, April9 and easyauto123 are focused on several future initiatives to further enhance operational efficiency and drive growth. We are developing advanced predictive analytics to refine inventory management and marketing strategies, aiming to reduce costs and improve customer targeting. Additionally, we plan to expand the e-commerce platform to include more personalised shopping experiences, leveraging AI to offer tailored recommendations and streamlined services.
The ongoing integration of cutting-edge technologies will ensure easyauto123 remains at the forefront of the automotive retail industry. By continuously optimising their digital presence and operational processes, easyauto123 is well-positioned for sustained success. Our collaborative efforts will continue to focus on scalability, ensuring that as easyauto123 grows, their systems and processes remain efficient, customer-centric, and innovative. This strategic approach will not only maintain but also enhance their competitive edge in the market, driving long-term profitability and customer loyalty.
