Mike Roscoe and the group over at Digital Dealer did a great job on pulling off this convention.  Lots of great presenters and some not so great, but all-in-all I was impressed with the format.  Auto dealer turn-out is not NADA-like, but the some 500 that attended were the target market for internet sales and very engaged.

I could write a short book about everything I saw and experienced, but let's keep it to a bulleted list:

• I heard “Comparison Market Pricing” everywhere I went.  There are several new tools on the market for pricing your inventory against competitors.  JMsolutions has PriceDriver, vAuto has one, and FirstLook as well.  Basically these tools scrape the major classified sites (autotrader.com, cars.com, etc) and give you the ability to see where your vehicle(s) compare.  Great offering, but what I’m seeing is flawed data…they haven’t perfected it yet, but they will.
• Videos!  I think this was mainly because a video company owner was the panel moderator in a main session, but at any rate no one has figured out if it actually sells more cars.  * * * One more thing, moving photos in a small frame with voice-over does not qualify as a video! 

Let me break out of the list for just a second and make an analogy.  Videos of a pre-owned car are like virtual tours in the hotel industry in 2000.  Everyone had to have them, consumers watched them, hotel chains were paying top dollar to have hotels video toured, but the “fad” died because it did not help book more rooms.  I’m calling it: “videos in the car business are a fad and it will not sell more cars”.  The cost and effort are no where near the ROI.  Ok, back to the list….

• Finally caught up with Jeff Kershner at DealerRefresh.com.  I’d like to see Digital Dealer create a list of the Top 50 Rising Stars in the car business because Jeff would be top of the list.  If not already done so, check out his great blog at DealerRefresh.com.
• Kevin Root, VP Dealix, delivered a presentation done on research they had done with automotive consumers…good nuggets of data along the way.  Check it out here: www.cobaltgroupresearch.com

Overall, I highly recommend any internet sales manager attend Digital Dealer in the fall.  Just watch out for the shiny objects some of the vendors are selling.

Also, here are some photos from the show: http://www.flickr.com/photos/autorevo/sets/72157604710431022