Cars Commerce CEO: Navigating Tech Opportunities in Auto Retail!
发布时间 2023-11-03 12:04:39 来源
We see our data that affordability is the number one issue facing consumers. The price of vehicles is also grown astronomically, so you've got higher cost goods, higher interest rates. But yeah, you're also seeing a pretty healthy market right now. Consumers have shown us that they're not saving for the future. They're more living in the present moment, and they're still spending on vehicles, taking vacations. And this has been a strange time in the economy for sure.
我们注意到我们的数据显示，经济适用性是消费者面临的首要问题。车辆价格也飞涨，因此你会面临昂贵的商品和高利率。但是没错，目前市场还是相当健康的。消费者向我们表明，他们并没有为未来而存钱，而更多地过着当下的生活，仍然在购买车辆、度假。这确实是一个经济上的奇怪时期。
What's up everyone? This is CarDealershipGuy. You're listening to the CarDealershipGuy podcast, which is my effort to give you access to the most unbiased and transparent insights into the car market. Let's get into today's episode. Alex Vetter, CEO of CarSCommerce, a technology company that's empowering dealerships with the tools to simplify everything about car buying and selling. You may be wondering, is CarSCommerce related to cars.com? The short answer is yes. I asked Alex about that on the episode, and he explained exactly why they recently rebranded into CarSCommerce. In this conversation we discussed how car buying is evolving, how Alex acquires other companies and what he looks for in founders, solving for the software fatigue epidemic, the future of the dealership's showroom, predictions for the car market, and is online car sales here to stay or will it go away?
大家好！我是CarDealershipGuy。您正在收听的是《CarDealershipGuy播客》，我致力于为您提供对汽车市场最公正透明的见解。让我们进入今天的节目。我们邀请到了CarSCommerce的CEO Alex Vetter，这家技术公司以简化汽车买卖过程为经销商们提供工具支持。也许您会想知道，CarSCommerce与cars.com有关系吗？简短的答案是有。在节目中我问过Alex关于这个问题，他解释了为什么他们最近改名为CarSCommerce。在这次对话中，我们讨论了汽车购买的发展趋势，Alex是如何收购其他公司以及他寻找创始人的标准，如何解决软件疲劳流行病的问题，经销商展厅的未来发展，对汽车市场的预测以及在线汽车销售是否会持续发展或消失的问题。
But before we get into the show, I'd like to thank CarSCommerce for coming on as a guest and also sponsoring this episode. I talk a lot on this podcast about how complicated and disconnected our industry can be with so many different moving parts. So as a CarS.com and dealer-inspired customer myself of many years, I was excited to hear Alex Vetter announce his team's vision to simplify dealership technology as CarSCommerce. If you missed it, they've been connecting the most valuable audience from their CarS.com marketplace with innovative technology and media solutions, such as dealer-inspired, accutrated, and her newly formed CarSCommerce media network. So now this platform means you can work with one partner to advertise to consumers you know are in the market, guide them through a seamless customer experience from online to in store, and quickly build a differentiated reputation in your market. Simple. That's what we need to improve the customer experience and future-proof local retailers. Go to CarSCommerce.ink or visit the link in the show notes below to see how you can simplify your business and grow profitability.
在我们开始节目之前，我想感谢CarSCommerce作为嘉宾的到来，并且赞助了本期节目。在这个播客中，我经常谈到我们的行业有多么复杂和分散，涉及很多不同的环节。所以作为多年来身为CarS.com和dealer-inspired客户的我来说，当我听到Alex Vetter宣布他的团队以CarSCommerce的名义简化经销商技术时，我感到非常兴奋。如果你错过了他们的消息，他们一直在通过CarS.com市场连接最有价值的受众，并且为其提供创新的技术和媒体解决方案，例如dealer-inspired、accutrated以及他们新成立的CarSCommerce媒体网络。现在，通过这个平台，你可以与一个合作伙伴合作，向你知道正在市场上的消费者进行广告宣传，引导他们从线上到实体店的顺畅客户体验，并迅速在你的市场建立一个与众不同的声誉。简单明了。这正是我们需要改善客户体验并保证本地零售商未来发展的东西。访问CarSCommerce.ink或者点击下方节目说明中的链接，了解如何简化你的业务并增加盈利能力。
This episode is also brought to you by Auto-Fi. Most digital retail platforms are limited in their capabilities and fall short on empowering dealers to convert shoppers into buyers while protecting profitability. Auto-Fi delivers done deals by empowering your dealership with the technology to land customers on the right vehicle and deal. From payment configuration, F&I product selection, credit, and real-time lender offers. Plus, the back-hand selling tools to help close the deal. This accelerates the deal no matter where the customer is on the dealer's website, over the phone or in the showroom, and translates to a faster sale with better customer experience and higher profits. In fact, the most engaged dealers on Auto-Fi see $411 more back-end PVR versus non-autified deals. Go to autofy.com slash CDG to learn more or click the link in the show notes below. That's autofy.com slash CDG and start working with done deals today.
本集节目由Auto-Fi赞助。大多数数字零售平台的能力有限，无法充分赋予经销商将购物者转化为购买者，并同时保护利润。Auto-Fi通过装备您的经销商科技，实现交易达成。从付款配置、F&I产品选择、信用评估，到实时贷款提供。此外，还提供帮助促成交易的销售工具。无论客户在经销商网站上、电话中还是展厅内，这些都能加快交易，提供更好的客户体验和更高的利润。事实上，在Auto-Fi上最活跃的经销商与未使用该系统的经销商相比，后端PVR的差异达到411美元。请访问autofy.com/CDG了解更多信息，或点击下方节目注释中的链接。那就是autofy.com/CDG，开始与已完成的交易合作吧。
Last time I talked to you, you were the CO of cars.com. Now you're the CO of cars commerce. So what changed here? Are you still an automotive marketplace? Well, look, I think if you understand my business, yes, cars.com is our flagship property. It's been around for 25 years. It continues to thrive. But increasingly, more and more of our strategy is about launching technology solutions that enable the auto industry. And so the best thing about my company is our brand strength in cars.com. But for investors, we really wanted them to understand the underlying SaaS-like qualities of our business that are really all about enabling the auto industry. And so cars commerce was born to unify all of our digital solutions for dealers and OEMs and lenders.
上次和你交谈的时候，你是cars.com的首席运营官。现在你成为了cars commerce的首席运营官。那么这里发生了什么变化呢？你们还是一家汽车市场吗？嗯，看吧，我觉得如果你了解我的业务的话，是的，cars.com是我们的旗舰产品。它已经存在了25年了，一直在不断发展壮大。但越来越多的我们战略是关于推出能够为汽车行业提供技术解决方案。所以我公司最好的地方就是我们在cars.com上的品牌实力。但对于投资者来说，我们真的希望他们了解我们业务的基本SaaS式特性，这些特性都是为了推动汽车行业的发展。因此，cars commerce诞生了，它将统一我们为经销商、原始设备制造商和贷款人提供的所有数字解决方案。
What did you think about my SaaS fatigue term? You texted me that after the Daniel Crannick podcast. And pretty much for anyone that listened to that, what I was referring to is that we're just continuously going into this world where there's so many things, there's so much noise you have to deal with. You want to buy a car, you have to deal with 10 different tools, you want to sell a car, you have to deal with 10 different tools. And my very pragmatic, simple view on this, you don't have to be a genius to think this is that people want easy, people want simple. And so anyway, so you text to be that. What's your take on that?
你对我提出的“SaaS疲劳”这个词有什么看法？你在听完Daniel Crannick的播客后给我发了这个信息。对于任何听过那个播客的人来说，我所指的是我们不断进入这个世界，到处都是那么多事情，那么多噪音需要处理。你想买辆车，就得处理10个不同的工具，你想卖辆车，也得处理10个不同的工具。我对此的非常实用和简单的看法是，你不需要是个天才才能想到，人们喜欢简单，人们喜欢轻松。所以，无论如何，你给我发了这个信息。你对此有何看法？
Well, look, I think we see the same problem in the industry that you do. I know a dealer Andrew Haverstad, he shared with us that he audited his six store group and they had 300 different vendors that he uses to run his business. If you isolated just technology vendors, he had over 40. And so there was no interoperability between the various systems that his team is using to run the business every day.
嗯，听着，我觉得我们在这个行业中看到了你所看到的问题。我认识一个叫安德鲁·哈弗斯塔德的经销商，他与我们分享，他对他的六家门店进行了审核，发现他使用了300个不同的供应商来经营他的业务。光是技术供应商就有超过40个。所以他的团队每天用来运营业务的各个系统之间没有互操作性。
Similarly, I talked to a CEO of a large publicly traded dealer group who was frustrated that he couldn't see a bird's eye view of his digital operation because they had so many third party tools that were siphoning users through various funnels to power their properties that he had no organized view of his business. And so we're on a mission to give dealers simplified tools to make buying and selling cars easy.
同样，我与一家大型上市交易商集团的首席执行官进行了交谈，他对于无法全面了解数字业务的整体情况感到沮丧，因为他们使用了很多第三方工具，这些工具通过不同的渠道将用户引导到其平台，导致他无法组织地了解自己的业务。因此，我们有一个使命，即为交易商提供简化工具，使购买和销售汽车变得容易。
Well, at what point did it hit you and your like or your team or whoever? And you said, we need to bring, we need to create an integrated platform to serve the industry. Like, I went, when did that switch? What did that happen? Well, when we took the company public and finally had independent ownership that was solely focused on our path forward as opposed to our former ownership structure, which was owned by a collection of media companies, it was very clear that the winners in the space are going to become essential for success for local retailers. And increasingly, while the auto industry has done a lot more digitally in terms of advertising and marketing, they really haven't used technology to operationalize their stores to the degree that they could. And so we embarked on a new journey to really build technology and tools to the auto industry. This was first exhibited in our acquisition of dealer Inspire. And then has been followed on with acquisitions like Credit IQ, AccuTrade, etc, where we're integrating these technologies into an interoperable platform where dealers can log in once and leverage it for a lot of different operating cases in their stores.
在哪个时刻，你和你的团队或其他人意识到了这个想法？你说我们需要建立一个整合平台来服务这个行业。我想知道，这个转变是什么时候发生的？ 当我们公司上市并且拥有独立的所有权时，事情就变得清楚了。我们的焦点完全放在了前进的道路上，而不是以前的所有权结构，该结构由一些媒体公司拥有。我们明确地意识到，在这个领域，成功的赢家将成为当地零售商的必需品。而汽车行业虽然在数字化广告和营销方面做了很多努力，但他们实际上并没有充分利用技术去使他们的店铺更高效。因此，我们开始了一段新的旅程，致力于为汽车行业建立技术和工具。这首先体现在我们收购了Dealer Inspire，然后又进行了Credit IQ、AccuTrade等收购，我们将这些技术整合到一个互操作性平台中，经销商只需要登录一次，就可以在他们的店铺中处理许多不同的操作案例。
Yeah, so I clearly know about this and many people do, but for anyone that doesn't, so you're simply referring to all the different services and tech that you now offer to the industry, whether it's building a website, being present on the marketplace, getting pre-approved for financing for consumers, pretty much putting all that together. Tell me more about just acquisitions. You've been very inquisitive. How do you do your acquisitions? How do you source your acquisitions? What do you look for in a founder? Give us your playbook.
是的，所以我很清楚这一点，很多人也知道，但对于不了解的人来说，你简单地指的是您现在为行业提供的各种不同服务和技术，无论是建立网站、参与市场，为消费者提前获得融资，总的来说，将所有这些都整合在一起。告诉我更多关于并购方面的事情。你一直都非常好奇。你是如何进行并购的？你是如何寻找并购机会的？你在创始人身上寻找什么特质？请给我们你的策略手册。
Well, look, my playbook was passed on from one of my mentors from a former generation. Howard Elias, who was the founder of Copy, Serve, and ran EMC. I was very fortunate to have him be a mentor of mine. You may have heard of him because he ran the largest tech merger in the world's history when Dell and EMC joined forces and Howard worked with Michael Dell to run the combined enterprise. And Howard over breakfast one day, I asked him about his M&A strategy. And he said, Alex, I look at deals through four lenses, and I look at the strategic, the financial, the operational, but don't overlook the cultural. Because he said when he looked at the 300 deals that he had done in his career, that fourth one, the cultural one, actually dictated success, in many cases, overpowering the financial operational, or even sometimes the strategic, because when teams can work well together, their bound to succeed. And so I've borrowed Howard's playbook. Howard, if you're listening, thank you for that framework because it served me well.
看吧，我的工作策略是从前辈中的一位导师那里传承而来的。霍华德·伊莱亚斯曾是Copy公司的创始人，也曾经营过EMC。我非常幸运能有他做我的导师。你也可能听说过他，因为当Dell和EMC合并时，他曾主导了世界历史上最大规模的科技合并，霍华德与迈克尔·戴尔一同管理这个合并企业。有一天早餐时，我问他关于他的并购策略，他说：“亚历克斯，我通过四个角度来考虑交易，并且我关注战略、财务、运营方面，但千万别忽视文化方面。”因为他说，在他的职业生涯中，他完成了300笔交易，而其中这第四个角度，文化，实际上在很多情况下决定了成功，凌驾于财务、运营甚至战略之上。因为当团队能够良好合作时，他们就注定会成功。”因此，我借用了霍华德的策略。如果霍华德正在听，谢谢你提供的框架，因为它对我非常有帮助。
All right. So digging in deeper into the acquisition side, though, what do you look for in a founder and in a company? Well, aside from those four lenses, I often look at the founder behind the operation because inevitably, their DNA is in the acquisition or in the asset that we're looking to acquire. And so integrity probably would be the number one thing I'm looking for when I meet founder and his or her executive team, because at the end of the day, the integrity lends to me is the most important. If you're trying to truly build something differentiated with strategic advantage, because you want the intellectual horsepower to be focused on growth and innovation and not tearing apart what really is here and trying to understand is the promise bigger than the reality. And so I would say integrity is what I look for most in founders.
好的。进一步深入研究收购方面，你对创始人和公司有什么要求呢？嗯，除了这四个视角之外，我常常关注操作背后的创始人，因为不可避免地，他们的基因深深融入到我们正在寻求收购的资产中。因此，诚信可能是我在与创始人及其执行团队会面时最看重的一点，因为最重要的是诚信对我来说是至关重要的。如果你试图真正构建具有战略优势的差异化东西，因为你希望智力资源集中在增长和创新上，而不是拆解现有的东西并试图理解承诺是否大于现实。所以我可以说我最看重创始人的诚信。
All right. So I want to zoom in a little bit more into just today's car shopping journey, right? You've you've you have many different elements to your business here, which ultimately affect that journey for the customer.
好的。所以我想再深入一些，仅针对今天的购车之旅，对吧？您在这里经营着许多不同的元素，这最终会影响客户的购车旅程。
You know, I get DMs all the time for people saying, oh, the dealership is going to go away or or you know, Tesla is going to be the only winner, like these really like extreme positions, like everything should be direct to consumer. I think it's all nonsense.
你知道的，我经常收到人们发来的私信，说经销商会消失，或者特斯拉将成为唯一的赢家，就像这些非常极端的观点，认为所有东西都应该直接销售给消费者。我认为这都是无稽之谈。
I think the you know, the world supports many different forms of commerce, nope, unintended. But I wanted to say it from your perspective, like, what are the current gaps in the customer journey, right? Because I like how can what you're building, how can that bring it all together and make it all connected?
我认为你知道的世界支持许多不同形式的商业，不对，无意的。但我想从你的角度来说，现在客户旅程中存在哪些差距呢？因为我想了解你正在构建的东西如何能将一切联系在一起，使其成为一个完整的整体？
Your intuition is spot on here. And what I'll tell you, it's really the core of our ethos and what we're all about. Most technology companies are looking to disrupt automotive retail. And in many cases, it's designed around building this direct to consumer model. And we don't see the world through that lens.
你的直觉说得很准确。而我要告诉你的，实际上正是我们的核心理念，也是我们的宗旨所在。大多数科技公司都希望颠覆汽车零售行业。许多情况下，他们的设计都是基于直接面向消费者的模式。而我们并不是这样看待这个世界的。
You know, we're not here to disrupt automotive, we're here to enable it. And part of the reason behind that is that if you really study the buying journey of consumers and what's involved in titling a vehicle and transitioning ownership of an asset of scale of machine, this is a hyper local business.
你知道，我们在这里并不是为了打破汽车行业，而是为了促进它的发展。而这背后的原因之一是，如果你真的研究消费者的购买过程以及车辆过户和交易的流程，你会发现这是一个高度本地化的业务。
And you know, digital plays a role, but we believe in an omnichannel experience where the where the consumer starts online and finishes offline. And so all of our technologies at Carves Commerce are designed to enable local retail to make that transition from online to offline.
你知道，数字技术扮演了一个角色，但是我们相信全渠道体验，也就是消费者从线上开始，线下结束的体验。因此，Carves Commerce的所有技术都旨在帮助本地零售业实现从线上到线下的过渡。
You know, when you think about titling transfer, you know, appraising the trade in, even putting license plates on the car, this is a physical transaction of goods. And technology can play a role, but it, you know, we're not saying it replacing the retail experience.
你知道的，当你考虑过车辆过户、车辆估价甚至是上车牌的时候，这都是一项实际物品交易的过程。科技可以发挥作用，但我们并不是在说要取代实体零售体验。
Do you think then like with that said, do you think that the online car buying saga, do you think that that is going to, you know, every like, have another growth spur, like, is that going to continue growing just like you did it, you know, throughout the pandemic time? Or do you think that was more of, you know, kind of over the pendulum swung a little too far? And we're sort of reverting now to a more back to like a localized business, just like it was before.
那么，你认为在线购车的情况，你认为它会继续像你一样在整个疫情期间继续增长吗？还是说它有点过头了，我们现在正在回归到像以前一样更注重本地业务的模式？
Well, it depends on what lens you're looking through, what, you know, most retailers and even OEMs report and talk about is a percentage of their sales that are digital. And usually it can be anywhere in that 25 to 30% for the larger players and maybe higher for some of the smaller. But the reality is that's a fool's errand.
好吧，这取决于你的观点是什么，你知道的，大多数零售商和甚至原设备制造商报告和讨论的是他们销售中数字化销售所占比例。对于大公司来说，通常可以在25%到30%之间，而对于一些较小的公司可能会更高。但事实上，这是一项愚蠢的任务。
Almost 100% of all automotive sales have digital fingerprints on them. Very few actually go down a click add to cart path. And so, you know, this is the largest transaction in most people's lives where the research is done online and the purchase is completed offline.
几乎100%的汽车销售都有数字化痕迹。实际上，很少有人直接通过点击“添加到购物车”完成购买。因此，你知道，在大多数人生中，这是最大的交易，他们会在网上进行研究，然后在线下完成购买。
So I sit here today and say almost 100% of all vehicle sales are digital. And I believe that over time, the industry is going to shift more and more capital allocation and to creating digital experiences and using digital technologies to run their operation because consumers are engaging in these technology platforms at every step of the way.
今天，我坐在这里说，几乎100%的汽车销售都是数字化的。我相信随着时间的推移，整个行业将会越来越倾向于将资金投入到创建数字化体验和使用数字技术来运营业务中，因为消费者在整个购车过程中都与这些技术平台进行互动。
Yeah, look, I don't even believe in like the walk up anymore, right? Like the customers comes in, there's no such thing. I never believed in that at, you know, at the dealership because they saw you somewhere, they heard about you somewhere. I mean, just popped your zip code in into Google and you know that they're not from the area, right?
是的，听着，我不再相信所谓的顾客自行光顾了，对吧？就是顾客进来了，这种情况已经不存在了。我从来没有相信过这一点，在经销商那里，因为他们在某个地方见过你，或者在某个地方听说过你。我是说，他们只是在谷歌里输入你的邮政编码，就知道他们不是本地人，对吧？
So does it happen? Yes, it's super rare though nowadays, especially given the plethora of options online and whatnot. With all due respect to my friends at NADA, I think they grow out every year a study that says drive by is the number one source of sales for dealerships nationwide. And it doesn't have, look at any consumer research and digital is the number one, two, and three source of information prior to purchase.
所以，这种情况是否会发生呢？是的，虽然现在非常罕见，特别是考虑到在线和其他各种选择的丰富性。尽管我非常尊重NADA的朋友们，但我认为他们每年都会进行一项研究，结果显示驱动购车是全国经销商销售的主要渠道。而根据任何消费者研究，数字渠道是购车前信息获取的第一、第二和第三来源。
So what do you think? I mean, you again, you've made a big change recently, you know, going really positioning the company as you know, an integrated platform. I have a couple of just very tactical questions. Like why focus on commerce, right? Like why cars commerce, why do you make that decision?
那么你有什么想法呢？我的意思是，你又做了一个很大的改变，你知道的，将公司定位为一个综合平台。我有一些非常实际的问题。比如，为什么专注于商业领域呢？比如为什么专注于汽车交易，你为什么做出这个决定？
Well, look, I think it signals our intent to enable the industry. Most people and again, investors see us as cars.com, a singular website, but the fastest growing part of my business is technology solutions that are enabling both manufacturers and dealers to do more for the customer online. And all our capital investment is growing, going into accelerating the growth of those technologies and tools that are going to make running a dealership far more profitable.
嗯，听着，我认为这显示了我们促进行业发展的意愿。大多数人，还有投资者都将我们视为唯一的汽车网站cars.com，但我业务增长最快的部分是提供技术解决方案，使制造商和经销商能够更多地通过在线方式为客户提供服务。我们所有的资本投资都用于加速这些技术和工具的发展，这些技术和工具将使经营汽车经销商的利润更加丰厚。
So if I ask you, like Alex, like, how does this make me more money? How do you respond to that? Well, look, it's pretty easy.
如果我像亚历克斯那样问你，这样会让我赚更多的钱吗？你会如何回答？嗯，看吧，这很简单。
If you look at what Google has done over the last five years, they have milked the auto industry for something like $4 billion in pay-per-click advertising.
如果你看看谷歌过去五年所做的事情，他们从汽车行业挣取了约40亿美元的每点击付费广告费用。
And yet our sales rates as an industry haven't fundamentally changed nor have has consumers time spent on my website cars.com deteriorated all.
然而，作为一个产业，我们的销售率并没有根本性改变，消费者在我们的网站cars.com上所花费的时间也没有出现任何恶化情况。
So, you know, many of these larger platforms are still preying on the interruptive advertising game, which is trying to intercept people while they're doing other behaviors.
所以，你知道，很多这些较大的平台仍在依赖中断式广告模式，试图在人们执行其他行为时拦截他们。
And what we believe strongly is that retail media is where people shop for cars.
我们坚信的是，零售媒体是人们购买汽车的地方。
I had a great executive that once shared with me, you know, most targeting is about who? When the reality is with auto, you really need to be focused on when, right?
有一次，我的一个很出色的高管跟我分享了一个观点，你知道，大多数的定位是关于谁的？但实际上，对于汽车行业，你真正需要关注的是何时，对吗？
When someone is in the act of deciding between this brand or that brand, if you're a store or that store, talking to them in the moment is so much more powerful than trying to interrupt them while they're talking to their friends or reading the news or watching online television.
当一个人在决定选择这个品牌还是那个品牌时，如果你是一家店铺或那家店铺，直接在他们做决定的时刻与他们交谈比试图在他们与朋友交谈、阅读新闻或观看在线电视时打断他们要有效得多。
Interruptive advertising is high cost. It's a huge waste.
中文翻译：中断式广告成本高昂，是一种巨大的浪费。
表达意思：中断式广告成本高昂，这样做是一个非常浪费资源的行为。
Only 5% to 6% of the populations in the market to buy a car at any given time.
在任何给定时期，只有5%到6%的人口在市场上购买汽车。
And so, there's huge efficiency opportunities.
因此，存在巨大的效率机会。
You've had some podcasts that I've listened to where, you know, you've had dealers say, this is all I use and they're running some of the best, most profitable months in their history.
有些播客我听过，你在其中有一些经销商说，这是他们唯一使用的产品，而他们正在创造自己历史上最好、最赚钱的几个月份。
So we know this can generate massive profits for the industry.
所以我们知道，这可以为行业带来巨大的利润。
Yeah. Well, what do you think about, again, going back to like an integrated platform, I think about practically speaking, the biggest issue or a big issue for dealers nowadays, which is also something really tough to solve for is the affordability issue.
是的。再说一下，你对于回到一个集成平台的想法有什么看法？我觉得从实际角度来看，现在对于经销商来说最大的问题之一，也是非常难以解决的问题，就是支付能力的问题。
So when you think about what you're bringing to the industry and, you know, trying to lower customers' payment, do you think that that is like one step in that direction?
所以当你考虑你为这个行业带来的贡献，以及试图降低客户的支付费用时，你认为这是朝着这个方向迈出的一步吗？
Like, can you help achieve that or am I off base with that? What do you think?
像这样，你能帮我实现这个目标吗，还是我想错了呢？你觉得呢？
With that, and by the way, even more so in the recent period, right, we're seeing searches for affordability and shot by payment or the fastest growing segments on our site because interest rates being where they are, it's just naturally what consumers are more focused on than they were, say, six to eight months ago.
在这方面，顺便提一句，最近更是如此，对吧，我们注意到消费者在我们的网站上越来越多地搜索价格实惠和分期付款，这是因为目前的利率情况导致消费者的关注重点自然而然地转移到了这方面，与六至八个月前相比。
So we see our data that affordability is the number one issue facing consumers.
所以我们可以看到，数据显示，消费者面临的主要问题是可负担性。
The price of vehicles is also grown astronomically.
车辆的价格也呈现了一种爆炸式的增长。
So you've got higher cost goods, higher interest rates.
所以您购买了成本更高的商品，利率也更高。
But yeah, you're also seeing a pretty healthy market right now.
是的，现在你也能看到一个非常健康的市场。
Consumers have shown us that they're not saving for the future.
消费者向我们表明他们并未为未来储蓄。
They're more living in the present moment, and they're still spending on vehicles, taking vacations.
他们更多地活在当下，并且仍然会购买车辆，度假旅行。
And this has been a strange time in the economy for sure.
这确实是一个经济上的奇特时刻。
What do you think is like, do you think it's what's driving that, in your opinion?
你认为是什么原因导致那种情况发生的？你觉得是什么影响了那种情况？你个人的观点如何？
Because it seems like it seems like doing some mixed background out there in the market.
在市场上看起来似乎存在一些混合背景的情况。
I just mentioned on a previous podcast that I ran this temperature check with dealers and there was like 400 responses.
我在之前的播客中提到，我对经销商进行了这个温度检查，大约收到了400个回复。
And a lot of people were like, what is going on now? October has gotten slow. Suddenly, sales are not doing well.
很多人都在问，现在发生了什么？十月份的情况变得越来越慢。出乎意料地，销售额下滑了。
And again, there were some people that said the opposite.
而且，又有一些人表示了相反的观点。
Of course, it's not always completely perfect across different people, different regions.
当然，不同的人、不同的地区之间并不总是完美无缺的。
But what do you think is going to keep that?
但你认为会持续下去吗？
What do you think is going to keep driving that just the demand in light of the macroeconomic headwinds? How do you help that?
在宏观经济风险的背景下，你认为是什么将继续推动需求增长？您如何协助这一点？
Yeah. Well, look, I think a couple of answers to that.
是的。嗯，听着，我认为有几个答案可以回答这个问题。
I think remote work and the de-urbanization of major American cities are going to prop up auto sales for years to come.
我认为远程工作和美国主要城市的脱城市化将在未来几年内支撑汽车销售。
People are using their cars. This is an extension of their home.
人们正在使用他们的汽车。这是他们家的延伸。
The money they're saving from not having to commute or pay high priced urban lunches versus where you don't make.
他们通过不必通勤或支付高昂的城市午餐所节省的钱相比于你们无所获得的情况。
And people are living more in the moment.
人们更加活在当下。
I think we saw after 9-11, people started exhausting their bank accounts because they said, I may not be here forever.
我认为9·11事件之后，我们看到人们开始耗尽他们的银行账户，因为他们说：“我的生命可能不会永远存在。”
And I think that's now embedded after post-COVID.
我认为这种观点现在已经在COVID-19后深深根植。
We see this. People are not saving for the future. They're more spending more in real time.
我们看到这一点。人们不是为未来存钱，而更多地在实时消费。
And the car is, again, something that is inseparable from the American system.
而且汽车，再次说，是与美国制度分不开的东西。
这句话的意思是，汽车在美国社会中扮演着非常重要的角色，与美国制度密不可分。
It's the way we operate. It's the way we get around.
这是我们的操作方式。这是我们的行动方式。
And people are, yes, they may be holding on their cars longer because they're built better and they last longer.
而且人们，是的，他们可能会更长时间地保留自己的车辆，因为它们制造得更好且使用寿命更长。
But don't underestimate the importance of the car in terms of the American consumer.
但不要低估汽车在美国消费者中的重要性。
Yeah. No, I mean, I would agree with that.
嗯，是的。不过，我的意思是，我同意这个观点。
I would definitely say that the car is arguably, it's more important than it's ever been.
我肯定会说，汽车无疑地比以往任何时候都更加重要。
I spoke about this prior as well, but there's been a lot of, in the past, a lot of chat about Gen Z not going to be interested in driving or whatever, like rideshare.
我之前也谈到过这个问题，但过去一直对于“Z世代”是否对驾驶或者共享交通感兴趣存在很多讨论。
And those services have been extremely successful by every measure of imagination.
这些服务在想象的每个衡量标准下都取得了极大的成功。
But it feels like it's almost like it expanded the market. And people are just, it hasn't eaten away at the ownership market, rather. It's just added an additional element to the market. So that's been interesting how that's all played out.
但是感觉就像它几乎扩大了市场。并且人们并没有放弃拥有市场。相反，它只是为市场增添了一个额外的元素。所以这整个过程都很有趣。
When you think about, when you think about the future and like, the agency model, where these OEMs and car manufacturers maybe have the inventory on their balance sheet and dealers don't necessarily own it, what do you think? Like, how does the local retail system and dealer system compete with that? Or what do you think, what does that look like into the evolution of the industry and retail in general? How do you reconcile that?
当你考虑到未来以及代理模式时，这些原始设备制造商和汽车制造商可能将库存列入资产负债表，而经销商并不一定拥有它们，你有什么想法？你认为本地零售系统和经销商系统如何与此竞争？或者你认为，这对于整个行业和零售业的发展会产生怎样的影响？你如何调和这一情况？
Well, look, I think it's a slow evolution as opposed to some big bang moment in time. Again, there are near limitless make model selections in this category, new versus used mileage, plays a role. So the product products, you could argue are commodities, but the selection process is vast. And with the bulk of this industry being used cars, I just know that consumers are fundamentally going to need selection and support and guidance in making such a big decision. Number one, number two, don't underestimate the importance of the post-sale experience. And this is where I think the retail system doesn't get nearly enough credit. These are machines. They're going to break down. They're going to have problems. And having a local network that's established that can easily care for and service and support users locally is vital to vehicle ownership. So I don't get as an up-and-down with the direct-to-consumer build-to-order model. We're thinking more about how to enable dealerships and OEMs to communicate with customers through the retail, retail, and post-sale experiences. And don't look at that one small slice at all, our end game.
嗯，你看，我认为这是一个缓慢演变的过程，而不是某个特定时刻的重大突破。同样，这个类别中有无数的制造商和车型可供选择，新车与二手车的里程数也会起到一定的作用。因此，你可以说这些产品是普通商品，但选择过程是非常广泛的。考虑到这个行业绝大部分是二手车，我就知道消费者在做出如此重要的决策时基本上需要选择、支持和指导。首先，其次，不要低估售后体验的重要性。而这正是我认为零售系统没有得到足够重视的地方。这些机器会出故障，会出问题。而建立起一个可以轻松为用户提供维修、支持和服务的本地网络对于汽车拥有权来说是至关重要的。因此，我对直接面向消费者定制订单模式并不如此看好。我们更加关注如何使经销商和汽车制造商通过零售和售后体验与客户进行沟通。不要将这一小片段视作我们的终极目标。
Yeah. And also on that note, what would you say you're changing from a dealer or workflow perspective now? Because I would agree with you. I think that the dealer is going to continue evolving. And I've been very vocal about that, especially with the experience and the focus on the after-sale. That's going to continue becoming a bigger part of the customer experience. What are you changing from the workflow perspective with what you're building? Or how is that going to impact that entire experience?
是的。同时，针对这一点，你认为你从经销商或工作流程的角度现在在做出什么改变？因为我同意你的观点。我对此非常明确，特别是关注售后服务的体验，经销商将继续发展。这将继续成为客户体验中更大的一部分。在你所建立的工作流程方面，你正在做出哪些改变？或者说，这将如何影响整个客户体验？
Well, anywhere the consumer spends time in the store, you can bet that we're building digital experiences to speed that process. Look at financing online. We know from our consumer research that getting approved in the store takes in an order amount of time. And we know that if consumers can pre-configure the loans that the dealership is offering, and we take that information in real time, powered by the dealer, so the dealer can configure the payment and what the consumer can afford online, that when they show up for you approved in the store, we can compress that amount of time they have to spend in the physical dealership. And so we're generally trying to speed retail operations. And so anything you can think about where customers are having to spend time comparing makes and models, scheduling appointments, configuring financing online, appraising a trade-in, these are all things that we're building technologies to do in a fraction of the time than the physical experience in the store.
在商店的任何地方消费者花时间，我们都在构建数字体验来加快这个过程。比如，在线融资。根据我们的消费者调研，我们知道在商店里获得批准需要花费相当长的时间。我们也知道，如果消费者能够预先配置经销商提供的贷款，并且我们能够通过经销商的动力将这些信息实时地传递出去，这样经销商就可以在线配置还款和消费者能负担得起的金额，当消费者在店里出现时，我们就可以缩短他们在实体经销商待的时间。因此，我们一般来说都在试图加快零售业务的运作。所以，任何你能想到的需要消费者花费时间来比较品牌和型号、安排预约、在线配置融资、评估交易的事情，都是我们正在建设技术来在比实体店体验更短的时间内完成的事情。
Yeah, they're getting approved as a store when it hits home. It's definitely one of the most time-consuming parts of this business, which even before I, you know, even when I like early on in the business, it always boggled my mind, like, why is this, this takes so long? So it almost makes you wonder, like, how is this, you know, how is it still a reality, right? I feel like it's, it's a no-brainer, especially when you bring someone that's like from outside the industry, and they're like, you know, I can go get approved right now for whatever, like a mortgage or something, like 30 minutes online, why do I have to sit in a store and do this for so long?
是的，在家里得到认可时，他们就成为一个店铺了。这绝对是这个行业中最耗时的部分之一，即使在我刚开始经营的时候，我对此也感到非常困惑，为什么这个过程要这么长时间呢？所以这几乎让你想知道，这个过程还在继续的原因是什么，对吧？我觉得这是简单明了的事情，特别是当你把来自行业外的人带进来，他们就会说，你知道的，我可以立刻在线上申请到像抵押贷款之类的东西，为什么我要在店里坐着做这么长时间呢？
Well, we only have about 9,000 of our 20,000 dealers that are enabled for instant financing. And so it's crazy to me because any dealers listening out there, it's like, if you can delight, some of them are fearful that giving them too much information will prevent them from coming down. We see the exact opposite. We see that the more consumers can do online, they feel that the dealer or the retailer is being more transparent and showing up, you know, as more willing to do business. And they don't fear the engagement in that physical experience. So closing ratios go up, you know, people coming in the stores go up and it's really improving the user experience as well.
嗯，我们只有大约20000个经销商中的9000个开通了即时融资的功能。对我来说这太荒谬了，因为如果你能让经销商们开心，他们中一些人担心给他们太多的信息会阻止他们前来。但我们却发现事实正好相反。我们发现，消费者能在线上做更多的事情，他们感觉经销商或零售商更透明，更愿意做生意。他们不担心那种实际体验中的参与。所以成交比例有所提高，进店购物的人也增加了，这真的改善了用户体验。
What do you mean by instant financing? Like, what does that, what does that mean on your end?
“即时融资”是什么意思？就是说，在你们这边这个词具体指的是什么？
Well, instant financing is we allow the dealership to pre-configure the loans that there are the lenders that they work with directly in their listings on the cars.com marketplace or also on their website. And so the consumer can see in real time, you know, what they can afford, either shopping by payment or what they're able to configure and get in terms of a monthly payment from the dealer's private lender network.
嗯，即时融资是指我们允许经销商在cars.com市场或其网站上提前配置贷款，以与他们直接合作的放贷方在汽车列表上显示。因此，消费者可以实时了解他们能负担得起什么，可以根据付款金额进行选购，或通过经销商的私人放贷网络配置并得到每月还款计划。
So on the note of financing, you know, I was when I was thinking, when I was preparing questions for this conversation, I was just thinking about your reach and the fact that you're in front of, you know, millions of consumers every single month. And one of the things that I thought could be most interesting to ask you is like, when with increased interest rates and, you know, uncertainty in the economy and everything, what like, what have you noticed or what has your team noticed by just on-site behavior? Like, what's changed the most? What are you seeing?
关于融资的问题，当我思考为这次对话准备问题时，我在想你的影响力和你每个月面对数百万消费者的事实。其中一个我认为最有趣的问题是，随着利率上升、经济的不确定性等因素，你们的团队是否注意到了网站访问行为上的变化？最明显的改变是什么？你们看到了什么？
Well, the biggest change is with the inventory shortages that we've seen over the last call a year and a half. And I know that's changing a bit. Search radiuses widened massive, right? So it used to be people would search 20 mile radiuses, then I went to 40. Now you were seeing people search, you know, 80, 120 miles, because they're looking for something specific that wasn't available in their backyard. And so that's been the biggest change that we've seen, you know, over the last call a year, year and a half. I think in the more recent period, shopping by payment and affordability has been the fastest growing issue in trend, right? People are worried that they, you know, what can they afford? They don't want to go into the dealership and find that they literally can't make ends meet on a payment. So that's the fastest growing trend today is affordability.
嗯，最大的变化是我们在过去一年半里遇到的库存短缺问题。我知道这方面正在有所改变。搜索半径变得非常宽广，对吧？以前人们会搜索20英里的范围，然后增加到40英里。现在你会看到人们搜索80、120英里，因为他们在寻找在他们附近无法找到的特定物品。因此，在过去一年到一年半的时间里，这是我们观察到的最大变化。我认为在最近一段时间里，按付款和可负担性购物是最快增长的趋势，对吧？人们担心他们负担得起什么，他们不想去汽车经销商那里发现自己根本无法支付款项。所以，当今最快增长的趋势就是可负担性。
All right. So I recently publicly disclosed that I bought some stock in your company, which, you know, I'm excited about because I got to know you pretty well, got to know, you know, what you're working on better and just the products that, you know, you have, which frankly, I wasn't as acquainted with before that. So one question, you know, I have you fully captive here and now you're like, you can't run away. Talk to me just about like the upside to the business, right? Like I want to hear it from you right from right from the horse's mouth. How do you view the upside to the business as it's today? And then I'll tell you kind of my thoughts as well.
好的。所以我最近公开披露了我购买了你们公司的一些股票，你知道，我对此感到很兴奋，因为我已经很了解你们，了解你们所从事的工作，也了解你们的产品，说实话，在这之前我对它们并不太熟悉。所以现在有一个问题，你完全被捕捉在这里，无法逃脱。请告诉我关于公司发展的好处，就想直接听到你的意见。你是如何看待现在公司的发展潜力的？然后我也会告诉你我自己的想法。
Well, sure. I mean, I think there's some key fundamentals about the business that we hope listeners understand. Number one, when you have the number one brand in the category cars.com, the majority of our traffic comes to us organically or directly. We don't have to spend to the degree that anybody else does to generate our traffic. It largely comes to us organically. So you see that in our e-bita margins being stronger than any of our peers. I think what's the other big part is that we're not a participant. We don't want to sell cars. We want to enable local retailers to be more efficient and to transact. And so you won't see my company taking title or ownership of vehicles. We're an enabler. And I think the market paints with the broad brush, but we are much more an asset free asset like company where SaaS quality, highly reoccurring revenue. And if you look beyond cars.com marketplace, what you'll see is the fastest growing part of our business or our software solutions. And this was a play we stole from Amazon. The reason AWS was so successful is they allowed small businesses to run on the backbone of Amazon. We took the backbone of cars.com and now we're enabling local dealers to run digital storefronts and experiences leveraging that infrastructure that's already built. And so through dealer inspire, we're building better websites that have the power of cars.com, but are private labeled and branded for the dealer. And we're giving them technologies and tools that enable them to run their business more profitably and generate faster sales. So I think the more investors dig in to understand the multifaceted nature of our business, we're much more than a singular website.
好的，当然可以。我的意思是，我认为我们希望听众理解该业务的一些关键基本要素。首先，当你拥有该类别的第一品牌cars.com时，我们的大部分流量是通过自然或直接来源得到的。我们不像其他公司那样需要花费大量资金来产生流量。它主要是自然而然地来到我们这里。所以你可以在我们的EBITA利润率比我们的同行更强壮上看到这一点。我认为另一个重要部分是，我们不是参与者。我们不想卖车。我们希望让当地零售商更高效、更顺畅地进行交易。所以你不会看到我的公司拥有车辆的所有权。我们是一种促进者。而且我认为市场对我们做了笼统的定义，但我们更像是一家无资产的公司，具有软件即服务（SaaS）的质量和高度可持续的收入。如果你在cars.com市场之外看一下，你会发现我们业务增长最快的部分是我们的软件解决方案。这个策略我们是从亚马逊那里学的。AWS之所以如此成功，是因为它允许小企业运行在亚马逊的基础设施上。我们从cars.com那里借鉴了这一策略，现在我们正在让当地经销商运行数字商店和体验，借助已经建立的基础设施。因此，通过dealer inspire，我们正在构建更好的网站，拥有cars.com的能力，但以经销商的品牌进行私有标记。我们提供给他们的技术和工具使他们能够更有利可图地经营业务并实现更快的销售。所以我认为，投资者越深入了解我们业务的多方面性，我们就不再是一个单一的网站。
Well, I think that's for sure. And I think, so I'll tell you kind of my thesis on this. Right. I don't really do public stocks. Like I do here and there for fun. But this was interesting to me because I am like, I'll tell you what I didn't do, right? I didn't didn't didn't do no a net present value or a discounting cash flow or anything like that. I'm just very practical, right?
嗯，我觉得这是肯定的。而且，我认为，所以我会告诉你我对此的观点。对啦。我并不太关注公共股票。偶尔为了好玩才会投资一下。但这个对我来说很有趣，因为我就是这样，我告诉你我没做的事情，对吧？我没有做现金流折现或贴现现值之类的分析。我只是非常实际而已。
Like I, you know, speak around with dealers, speak around the industry, right? I know what products I've used and what that experience was. And so I felt like there's an opportunity there. And the best part about having my platform is I can be open, transparent about it, tell the world what I'm thinking and where I'm putting my dollars behind. And then if people believe that that is the right thing to do. And of course, this is not financial advice. But if people agree with that, then then, you know, the company performs and successful.
就像我一样，你知道的，我和经销商交流，与行业交流，对吧？我知道我使用过哪些产品以及那种经历。所以我觉得那里有一个机会。而拥有我的平台最好的一点是我可以公开、透明地谈论这些，告诉世界我在考虑什么，把我的资金投入在哪里。然后如果人们认为这是正确的做法。当然，这不是金融建议。但如果人们同意，那么，你知道，公司就能发展壮大并获得成功。
So anyways, that was my thesis behind it. And so I'm excited. I'm excited to see how, you know, the products evolve, especially with, you know, your latest offerings, which, you know, I've really been excited about. So, you know, Accutrate, especially it's the latest, latest acquisition you've made. So that's just really, I think it's a great tool. And, you know, again, Bob has been on the podcast, talked about it. So I'm a big believer in that.
总之，这就是我背后的论点。所以我很兴奋。我很期待看到产品的发展，尤其是你们最新的产品，我对此非常激动。尤其是Accutrate，这是你们最新的收购。所以我认为这是一个很好的工具。而且，Bob已经在播客中谈论过它。所以我非常相信它。
Thank you for recognizing that. I mean, our technology has the power to give power back to the retail system. And that was Bob's vision with me in terms of what we wanted to do with Accutrate. If you look at the industry, whether it's Google or the physical auctions, they force dealers to bid against each other and create this race to the bottom. And what our technology platforms designed to do is enable retailers to run to the top, right?
谢谢你的认可。我的意思是，我们的技术有能力重新赋予零售系统力量。这也是我和鲍勃在 Accutrate 上想要实现的愿景。如果你看看这个行业，无论是谷歌还是实体拍卖会，他们都让经销商互相竞标，创造了一个拉低价格的竞赛。而我们的技术平台的设计初衷是使零售商能够向上发展，对吧？
I think that the dealer network, if we work together leveraging technology and their flexible retail footprint, we can take profits away from these institutions and distribute them back amongst the dealer community. But we need dealerships to work together as a collective. So you'll see us roll out things like dealer to dealer trading, where dealers can exchange vehicles amongst themselves through Accutrate and syndicate their inventory out to other platforms. And so, the vision here is through Carves Commerce, we're enabling the retail collective to be much more self-sufficient and not dependent on any monolith or infrastructure that they need.
我认为，如果我们通过科技和他们灵活的零售网络合作，经销商网络可以从这些机构中夺取利润，并将其重新分配给经销商群体。但我们需要经销商一起合作作为一个集体。因此，你会看到我们推出一些如经销商间交易的举措，经销商可以通过Accutrate相互交换车辆，并将他们的库存推广到其他平台上。因此，这里的愿景是通过Carves Commerce，我们使零售集体更加自给自足，不依赖任何需要的巨型企业或基础设施。
Tell me more about trading. Is that a view? Now is that already? Yeah, we were talking to it with investors on our earnings calls that D2D is absolutely part of our ambition and enabling dealers to trade inventory using geography and retail market data as an informant to sales prediction rates and their market vis-a-vis if they were to ship the car to another geography.
告诉我更多关于交易的事情。这是一种观点吗？现在已经是这样了吗？是的，在我们的收益电话中，我们正在与投资者讨论这个问题，D2D绝对是我们的志向的一部分，通过使用地理和零售市场数据作为销售预测率和市场可视性的信息源，使经销商能够交易库存，以及如果他们将车辆运到另一个地理位置来进行交易的情况。
Got it. So basically me as a dealer with this trading opportunity, I'd be able to then take a car and right away have another dealer basically this intermediate in the auction in the middle, or I don't need to send the car to an auction. You're saying, I can just sell it to that dealer right away.
明白了。那么基本上，作为一个经销商，有了这个交易机会，我可以立即拿到一辆车，并将它直接转卖给另一个经销商，也就是这个中间商人，而不需要将车辆送到拍卖会上。你的意思是，我可以直接将它卖给那个经销商。
A big part of Accutrate's value prop is that we're going to guarantee the car that if you buy the car using our Accutrate technology and you don't want to keep it, we'll buy it back from you, no questions asked. So we're letting dealers buy cars from the public, either through their service lane or sourcing vehicles from our marketplace, buying cars using Accutrate and we guarantee those prices through a wholesale partner with Bob to back those transactions up.
Accutrate的巨大价值在于我们将为购买使用我们的Accutrate技术车辆的买家提供保证，如果您不想要这辆车，我们将毫不犹豫地从您手中回购。因此，我们允许经销商通过他们的服务车道或在我们的市场上采购车辆，使用Accutrate购买车辆，并通过我们的批发合作伙伴Bob来保证这些交易的价格。
And so dealers are able to buy cars directly from the public far more profitably than they are paying for vehicles in the wholesale auction lane. And importantly, we want dealers to buy cars using retail data, not wholesale data. If you think about the way the industry works, it's all trading on legacy past transaction values wholesale rates. With cars.com, we've got retail signals that can predict what the future value of a car is worth, which is why with Accutrate, when Elon dropped the price of an EV, the same day our EV guarantees reflected that change in the market because the retail values depreciated instantly. The wholesale data was not going to see that change in pricing for months. And so as a dealer, you could get caught in that window. And so helping dealers buy and sell cars using retail prediction, we think is a much more efficient industry than legacy wholesale data.
因此，经销商能够以比批发拍卖车道上的车辆成本更低的价格直接从公众手中购买汽车，从而更加有利可图。并且，重要的是，我们希望经销商使用零售数据而不是批发数据来购买汽车。如果你考虑这行业的运作方式，它们都是根据过去的交易价值和批发价格来进行交易的。而Car.com则拥有能够预测汽车未来价值的零售信号，这就是为什么Accutrate可以在Elon降低电动车价格的同一天反映市场变化，因为零售价值立即贬值。批发数据要到几个月后才能看到价格变化。因此，作为经销商，你可能会陷入这个困境。因此，我们认为帮助经销商使用零售预测来买卖汽车比传统的批发数据更加高效。
Yeah, it's a very good point, which I haven't thought about yet because you're right, it is typically we go buy wholesale data. I'd say what's interesting is like we go buy wholesale data but retail pulse. And so what you're saying is wholesale data, retail data, pretty much systematizing that pulse. So it makes a lot of sense.
是的，这是一个非常好的观点，我还没有考虑过，因为你是对的，通常我们都是通过批发数据进行购买。我要说的有趣的是，我们购买的是批发数据，但是零售数据的脉动。所以你说的是批发数据和零售数据，基本上对这种脉动进行系统化。这很有道理。
What about what about when we talk about like the cheaper end of the spectrum of vehicles? I also spoke about this, the fact that there's only one car nowadays under 20k, transacting under 20k, right new car Mitsubishi Mirage. Do you feel like we've just completely lost it with an economy budget customer? Is there nothing to offer these types of customers anymore? How do you think about that?
说到汽车的价格在更低端的区间怎么样呢？我也提到了这一点，事实上现在只有一款新车售价低于2万美元，就是三菱Mirage。你觉得我们对预算有限的消费者完全没了吗？对这类消费者来说，还有什么可提供的呢？你对此有何看法？
A couple of coffees like eight bucks these days. So I feel it in every facet in every industry, right? That it seems like the cost of goods has exploded so much, particularly in the more recent year. And look, I think the used car market is in part driven by new cars being overpriced for the average American. And so the used car market is healthy right now because consumers are having to reconcile with the rising cost of new goods. But who knows where the bottom is or the top? But it seems like the economy is again in such an interesting space right now where everything is costing more, but yet American sentiment is trying to keep up with that pace of inflation and continues to spend. Yeah, GDP saw that the numbers came out. It's pretty crazy the other day. It was like 4.9% in the most recent quarter growth. So I found that pretty fascinating when everyone thought that. Where I was just put like this, it's definitely not recessionary signals when you look at the macro. So that's for sure.
现今一杯咖啡都得8美元，所以我觉得每个行业的方方面面都受到了影响，对吧？商品的成本似乎猛涨，尤其是最近一年。看，我认为二手车市场在一定程度上是由新车价格对于普通美国人来说过高所驱动的。所以现在二手车市场很健康，因为消费者被迫面对新商品价格的上涨。但是谁知道价格底在哪呢？或者价格顶在哪？但是现在经济好像又进入了一个有趣的境地，所有东西成本都在上涨，但是美国人的情绪似乎在试图跟上通货膨胀的步伐，持续消费。是的，国内生产总值（GDP）的数据出来了，前几天我觉得很疯狂，最近一个季度的增长率达到了4.9%。所以当大家都觉得……这绝对不是衰退的信号，就从宏观角度来看是这样的。这确实是肯定的。
I want to shift to another topic where I thought you'd have an interesting perspective. And that's about the trends of just like a dealership consolidation. And how it seems like regional groups, right? You have many mom and pop stores, you have many chains and franchises that you work with. And it seems like, you know, the nut seems like, I mean, it's clear that the trend has been towards this like regional consolidation. And so I'm curious from your perspective, like what are the car business trends are you identifying now? What are you seeing out there? Right? If the last three years were a huge, a huge accelerant for consolidation among dealers, is there something you're seeing right now on the horizon? Do you think that's going to continue? Like what are you seeing from your perspective right now?
我想转到另一个话题，我想你会有一个有趣的观点，那就是关于像经销商整合这样的趋势。以及它似乎是地区性团体，对吧？你有很多家庭式商店，你有很多连锁店和加盟店与你合作。似乎趋势是向这种地区整合发展。所以就我来说，我很好奇，你现在是否发现了哪些汽车业务趋势？你在外面看到了什么？如果过去三年是经销商整合的一个巨大推动因素，那么你现在在地平线上看到了什么？你认为这种趋势会继续下去吗？就你目前的观点来看，在这方面你看到了什么？
Well, I think dealership consolidation is going to continue. But it's those dealerships that consolidate technology process and systems are the ones that are going to get synergy and value out of that consolidation. You know, we see that through our dealer and spire business. When dealerships buyer their dealerships, they immediately move those dealerships onto our di platform. So they can see across their business, all of their store data in a consolidated view. I think it's the same thing with AccuTrade. They can't afford every store to have a different process for appraising vehicles, pricing vehicles, and guaranteeing trade and values. They need a standardized process that they can train to and scale their step their teams to run the playbook and be more efficient. And so consolidation is going to continue to happen in this category. It's going to take a long time before this industry consolidates to a few players. I think it's still going to be a hyper local distributed network. But it'll probably come down from 40,000 dealers in the US to about 35,000 or so that really dominate the retail scene. And those dealerships are going to be the ones that lead with tech first.
我认为经销商整合将会继续。但是那些整合技术流程和系统的经销商将会从整合中获得协同效应和价值。通过我们的经销商和Spire业务，我们已经看到了这一点。当经销商购买其他经销商时，他们会立即将这些经销商纳入我们的DI平台，以便通过一个统一的视图看到他们业务中的所有店铺数据。我认为AccuTrade也是同样的情况。他们无法承担每个店铺都有不同的估价、定价和交易价值的过程。他们需要一个标准化的流程，可以进行培训，并扩展他们的团队，运行计划并提高效率。因此，这个行业的整合将继续发生。在此之前，这个行业要整合到几个主要参与者之间还需要很长时间。我认为它仍然会是一个高度本地化的分布网络。但美国的经销商数量可能会从4万家左右减少到大约3.5万家，这些经销商将主导零售市场。而这些经销商将会率先依靠技术。
Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. You know, I spoke with Chase Frazier from Frazier McCombs and he was saying that, you know, he's like, people might not, he's like, this might be controversial, but he's like, I truly believe that OEMs actually want fewer dealers and bigger dealers. And you know, his idea behind that was like what you just said, right? It seems like the dealers that are consolidating whether be, you know, tech, locations, everything in between, you know, they're gaining more leverage, have more economies of scale and ultimately deliver a better customer experience, which is a big driver for the OEM saying, hey, you know, we want to make sure we're working, we have our franchisees are providing the best experience. And the way to do that is by, you know, having more leverage under your entire umbrella and being able to offer just a better customer experience.
是的，这个观点很有意思。我和Frazier McCombs的Chase Frazier谈过，他说，你知道，他说这可能有争议，但他真的相信原厂制造商实际上希望有更少的经销商和更大的经销商。他的想法和你刚才说的一样，对吧？看起来，正在整合的经销商，无论是技术还是地点等等，都在获得更多的影响力，具备更多的规模经济，最终提供更好的客户体验，这对原厂制造商来说是一个重要的推动因素，他们希望确保我们的特许经销商提供最好的体验。而要做到这一点，就是通过在整个经销店的庇护下拥有更多的影响力，并能提供更好的客户体验。
Well, I think what the smart money is doing is they're building smaller dealerships in more populous areas so people can get to it as more of a showroom, see the experience, conduct a trade, get service or support as opposed to the model that I think we've lived under for the past 20 years, which is huge giant dealerships, you know, and, you know, massive Taj Mahal like experiences in favor of smaller retail systems because more and more people are able to do two thirds of that shopping online. And they just need an efficient retail point of sale and exchange. And so I do think the size and shape of dealerships, physically, is going to evolve over these next three to five years for sure.
我认为明智的投资者正在做的事情是在人口更密集的地区建造更小型的经销商店，这样人们可以将其作为展示厅，体验汽车，进行交易，获得服务和支持，而不是我们过去二十年来一直采用的庞大的汽车经销商模式。这种模式现在逐渐被更小型的零售系统所取代，因为越来越多的人能够在网上完成购物的三分之二。他们只需要一个高效的零售销售和交流点。我确实认为，在未来的三到五年里，经销商店的大小和形状将会发生演变。
As long as going to a dealership is a better experience of being a Chicago Bears fan, it will be fine. Hey, we've got this new kid who's an absolute Wait for anyone that doesn't know you're based in Chicago. So, uh, that's the joke. The joke used to be what's the hardest thing about being a CEO in Chicago. I said motivating people Monday morning during NFL season. And it's a true story. But here, my prediction right now is this kid that the Bears have got who's one is first NFL game done under estimates Chicago is a hardworking city that loves to rally around someone with grit. And I think this kid's gonna finish strong this year.
只要去购车经销商能给芝加哥熊队球迷带来更好的体验，就可以了。嘿，我们有一个新人，绝对适合任何不知道你们是在芝加哥的人等待的人。那么，这就是个笑话。过去的笑话是在芝加哥当总裁最困难的事情是什么。我说在NFL赛季的星期一早上激发人们的动力。这是个真实的故事。但是，我现在的预测是熊队拥有的这个孩子，他在自己的首场NFL比赛中低估了芝加哥，芝加哥是一个勤劳的城市，喜欢团结在一个有勇气的人身边。我认为这个孩子今年会表现出色。
Well, I didn't even know you guys want to game. So congrats on what you're game. I commend you for that. Alex, this is great. And what are there any final thoughts? What are there anything else you want to share?
嗯，我甚至不知道你们想要玩游戏。所以恭喜你们正在进行的事情。我对此表示赞赏。Alex，这很棒。那你还有什么最后的想法？还有其他什么你想分享的吗？
Well, look, I first of all, thank you for being an Italian investor in my company, but also for being such a thought leader to the industry. It's been amazing watching your viewership ramp and you're sharing real time insights and observations about the market. And so my hat's off to you for building a great community and enabling the industry. You're doing it your own way through information. And so we share that ethos. And I appreciate you doing a great job.
好吧，看吧，首先，非常感谢您作为我公司的意大利投资者，同时也感谢您在行业中的领军地位。令人惊讶的是，您的观众数量不断增长，并且您实时分享市场的见解和观察。因此，我对您建立了一个伟大的社区并促进了行业发展表示钦佩。您通过信息以自己的方式在做事，我们与此拥有相同的理念。我很欣赏您做得出色。
No, I appreciate you coming on. And like I said, I'm wishing you an entire team best of luck with the rollout of cars, commerce. So big moves in the industry and I'd love to see it. If anyone's listening and would like to get in touch with you, I will add the link to the show notes or is there any specific website or any email specific you want to recommend?
不，我很感激你来参加。正如我所说，我祝整个团队在汽车、商业推出方面好运。行业中有很大的变化，我很希望看到它的发展。如果有任何人在听的话，并且想要与你联系，我会在节目说明中添加链接。或者，你有任何特定的网站或电子邮件想要推荐吗？
You can email me at Alex at cars.com. I'd be happy to help you and connect with you. And again, that's Alex at cars.com.
您可以通过发送电子邮件至Alex@cars.com与我取得联系。我会很高兴为您提供帮助并与您建立联系。再次提醒，这个电子邮箱地址是Alex@cars.com。
Great. Awesome. Alex, thanks for coming out. All right. Hope you enjoyed that episode. Please give the podcast a rating. Consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about. Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you guys next time.
太棒了！太好了！亚历克斯，感谢你的参与。好了。希望你们喜欢这一集。请给我们的播客评分。考虑订阅我们的节目，并查看节目注释中我们谈论的链接。感谢大家收听。下次见！