New study shows car dealer websites aren't measuring up

New research has identified an immense gap between what users want from their dealership’s website and what retailers actually offer, highlighting the importance of proper web design.

Driving the news: Overfuel, a dealer-focused website vendor, has published research investigating how well auto retailer sites meet user experience standards.

• Overfuel used data from the Core Web Vitals (CWV) assessment, a tool launched by Google in 2020 that rates how well sites meet user experience standards, to analyze the top 50 dealership group websites. The CWV database, called CrUX, is publicly available and examines both desktop and mobile performance.

• According to the CWV, less than 1% of the 2,657 websites examined passed the assessment, with the vast majority (92.4%) failing on both desktop and mobile.

• Key issues cited in Overfuel’s research include bloated website code, under-resourced hosting infrastructure, third-party plugins, oversized images and videos, and overuse of Google Tag Manager and Analytics containers.

Zooming in: This could signal a major issue with dealership websites. At the same time, there are some noteworthy issues with Overfuel’s study, aside from the possibility of bias given the brand is an industry vendor.

• First, roughly half of all websites fail the CWV. According to an update from Google last month, around 50.1% of origins have good core web vitals. Passing the CWV generally means that your website loads faster and runs smoother.

• Dealership websites are also more complicated than the standard website. Consumers expect high-resolution vehicle images and retailers are forced to use a variety of plug-ins, including chatbots, to meet their user needs. These factors can reduce loading times but are also necessary for dealer websites to function.

• Overfuel only offers one instance of a dealer who drove more website visits after improving CWV scores. This retailer was also a client.

• Finally, while passing the CWV usually translates into more page visits, it isn’t clear whether consumers are as concerned with loading times on dealership websites as they are in other cases. Availability and pricing are typically the top concerns for car shoppers.

Bottom line: Overfuel’s study suggests that dealers are not meeting Google’s standards for providing a good user experience. At the same time, it should be noted that dealerships operate a unique business and face different expectations when it comes to online shoppers, only a small fraction of which actually purchase digitally. To gain a clear picture of how the CWV impacts performance in the auto sector, more retailers would likely need to pass in the first place: more research would help solve this dilemma.

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