Hyundai to ease dealership experience to revive sales

DETROIT — Stung by falling U.S. sales, Hyundai is pushing its dealers to modernize the new-car shopping experience, conceding that customers are well-armed with information from the internet before they step on the showroom floor.

The Korean automaker on Tuesday announced that dealers will post “fair market pricing” on their websites that includes company discounts offered to consumers. Dealers, which are independent businesses, will be encouraged to add incentives they’re offering to buyers. They’ll also deliver vehicles to customers for test drives and allow people to do paperwork online, including calculation of monthly payments, loan applications and estimating the value of their trade-ins.

“They would rather spend less time negotiating, filling out forms and re-filling out forms for the second time,” Dean Evans, the company’s chief marketing officer in the U.S., said of car shoppers. “But they do want to spend more time getting to know the car and the features of the car.”

Hyundai Motor Co. hopes the move will boost U.S. sales, which are down almost 13 percent so far this year, a far bigger drop than the overall market’s decline of just under 2 percent. The company’s U.S. sales have outpaced the market in only one of the previous five years, according to Autodata Corp. The decline is weighing on the Korean automaker’s earnings. In the second quarter, profits were halved from a year ago to the lowest level since 2010 on falling sales in the U.S. and China.

To a large degree, Hyundai relied too much on car sales and didn’t have enough SUV models as American buyers shifted dramatically away from cars. About 16 percent of Hyundai’s global sales come from the U.S.

Before going to a dealership, buyers already know about incentives and what others are paying for vehicles from websites like Edmunds. com, TrueCar.com and Kbb. com, Evans said.