For dealers
How to Choose a Digital Retail Platform: What to Look For and What It Costs
Digital retail is one name for two very different products: tools that start a deal online and hand it to your team, and platforms that finish it.
These five checks tell you which one you are buying, and they explain most of the price difference.
What to check before you buy a digital retail platform
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Find out where it stops
Most digital retail tools estimate a payment or collect a credit application, then hand the buyer to the desk. Ask where the software stops and your team starts. Ekho carries the deal through financing, F&I, signing, titling, registration and delivery.
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Check the financing is real
A payment calculator is not financing. Look for real lender decisions in the checkout, with each offer shown so the buyer can compare before accepting.
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Check who handles titling and registration
If the platform hands titling back to your title clerk, the online sale is not finished. Ask which states and vehicle types it files for. Ekho processes titling and registration in all 50 states.
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Check it works with what you run
Look for two-way DMS sync or an existing inventory feed, embedding into your current website, and buy buttons that only appear on units that can actually be bought online.
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Check it is your brand
The buyer should complete the purchase on your website, with your logo, and stay your customer. A marketplace redirect is a lead, not a sale.
Go deeper
What a digital retail platform has to finish, and how it fits into the website and DMS you already run.
Questions dealers ask
Whether it finishes the deal. Check that financing returns real lender offers, that F&I is presented inside the checkout, that documents are signed online, that titling and registration are handled rather than handed back, that it works with your DMS and existing website, and that the buyer never leaves your brand.
It depends on what the platform actually does. Vendors price in different ways, such as per rooftop or per transaction, so compare like for like. What moves the cost is how many rooftops you run, whether financing, F&I, signing and titling are included or sold separately, and the integration work for your DMS and website. Compare quotes on the same scope, and book a demo with Ekho for yours.
Usually because they do less. A tool that stops at a payment estimate leaves financing, contracting and titling to your staff, and that cost does not show up on the invoice.
Ask the vendor to complete a purchase end to end on a dealer website, including financing, signing and title paperwork for an out-of-state buyer, and to show exactly where their software stops.