Cox Automotive President: Ditch the Hours-Long Car-Buying Experience

Sandy Schwartz is president of Cox Automotive, the world’s leader in vehicle remarketing services and digital offerings for auto dealers.

He oversees Cox Automotive’s 25 brands that include Manheim (auctions), AutoTrader.com (vehicle listings), Kelley Blue Book (vehicle valuations and listings), Dealertrack (dealership-management systems and auto financing aggregation),VinSolutions (customer-relationship management systems), vAuto (inventory management), X-time (online service scheduling) and Dealer.com (website services).

Schwartz speaks of the need for auto retailing to meet customer expectations of a quicker and more streamlined buying process.

Cox’s latest industry offering is Accelerate. It provides online car shoppers with more digital functions. Those include Internet users’ ability to calculate actual monthly payments, receive trade-in values on their vehicle, secure online financing, review F&I products, accept deal terms and reserve a vehicle.

Accelerate debuts its new auto-retail platform in Las Vegas where 24 dealers will use Accelerate initially on their Autotrader listings, followed by KBB.com listings.

In a WardsAuto Q&A, Schwartz talks about the changing world of digital car shopping, new customer expectations and how he runs a business with more than two dozen brands.

Read the complete story on wardsauto.com.