Executive Design + UX Leader | Advisor | Speaker
That's Fair
The Journey to Acquisition & Exit
Shift is a leading end-to-end auto ecommerce platform (think Carvana) transforming the used car industry with a technology-driven, hassle-free customer experience. Shift’s mission is to make car purchase and ownership simple — to make buying or selling a used car fun, fair, and accessible to everyone.
Shift and Fair shared the same goal: to simplify the used vehicle purchasing process and empower customers through the entire lifecycle of car ownership. Our companies had extremely complementary cultures, and the platform and marketplace that we built at Fair fit naturally into Shift’s operating model and long-term vision.
The acquisition of Fair by Shift was crucial in building out the 'Amazon used car marketplace' vision, accelerating Shift's roadmap and enabling them to launch this new capability in Q2 2022. Our team, talent, technology, and deeply established dealer relationships were key to the deal and successful exit in, May 2022.
Lift & Shift
At Fair, our world-class design, product and engineering teams developed an online marketplace platform that enabled consumers to shop a deep inventory of cars from dealer partners, get approved for financing from a network of in-platform lenders, and sign for the one they want 100% digitally.
Dealers managed the entire transaction via a proprietary digital onboarding platform, then easily scheduled an at home delivery. The platform was the ideal solution for dealers to participate strategically in e-commerce, grow market share and develop long-term relationships with customers.
As the supply of used cars remains highly competitive, offering consumers a wide range of options is more important than ever. The dealer marketplace allowed Shift to expand their inventory assortment, while leveraging the investments the company already made in technology and the brand.
The Problems Fair Solved
Our research showed that modern customers did not want to get their car the old way.
SHOPPING
15+
Hours
3.5
Hours
online
research
at the
dealership
BUYING
84% Avoid
going into a dealership
OWNING
Complex & Time Consuming
Insurance, maintenance, wear and tear
SELLING
Intimidating & Painful
Average trade-in value as much as 50% below retail asking price
Who We Solved For
How might we...create an experience that both pulls the information users need while seamlessly pushing related information by integrating search, browse and filter capabilities, removing friction, and not causing an interruption in the journey.
Explorer Evan
Generally doesn’t know what car he wants yet, starting research and wants to learn more.
Behavior: Likely to start with typing general search queries. Inexperienced and cautious about car shopping, expects shopping to be intuitive and easy while gaining learnings in the journey.
Casual Cathy
Has visited some third party sites, but doesn’t have a clear idea of the car she is looking for yet.
Behavior: Typically browses using site’s category structure or search, open to considering multiple vehicle options, may use social media as a resource and will visit multiple sites over the course of several weeks.
Targeted Tim
Knows exactly what he is looking for, has narrowed choices and is in the process of finalizing decisions about price, features, delivery, etc.
Behavior: Uses precise and complete queries, will compare prices on competitor sites, is aware of deals, reads reviews and will look at upsells and features.
Out In Front
Fair's product market fit and winning team that understood the space and model intimately positioned us in a unique way.
Product Market Fit
● $1T US market opportunity
● Evolved model with uncapped asset and capital, light scalability
● Unparalleled value for both consumers and dealers
● Brings the entire auto retail ecosystem forward into digital
Positioned To Win
● Top-tier executive team with a proven track record of business building, value creation and M&A
● Highly accretive IP, brand, customer and dealer base
● Unprecedented timing at the intersection of customer readiness and urgent dealer need
Mobility Super-App
Our vision was that Fair became a destination and much more than the transaction. An all in one mobility ‘super app that provided empowerment to our customers at the local level and value add to the dealers. More cars. More information. More choice.
Product Strategy
Fair’s product culture created value at all levels of the organization. Our approach was to foster a future of tangible, innovative and customer obsessed product ideas with a high priority placed on experiences that create measurable outcomes and add value to users’ lives.
What We Built
Our team built an e-commerce platform that allowed customers to shop for cars from a variety of sources from the comfort of their home. Users could schedule test drives, determine fulfillment and delivery, handle trade-ins, buy insurance, purchase or finance a car, and buy anything that you could possibly want to attach to a car transaction.
Flexible Page Structure
Goal: Provide a contextual experience on each page based on a user’s site browsing/searching/filtering behavior.
Our Solution: A flexible page structure that changed based on the user’s site browsing/searching/filtering behavior (or targeted entry point via Google). Enabled the groundwork and ease of use for search, browse and filtering functionality right from the homepage.
Search: A global and accessible search box that utilizes full filtering syntax.
Mega Menu: Provided the user a framework for easy browsing capabilities.
Model Info Module: Provided users dynamically rendered and relevant informational or education.
Filters: Provided users easy and intuitive contextual selections based on needs and allowed them to enjoy and appreciate our vast inventory.
Digital Showroom
A digital showroom designed specifically for each user. Today’s digital purchasing experience is cold and impersonal. Fair changed this.
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Instant and ongoing personalization: Machine learning-powered technology optimized the experience for each user, utilizing engaging interactive features (including an onboarding survey) and user activity feedback.
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Recommended vehicles: Fair recommended specific vehicles based on user interest and behavior. Users had the opportunity to provide feedback to improve recommendations with ongoing data-science triggered questions and Tinder-style swipe suggested vehicles.
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Personalized merchandising categories: Personalization extended to browsing as well, with different ways to browse based on interests, demographics, finances, and goals.
Browse & Differentiate
Choosing the right car on the digital lot is an overwhelming task. So many different cars and so many that seem the same. Fair used machine learning to make this simple.
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Search and browse based on any vehicle attribute: Allowed users to search on any vehicle attribute independently or as part of a complex search to find the exact car they want.
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Intelligently browse a large set of similar vehicles: We used data science and personalization to intelligently guide consumers to differentiate between even the most similar vehicles. This included algorithmically-created labels that highlight individually relevant key attributes - price, features, technology, lifestyle.
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Offer OEM style browsing for used vehicles: Used common conventions to make used car shopping as simple as new car shopping.
Comparison Assistance
Fair provided customers features to compare different attributes of target cars.
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A better way to compare vehicles: Traditional comparison of used vehicles involves very large tables that are difficult to navigate. We made it easy by highlighting attributes that matter to each consumer and clustering similar ones for smarter comparison
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Social proof via ratings: Fair leveraged 3rd party vehicle ratings to increase buyer confidence
Content & Commerce
Fair provided customers features to compare different attributes of target cars.
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Curated list of normalized vehicle highlights: Intelligently displayed vehicle attributes that mattered to each user.
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Pricing confidence: Provided benchmark data to helps users understand whether they are getting a good deal.
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Vehicle history: Comprehensive vehicle history provided buyer confidence.
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Improved, consistent imagery: Displayed similar and accurate vehicle imagery that provides an accurate and comparable representation of each vehicle.
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Damage reports: Increased consumer confidence by detailing all damage and imperfections on the vehicle.
More Ways To Buy
Our research showed that customers wanted choice. Fair offered the perfect plan for each customer, integrating the best financial services providers.
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Leases: Continued best-in-class support for used car leasing
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Loans: The ability to purchase and finance a vehicle. Integrated best-in-class lenders to provide wide coverage for consumers, regardless of credit rating.
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Cash: Sold vehicles for a cash payment if that is a customer’s preferred method of payment.
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Trade-ins: Allowed consumers to easily get a price on their current vehicle and apply it toward a new one. This is a must-have feature for most customers.
Fair Dealer Tool
Fair’s Dealer Tool made it easy for dealerships to instantly digitize and increase sales, while remaining in control. The benefits to the dealerships included the ability to complete deals with no incremental spend, attain profit margins comparable to an average used retail deal and the volume and velocity of a 100% digital platform. The dealer tool was instrumental in expanding the 3P marketplace, and inventory for Shift.
Get Shift Done
The Acquisition
The average consumer is shrewder than ever and eager for a site that can help them find the best deal for the best price and with plenty of flexibility. Companies that don’t get the UX down won’t survive as the industry consolidates and responds to such consumer demands. The average expected revenue lost from poor digital experiences in the automotive industry is as high as 18%, according to new research from Qualtrics, which also found that reducing the effort required to a complete a task online can lead to a 23% increase in spend. That’s what made Shift’s purchase of Fair’s tech and solution so powerful.
This arc of self service, of being able to shop from your couch, of getting it in two minutes, of integrated transaction capabilities that come with a brand promise — does Shift have it all figured out? Strategically, they do. Ultimately, self-service today has to continue to be refined and improved in a way that allows you or me to get on the site and transact versus picking up the phone to ask for support, which we still see quite a bit.
Shift is reaping the benefits of Fair’s tech, and its relationships with dealers, to lay the groundwork for the future of automotive purchases. In a transaction closed during the second quarter of 2022, Shift purchased Fair’s assets for $15 million in cash and a number of shares of Class A common stock equal to 2.5% of Shift’s outstanding shares.
Shift’s acquisition of Fair creates a leader in e-commerce used auto sales, augments best-in-class auto e-commerce platform with marketplace (1P & 3P sources) capabilities, powered by machine learning, accelerated their vision to create the best end-to-end digital destination for car ownership.
In addition, Fair’s dealer portal and dealer relationships on Shift’s platform, under a unified Shift brand and customer experience, resulted in significant product synergies and provided further leverage on investments that Shift has already made.
