Cox Automotive Wants to Eliminate the ‘Channel Break’ in Car Buying

Watch more: Monday Conversation: Cox Automotive’s Jessica Stafford

Buying a car has always been a big decision wrapped in an outdated process. It’s one of the largest purchases consumers make, yet the experience still feels stuck in another era. Part research project, part paperwork marathon, and part negotiation ritual.

Today’s consumers start nearly everything online, and car buying is no exception. They browse listings, run trade-in estimates, explore financing ranges and build shortlists across multiple sites long before ever stepping onto a lot. And when they do arrive, they expect the dealer to know where they left off digitally. What they researched, what they value, what they selected and what they already understand about pricing.

That seamless handoff rarely exists. In her Monday Conversation with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Jessica Stafford, senior vice president of consumer solutions at Cox Automotive, described the problem as the long-standing “channel break.”

“People go to a lot of different channels when buying a car,” she said. “They might research online, check multiple sites, and then go into the dealership.” But once they walk in the door, that entire digital journey usually resets.

Cox Automotive set out to fix that. The company’s new omnichannel retailing platform creates a single digital backbone that follows the customer wherever they go, online or in person. Instead of siloed systems for research, financing, trade-ins and contracting, the platform carries data across every step, giving the buyer and the dealer a shared source of truth.

Stafford explained the premise simply: “We are connecting all of those channels because on the back end we’re operating a transaction infrastructure that allows all the data and information to follow the shopper wherever they go.” Everything is built on one system. Or as she put it, “The pipes are there.”

What makes this particularly complex is that car buying isn’t like purchasing apparel or electronics. It involves financing approvals, trade-in valuations, add-ons, insurance options and the consumer’s desire to physically inspect a major long-term investment. The platform aims to remove only the friction, not the human relationship buyers still expect.

Cox used the power of its marketplaces, including Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book, to layer intelligence into the process. Stafford noted that the system’s predictive capabilities automate critical steps and keep the math consistent.

“That ability for us to be predictive and to automate the steps makes the experience better for both consumers and dealers.”

But the hardest part isn’t the technology. It’s the transformation required within dealerships themselves. “Change management is at the heart of it all,” Stafford said. Dealers have operated successfully for decades using familiar workflows, but the expectations of digital-first consumers have changed dramatically. The ones who embrace the shift see the payoff.

Dealers who use the platform consistently — in more than 75% of their deals — “see amazing outcomes,” she told Webster. When consumers begin online and complete the process in-store, attachment product sales increase sharply, boosting profitability while also improving customer satisfaction. Buyers aren’t spending their time reentering information; they’re evaluating the vehicle and finalizing what they need.

Cox has even introduced conversational AI on Autotrader, Stafford said, enabling shoppers to describe what they want in natural language. Stafford said the industry is already moving toward agentic experiences where AI lifts administrative work from both sides. And as large language models become another entry point for car shopping, Cox’s infrastructure will allow that channel to plug in seamlessly.

Webster observed during the conversation that Cox isn’t simply upgrading its tools, it’s becoming the operating system for modern automotive retail. Stafford agreed: “We do believe this shifts Cox from software tools and media platforms to a true transaction infrastructure that enables our customers to thrive.”

The future she envisions is hybrid by default. Consumers move fluidly between digital research, AI assistants and the showroom, and the experience should follow them without interruption.

As Stafford noted, “The data comes with the customer, so time in the store is spent getting to know the vehicle, not redoing the paperwork.”