Edmunds, kicking off the new year with a mobile-first strategy, has unveiled a new logo and launched a redesigned website. It also dropped the “.com” from Edmunds to signify that the company “has grown beyond a pure website.”
The company said in a statement Tuesday that it created the new site with a “mobile-first perspective,” to improve the user experience for consumers who transition back and forth between computers and smartphones. Consumer feedback indicated people wanted less clutter and more visuals, which Edmunds said it answered with a “simplified” redesign, with the goal of attracting both advertisers and shoppers.
Edmunds worked on the changes with RED Interactive Agency based in Santa Monica, Calif.
An Edmunds spokeswoman said for the last six months of 2016, the site funneled a small percentage of online traffic onto the newly designed pages. Eugene Park, Edmunds chief product officer, said that test showed mobile device users are twice as likely to return to the new site, compared to the old one. Park said bounce rates, or the visitors who enter and exit the site from the homepage, and page load times improved “significantly.”
“When we first set out to develop the new Edmunds site, our objective was to create an emotionally engaging experience that makes it easy for visitors to quickly discover all of the information they need to make smart car-buying decisions,” Park said in a statement about the site changes.
The new logo features a smiling and winking car, much like the attitude of customers who “easily” find the vehicle they want on Edmunds, the release said. The softer color palette on the site and logo are meant to be “approachable.”
Edmunds said it will talk more about the updated branding and preview its technology innovations at the upcoming National Automobile Dealers Association convention in New Orleans. Edmunds CEO Avi Steinlauf said in statement that 2017 “will be a landmark year. This is only the beginning.”
Headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif., the vehicle shopping platform offers expert vehicle reviews and shopping advice, along with automotive industry analysis and research. Edmunds advertises the vehicles for sale at more than 13,000 franchised dealerships in the U.S. It averages 20 million visitors per month to its site.
Edmunds competes with a variety of auto retail sites such as Kelley Blue Book, Autotrader, Cars.com and TrueCar.
