Digital Retailing Still a Work in Progress, Executives Say Some retailers just aren’t feeling the urgency, especially mom-and-pop operations that can’t, or won’t, make the necessary investments in online retailing, says Jeff Dyke, president of Sonic Automotive. Everybody in the auto retail space agrees: Digital retailing, which has been slowly progressing for over a decade, took a big leap forward because of the coronavirus pandemic. So, what continues to be the holdup? First and foremost, buying a car is complicated, with a lot of moving parts, say speakers at the recent Reuters Automotive Retail 2021 conference. For example, according to David Hult, president and CEO of Asbury Automotive Group, 70% of buyers have a trade-in, and of those, 80% have an existing loan they have to pay off. It’s difficult and expensive to come up with a single tool that can do it all, he says.