How AI Image Editing Will Disrupt The Used Car Market

Sanjay Kumar, Spyne Aug 23, 2022

As the old proverb goes - a picture is worth a thousand words. The saying takes a deeper meaning in the 21^st century, where buyers have turned to the internet for shopping for everything, from needles to cars. Well, it is the latter category that demands a greater emphasis. Buyers not only invest huge sums of money into a car, but a lot of emotions as well.

The transition from bricks to clicks and dealerships to digital dealerships has called for technological innovation. Creatively displaying inventory online offers an extra edge to sellers to convert interested leads into buyers.

There is science behind decoding the best way to display your inventories via immersive videos and catalog images that helps entice digital shoppers. However, getting these stunning catalog images and videos is not all that simple. This is due to the huge operational hassles involved, along with the high time commitment and cost of photoshoots and image editing.

So, how does one create engaging catalogs at a quick pace? The answer is simple and pretty uncomplicated - by employing Artificial Intelligence.

The burning need for automated cataloging in the used car market

Artificial intelligence is causing a monumental shift in the way car sellers are creating their catalogs. How? For the answer, let’s see the challenges that the traditional cataloging process poses.

In the traditional cataloging process, one needs to rent or build a turntable studio, hire a professional photographer, get the pictures clicked, and then wait for the post-processing to complete.

For used car sellers, the challenge is greater, as buyers need accurate car information - dents, damages, and stains if any - to decide whether or not they want to buy that vehicle. 360° spin videos and multiple car images (shot from different angles) better engage customers and help them experience a car virtually from the comfort of their homes.

Given the arduous photoshoot process, car sellers & dealerships often end up not using professionally shot/edited images when listing their pre-owned inventories on the internet. While it helps dealers save expenses, it affects the presentation of their online inventory, and thus their sales.

In order to engage and convert viewers to buyers, having multiple attractive automobile images is a necessity. Even for used car marketplaces, it is essential to build a uniform-looking, engaging digital catalog to sell their listings faster.

Benefits of employing AI for used car inventory cataloging

With technology fast evolving in the AI/ML and AR/VR space, automation is going to be a game changer in the way catalogs would be created within minutes using smartphones for high-quality, consistent car visuals and faster multi-region scalability.

Here are some of the key features offered by some of the best car cataloging solutions:

1. Highly cost-effective

Unlike traditional means, AI-powered photoshoots do not require studios and professional help for shooting and editing. This results in huge savings for car dealerships. Not just that, it also eliminates your dependency on third parties, increasing efficiency and significantly reducing the time it takes to list a vehicle for sale.

Some of the AI-led cataloging smartphone applications offer guided professional photoshoots, which help shoot impressive images without the need for camera skills. Such systems also offer suggestions for lighting, framing, etc., to further improve the quality of the images.

2. Quick and convenient image editing

Artificial Intelligence can also help automate the post-production photo-editing process, which is a manual, steps-driven process right now for many online car retailers. This step-by-step manual photo-editing process can be fully automated to transform raw images into studio-style, high-finish images within seconds:

a. Car background removal and replacement (to virtual studio setup or any custom background)

b. Replacing shop/store floors with turntable or customised car floors

c. Generating realistic car shadows and reflections

d. Reflection removal of nearby objects on car body

e. Tint addition on windows and windscreens

f. Number plate masking with logo

g. Easy branding in all inventory images

For marketplaces and brands that have tons of User Generated Custom images (UGCs), AI can be used to check the image quality score and transform them into more engaging, professional-looking visuals instantly.

3. Creating detailed 360-degree car visuals

The biggest advantage of buying a car offline is that customers can walk around it and check all the intricate details. This is extremely important for used cars, as each vehicle has its own imperfections - scratches, dents, etc. - that users want to know before purchasing.

With AI-powered image editing, dealerships can easily create 360-degree videos for a digital car walkaround experience. This allows buyers to get an immersive virtual experience, empowering them to check all car details directly on the internet and make an informed choice.

Car resellers can even highlight the different hotspots on the 360° spin view. Customers can then click on these hotspots to get a close-up, detailed view, along with information on damages. Thanks to technology, buyers don’t really need to go out in the open and spend days & months hopping from one dealer to another to find their perfect car. Instead, car buying research and the shopping cycle have been significantly cut down by better digital catalogs and videos.

4. Scalability and consistent quality

The online used automobile market is on a steady growth curve. Dealerships and car sales portals wishing to scale up their operations across multiple geographies would also need a steady scale-up plan to meet their cataloging needs.

With AI and smartphone-led photoshoots, it's extremely easy and affordable to add inventories from extreme locations without the need to worry about studio availability in nearby locations or partnering up with a photography team. Also, no matter where or who takes those images, the AI will offer consistent outputs in a fraction of the time it takes for manual quality checks.

Automation will drive the future of cataloging

AI-powered solutions are already disrupting the cataloging industry, beyond just automobiles. Employing Artificial Intelligence allows sellers to save both time and money, and it also makes the online purchasing experience better for buyers. These smart solutions are here to make life easy for everyone, so embracing them is the smartest way forward.