Research
Still using iPacket? It's time to upgrade.
iPacket assembles the documents and asks the shopper to read them. Today's buyer shows up with a question. Here's the design difference, and where Carvia is built so the dealer has the answer.
The question the title is asking
Most GMs evaluating Carvia have already seen iPacket. It's been on the lot since 2012, it's on thousands of stores, and for a long time it solved a real problem: get the paperwork to the customer without the BDC printing a binder.
That problem still matters. Window stickers, build sheets, history, CPO checklists, and recon receipts still matter. The title is asking something else. When a shopper lands on your VDP or opens a shared link, are they looking for a folder of OEM documents to sift through, or are they looking for an answer?
If it's the second one, the design of the tool you send them matters as much as the documents inside it.
What the packet is designed to do
iPacket's core product is a digital vehicle presentation: documents tied to a VIN, assembled from CRM and DMS feeds, and shared with a shopper by text, email, or CRM message.
The unit of the product is the document. Once the link arrives, the shopper's job is to open it and read. In practice that often looks like a tile grid of files: market value, window sticker, brochure, history report, walkaround, store branding. The instruction on the page is some version of "click file to view." Each answer the shopper wants sits behind a separate document they have to choose, open, scan, and leave before they can try the next one.
Engagement tracking is built around that motion: whether they opened the packet, which sections they spent time on, and when they come back. The AI features iPacket describes are largely rep-facing. They help retrieve missing sticker data and streamline follow-up. The shopper is not asking the packet a question and getting a plain-language answer back.
That is a coherent design. It is also a design that assumes the shopper is willing to do the reading.
The library, and what happens next
Here is the analogy that keeps coming up on dealer calls. A customer has a question about the vehicle. Instead of answering it, the store turns them around and points them at a library: a shelf of OEM brochures, stickers, and paperwork. The onus and the friction sit with the customer.
The library: iPacket's widget hands the shopper a well-organized shelf. Carvia's job is to let the dealer have the answer when that shopper asks.
Today's shopper does not want to dig through the OEM brochure for the line that matters. A shopper who will not sift the shelf does not stay and figure it out. They leave your page to get the answer somewhere else: another listing site, a search result, an AI tool. You already paid for the visit. You may have already sent the documents. And you are still not in the conversation.
The failure mode is not "the packet was never opened." The failure mode is that the question went unanswered on your own page, so the engagement you wanted happens off your site, where you cannot see it or answer it.
What the shopper does now
Shoppers show up with questions. What's in this package? How much warranty is left? Why is the price where it is next to the other trim? Those are not document-retrieval tasks for most buyers. They are conversation tasks.
That habit is only getting stronger. In Cox Automotive's 2025 Car Buyer Journey Study, 19% of all buyers and 25% of new-vehicle buyers said they used an AI tool such as ChatGPT or a Google AI Overview somewhere in their research. Buyers already expect to ask a question and get an answer back. A packet that only asks them to read is competing with that expectation.
Where Carvia pulls ahead
Carvia is built so the dealer has the answer. The app sits on the VDP, so the shopper is already in a conversation about that specific vehicle before anyone ever shares a report.
Get My Full Report extends the same experience. A rep or the shopper themselves can send a link to a Carvia-hosted report for that exact vehicle. The shopper gets inventory photos, valuation and history context, and an AI assistant they can ask about that car on their own time. When they reopen the report, the floor can get a notification. The lead routes into the CRM in ADF format.
Take the same three questions from above. What's in the package? How much warranty is left? Why is the price where it is? In a packet, those answers are scattered across a sticker, a brochure, and a history file the shopper has to hunt. In Carvia, the shopper asks on the page or in the report and gets the answer about that vehicle, in plain language, without leaving your experience to go dig.
The structural difference is the job. A packet packages documents for a shopper to read. Carvia keeps the answer with the dealer: on the page first, then in the follow-up, about the same vehicle the shopper was already looking at.
What this upgrade is not
"Upgrade" here means the shopper-facing job: answering questions on your VDP and in the shared report, instead of handing the shopper a shelf of documents and hoping they dig.
It does not mean Carvia replaces iPacket's OEM sticker library, recon workflow, valuation product, or remarketing suite. Those are different jobs, and some stores will keep running both. For the feature-by-feature matrix and the "do we need both?" FAQ, read the Carvia vs iPacket comparison.
One next step
If your floor still measures success in packets sent, keep the tool that was built for that motion. If your bottleneck is a shopper who leaves your page with a real question unanswered, the design problem is different, and the product that solves it looks different too.
Read the full Carvia vs iPacket comparison for the matrix. Or skip to what the upgrade looks like on your own inventory: book a pilot conversation.