Leaderboard

2nd best post! I’ve seen plenty complain about AT’s prices, like they are some sort of public service. The same people who charge as much as they dare for their cars. Its a business they are a business, like all of us. They charge what they can. You pay it or you don’t and good luck to both sides of the fence.

Why? if it doesn't work cancel, no one is forcing you to advertise on the autotrader, I cancelled motors cause it didn't work, I'm not angry or mad about it, it was business, I cancelled findandfundmycar cause it didn't work, I don't complain, lesson learned (expensive lesson) I reinvested my money in something that worked better. I'm not delighted at the prices but am more than happy with my sales levels and profits generated as a result. cant understand why some dealers still use them if they're not selling cars and measuring the net profits returned - well done Arthur for being brave enough to cut the ties as he cant make it work for him. I have videos on all my cars, minimum of 50 great photo's 165, 5 star reviews. I'm not the cheapest but make sure I check my prices weekly as per my reps advice. I'm not bragging but had a record January, not great feb and a very healthy March so far. Looking through my click dealer, leads and sales so far - 78% of them came out of area from leads generated by the autotrader. I don't advertise anywhere else as they don't work for me. as for prices being different, I have a different package then my friend over the road but we both have 35 stock contract. I pay around £600 more than him per month. I think I get more for my money than he does as he is daily whinging about autotrader, he tells me he sells between 10-15 cars a month from them but he's on a cheaper package so gets less. You pay for what you get. I'm old enough and ugly enough to remember advertising in the midland autotrader where it cost £30 for a double spot with 1 photo and 27 words, its a different world now and a different market but I'm selling more than I did then for less cost overall. if you can make it work, sell cars and make a decent profit then happy days. If not then there are plenty of other channels out there, pick one (or 6) and make it work for you.

let me get this straight - the only way you're going to find out if the autotrader is working for you is by cancelling to see if it doesn't have an impact on your sales Arthur? as a franchised dealer do you have a marketing department? I'd be giving them a right kick up the arse. do they not measure it for you? I'm very surprised. My Click dealer website shows me exactly where my traffic is coming from. My call monitoring system shows me exactly how many calls I get and from where. I know exactly to the penny how much I spend on advertising and how much it costs and I budget and change campaigns accordingly, cut out what doesn't work, give new starters a few months trial and monitor and measure every penny. I notice you said before you're spending £900 per month on findandfundmycar yet you said you hadn't sold a car from it? that to me is expensive. get complaining to them we all wish the autotrader was cheaper and this has been the perennial cry from dealers for past 20 years, its nothing new. to be honest I don't care what anybody else is paying, I care what I'm getting. what does it matter if Arthur is paying less - its not working for him. even if it was free - its not working for him I cancelled AT thanks to some really bad advice 2 years ago for 3 months and encouraged to try Jim Reids autovolo and was the worst 3 months trading I had in 20 years (sales dropped from 30-35 to 11 per month) I posted this earlier on a different thread Motors - Cost £480 pm - 30 cars advertised - 3 emails, no sales in 6 months. Profit from sales as a direct result of Motors - Loss of £2880 Findandfundmycar - Cost £245 pm - 30 cars advertised no enquiries no sales in 2 months. Profit from sales as a result of findandfundcar - Loss of £490 AutoTrader - Cost £2593 pm - 30 cars advertised - 57 phone calls, 19 calls from mobile app, 17 emails, 7 part ex leads (no deals) 4 finance leads (2 deals done) 22 direct sales - LAST MONTH! - Profit from sales as a result of autotrader £14,107 (net after advertising) I wish it was cheaper and am not overjoyed with paying more but would be even more pissed off if I was paying that and not selling any cars or making any profit. cancelling to see if you can do without it seems like saying I don't think I need oxygen so will try not to breath for a day Question for Arthur - are you expecting to sell more cars or less due to this? Good luck this is my own opinion, I know it doesn't work for everyone and it does for some but I encourage everyone to measure, if it doesn't work cancel - find what works for you but. don't make the mistake I made 2 years ago. things are tough enough as they are guys

If I may; You've parked your car in a puddle. It doesn't take a minute to find a better spot that isn't showing a car in a muddy puddle. Also, try and find a spot where cars aren't visible in the background. The first thing I saw when I clicked one of those photos was a red car in the background. Not what you want, obviously. In terms of pricing, I think you're about £500 heavy. At the end of the day, it's your car, you price it up how you want. But if you're approx £500 over market value, you'd better have a good reason why and with all due respect, a car parked in a puddle in what is obviously some sort of nature trail/parkland car park isn't a good reason .I think the AT valuations are pretty much spot on, the majority of the time. Without getting into an AT debate, they are by far the biggest automotive platform online. They get more views than all of the other platforms combined. So with that in mind, it's reasonable to conclude their price indicators are accurate. They range from Good Price, Great Price and Priced Low. Whether we like it or not, buyers are influenced by these indicators, I've seen plenty of people bemoan the Car Guru's indicators because unfortunately in this internet age, buyers are price savvy. So they WILL look at the price indicators.

Every week or two when this question pops up I answer “use your trade plates”.

When I was young I fancied the girl in the newsagents. Used to go in everyday for a packet of sweets. But buying 8 cars in 12 months!!!! That's a whole different level!!!

To me, as long as I am getting value, the price is what the price is. Of course i’d like it cheaper but as far as i’m concerned, I squeeze every drop of value out of them. If you are someone who puts 15 photos up instead of 70, or doesn’t do a video, or makes an ad sound like a spec list, or don’t use the tools to find out what sells well in your locale, then you are leaving a lot of value on the table. As I said mate, you are making it work outside of AT. Power to you, I just can’t ever see me not using them. I get just as much out of them as they get out of me.

We need more proof,more people to confirm their deal with AT.It appears to me they are are abusing their dominant market position by operating what appears to be a random pricing structure.Traders need to complain to the Competition Authority,pass the word to other traders.I will be although I have no idea whether the CA will be interested,but I will try and persuade them.

Turnover is not profit Earunder, your post is great, you obviously manage your money very well. I don't have a marketing department, I, like you have call tracking and see email enquiries, I've sold 2 off AT this month so far, I measure everything and am prepared to try new advertising portals, but it has to be measured. Things are really tough, our service side of the business is really going well but sales in a struggle, we're in an under populated but over represented town, not enough to go round, we do some repeat and local business , which is best as it's no advertising cost and you retain the service work after the sale, if you've done the job right. I'm taking one site of and leaving the other on, I know it's perceived to be a gamble but at the moment I feel there's nothing to lose with the under performing site. If I was doing ten a month off Autotrader on each site I would stick with it, the cost per sale would be £150. When I've had meetings with AT staff, and I've had a few, even they say that's too much it should be no more than £100 cost per sale. With some of the prices I've seen on here that's just not possible.

I’m gonna have to put up my hand and disagree.....Waitrose are robbing bastxrds on the bacon from, as are Sainsbury’s and if you ever have the displeasure to step into babe if the local Post Offices, they will tone uou blind for bacon... Can I try again... I’m gonna have to put up my hand and disagree.....Waitrose are robbing bastxrds on the bacon front, as are Sainsbury’s and if you ever have the displeasure to step into your local Post Office, they will rob you blind for the bacon...

Tesco bacon the best

My Butchers bacon is better than tescos. But thats just my opinion! Arthur, I want to see your results when yu get them in 3 months and think that you are doing the best you can to find out the best way to advertise efficiently. I'm jealous of your AT deal as many of us little independents will be, I've got a 12 car package (plus the banger bonuses) which costs me approx £100 per car,but it works better for me than other platforms. I'm not going to give you a load of abuse for your decision or your comments. Its your trainset, you play with it how you want. But please do keep us regularly updated with how it goes. Maybe you could post some weekly stats on here?

Best post I've read in a long long time. I get why people advertise with AT and I get why people don't. What I don't get is why people constantly bring up AT and not get each others opinions and feel the need to indirectly show or prove they are the ones thinking correctly. There are no right or wrongs, no winners or losers, just a bunch of different opinions. Is it the most expensive? Yes Is SKY TV the most expensive? Yes Are Bacon Rashers from Tesco the most expensive? Yes I have SKY TV and buy my bacon rashers from Tesco. I do this as the product, for me, is the best. Heck of course I wish everything was cheaper, my customers probably think the same about my business and products. I don't have AT as it does not represent value for money for me and we do well with other media streams that others don't seem to. That's the art of business. Finding what works, what doesn't, what sells, what doesn't, etc.

I know one dealer, who advertises over 150 cars, pays around £9,000 but sells 30% of his stock every month from AT alone. You tell him it's too expensive and he'll laugh. If it works, as it does for the majority, and more importantly gives you a ROI then it's worth doing. IF it doesn't and in your case, mine too, then cancel. I cancelled mine awhile back as it was giving AT 60% of my profit from sales generated by them. Luckily AT were only responsible for 19-20% of my business last year (*even less this year) so it hasn't affected me. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way defending the prices of AT but if they have customers that pay them what they charge who are we to say otherwise? Most companies in such sectors with a service operate in this manor. Look at Football Clubs for example. Ebay. Amazon. Nothing will happen with the prices if they have customers willing to pay them. Try telling some dealers to stop and come out of AT. It'll cost them thousands, some hundreds of thousands and more than likely shut them down. I get you're drive and spirit, I do, and I'm not berating what you want to achieve but you're tackling a monster with a huge axe like an ant with a twig.

It shouldn't matter who you are, it should be a price per car perhaps in banding, say 10-20 cars 20-30 cars and so on. Back in 2012 PSA wrote me a letter to say they no longer saw value in the franchised dealer AT supported deal, which at that time was £5.25 per car, they thought it was too dear. Apologies if you don't know but PSA are Citroen and Peugeot. That's b******s about franchised deals differing from non franchised, their sales director told me a few years ago there would be no franchised dealer discounts, just ask yourself, why wold AT give discount to a dealer because he's got Citroen signs up and you haven't. £14.42 per car per week. A bit stiff Trade Vat. £15.10 per car per week, nothing is the same here is it, no one cheaper than me yet and if you say you are I expect you to do me the same courtesy of putting your invoice and contracted numbers on here..

I always struggle on low mileage, it always looks expensive to me.

Cheers

I’ve always sold high mileage, it doesn’t scare me as long as it’s low ownership, clearly been looked after with a full history. The model and spec is more important, 200k is now the old 100k.

Hi Stalker, it is for 90 cars, the vat is not relevant, but if your not vat registered you wouldn't know that. The bill is for £2944.40 for 90 cars split between 2 sites. The £1600 I quoted is the new price it's going up to per site, which will be £3200 plus vat (are you keeping up?) they are also saying it will be for a total of 74 cars instead of 90, so less cars for more money. I hope I haven't lost you, but if you want me to draw you a picture and colour it in let me know

you wouldnt have been able to smell that with on line bidding

We've used both Cardealer5 & Clickdealer. When we had under 30 in stock Cardealer5 & now we have 90 in stock Clickdealer. I'd still recommend Cardealer5 for anyone running a smaller operation because their cost base is great and they're professional and the sites like Mat C's look great if you put the effort into layout etc. They're great value for a smaller stock level and pretty helpful. I heard they've changed a lot of their techy stuff about so I can only imagine they've got even better. Clickdealer is more expensive but you get really good back office which is handy when you struggle to remember what's been in stock and for how long, amendments to adverts are easier and it's all a bit better and more in depth IMO. The single best thing about Click is the support though....these guys are the polar opposite of AT, they really genuinely do work for you and all of them working there seem super helpful and efficient. Even a tech dinosaur like me can get what I want done done quickly and professionally. It's rare in the motortrade people pay compliments but for me both deserve a recommendation and you will rarely hear a bad word about whether which says it all. Best of luck btw Mark, hope it goes well for you and keep hitting the forum for advice...the guys on here are decent chaps and know the answer to pretty much anything between them. Guilty as charged. I browse AT but will always check a companies website if i'm into something (i'm worse than a punter I know). Someones website says a lot about them IMO. Anyone can stick a lump up on AT but a website takes a bit more effort and consideration, spelling mistakes, poor grammer, crap photos, i'm not interested anymore. Someone like Supermini or Transparency who make the effort and i'm hooked. I'll either buy the car or just nick their ideas and improve my own site!