MotorJam

Dave, I think you're missing the point. The market doesn't need more of the same. No matter how "near perfect" another option offering us paid for classified advertising is, it is still paid for classified advertising that can't guarantee us anything. The market needs something different, if that's what you're offering then perhaps you can make it work. If you're offering more of the same, to be frank, as a new, unknown player you don't stand a chance. The cynicism you're encountering is because we don't know what your offering looks like and to be quite frank have heard it all before. The car industry is tough. Margins are tight, customers are demanding and everyone thinks they can milk a dealer for a profit or a deal, especially when they realise how much we pay AT. So what will make me buy in to you as a new, unproven, unheard of player? Do something different and make it easy for me to use you. My advertising bill is massive, more than I make from the business, and I won't be spending a penny more until I'm almost certain that it will provide a return. Don't get me wrong, I wish you luck and hope that your business is a success. When it looks like it's going to be, I'll happily put my hand in my pocket to line yours. To answer your original question about which of your statements ring true - Both of them but only the first nine words - Dave the car dealer just wants to sell cars.

Dave Agree with everything Tadams says above. None of us have to use AT or any of their competitors for that matter. I'm not saying you said that just pointing out the obvious because I personally think you're asking the wrong questions to the wrong people and focusing on the wrong things. We may resent paying AT prices and I'm going to ignore all of the well documented issues we have with them and point out that the simple reason we use them, is because they put our cars infront of our customers, give them the add ons that they want and make them pick the phone up/email/chat. AT research is largely not focused on dealers, it is focused on car buyers, they have millions of visitors to their site and the technology to track and analyse their movements. They then offer the dealers more than just a lead...they record calls, offer chat services, videos, websites, stock valuation tools, ways to connect to other dealers to trade stock and the tools to analyse response etc. We use them (grudgingly) because we get a return on investment. We have had contact from three businesses like the one that you appear to be launching in the last week alone. One wanted £200 for 20 cars a month, three months free, no stock feed and were "going to do it all on social media"...couldn't show us what the site looked - it was a landing page, couldn't tell us how many cars they were going to launch with and beyond the "going to do it all on social media" did not appear to have a marketing strategy. Another wanted £200 a week for 20 cars, they had an app with a few cars on, no stock feed, two months free and were then charging dealers at least 20% more than joe public. To be honest, by the time the third one got to us with the line "We're going to take AT down" we were a bit fed up to say the least. For your information, we won't be going with any of them. There are two simple questions that you need to find the answers to, to make your business a success: 1. How do I get dealers to advertise with me (what is my USP and is different from AT, Gurus, EBay, Exchange and Mart, Gumtree, AA Cars, Car cliq, Autovolo, Piston heads, Motors etc etc etc?) 2. How do I get buyers to use my product? (What is my marketing strategy) This is where you will come unstuck without VERY deep pockets that go a lot deeper than remortgaging your house(s) So you get the whole chicken and egg situation? Without the customers you won't get the dealers, without the dealer's stock you won't get the customers. You should be providing dealers with six months to a year's worth of free advertising WITH a stock feed to have the remotest of chances, no matter how good your site/app/product. This is not to benefit US, this is to benefit YOU because if you don't have the stock on your site, you won't get the customers, you don't get the customers, you don't sell cars, dealers stop paying (if they ever started), pull their cars and customers go elsewhere and your business fails. The stock feed...even for free I'm not going to sit putting every single one of my cars on your site, there will be those that will but I'm guessing they will be relatively few and far between and you won't get any traction at the volume end of the market. You need to make it easy for me to use you and at least get me some enquiries (what I do with them after that is down to me) before I decide to use you instead of one of the channels I'm already using, or increase my spend in an already saturated market. Your focus on our dissatisfaction with AT is misplaced. You need to be working on what I would love about you and that has to be more than the opposite of what I don't like about AT. There's stuff I do like...are you incorporating that? What about the stuff I don't like about EBay/Gumtree/Motors/Gurus ? What about the stuff I like? More importantly what about the customers? So in answer to your question would we give you a go? The answer, based on what I have read so far, is "no". That's not to say I won't change my mind but you've not dangled any carrots that will make me bite or said/shown me anything that I've not heard before. That said...I hope you do make a resounding success of your business, if you can sell me more cars than AT at a fraction of the price, trust me I'll backtrack with bells on.