Anyone else agree with this?

[Phil H 124]

For years Auto Trader have enjoyed the unrivaled privilege of maintaining the position of being the number one classified advert site. Historically they've achieved this by giving their customers what they want, an easy affordable route for dealers to showcase their stock to potential buyers and buyers to be able to easily browse at their leisure for a new car.

However we live in changing times, it's no longer an easy affordable route for Dealers due to multiple price increases, features that alienate like the PX tool and partnerships poaching finance business. Then we have the sponsored listings, those who pay most get seen first. Now that's not very transparent is it after all transparency is the buzz word on every ones lips.

Let's take a look at the contenders for the 2017 Christmas number one classified website

Auto Trader

Pro's

Household name, current market leader on things like unique visitors, established dealer network generating enormous amounts of revenue and profit.

Con's

Genuine dealer resentment to products that aren't very transparent. A PX Tool that when ticked half of the adverts vanish due to dealers not subscribing to it even though it's free at the moment. Then we have the mobile site whereby a consumer searching for their next car has to view all of the sponsored listings first before being able to view the normal listings even if the sponsored ones aren't as relevant. And let's not forget Auto Traders huge debt mountain £527.9 million in March 1015. Someone's got to pay for that, their customers, and more and more of their customers are leaving meaning those who stay need to pay more.

Car Gurus

Pro’s

No shareholder pressure to turn a profit, proven track record in the states, big deep pockets.

Con’s

Already upsetting dealers with things like great value markers and days in stock. Since when have classified advert sites been qualified to dictate prices to consumers. Price isn’t everything someone may have a cheap car compared with guide prices but upon purchasing the car it could be riddled with bodged faults and the dealers customer service may be well below par and don’t forget there’s more than 1 guide price so how do consumers know this price marker is accurate?

Motors

Pro’s

Part of a big privately family owned group with lots of fingers in lots of pies

Con’s

Lots of dealers getting disgruntled by the way they get treated by some of its sister companies, unhappy with partnerships with 3rd party finance companies and allowing its sister company to offer to buy the customers part exchanges directly from the public only to sell back to the trade via another one of its sister companies a large auction chain.

Someone a bit more transparent

Pro’s

Got the backing of the dealer network, genuinely puts both the needs of the dealers and the consumers before profits. Wants to help grow its customer base by working closely with all involved. A product that thinks out of the box.

Con’s

Not in the public domain yet

 As you can see from the con’s that I’ve listed above all of the big 3 at the moment seem to be hell bent on focusing all of their attention on upsetting its core customers, the dealer network, these are the people who pay the companies wages and profit but are increasingly getting frustrated by paying more for less.

Now if I was to hazard a guess for the Christmas number 1 classified website in 2017 here would be my prediction.

Fourth Place - Motors.co.uk

Third Place - Auto Trader

Second Place - Car Gurus

First Place - Someone a bit more transparent.

I’m privileged to know who that someone a bit more transparent is and when it comes its going to take you all by surprise and the only way you can stop it is by stopping to upset your core paying customers. The Dealer Network. Without them you wouldn’t be in business.

[metcars 395]

Exchange & Mart?

[It's me 612]

its either

tripadvisor

or the ex paypal guy

or are they one of the same

cant remember

[Mikey 19]

Amazon was the recent on-line megabuck to announce they would start an automotive community although initially not selling cars themselves, more of a place for reviews and buy accessories...They have hinted at a car offering platform, but nothing has been confirmed as far as I'm aware.

Elon Musk was the owner of PayPal before selling it off to fund SpaceX and Tesla. Not connected to TripAdvisor as they were part of the Expedia group before being floated off and made a PLC...

OP you didn't mention eBay who also own Gumtree? I know the latter isn't everyone's cup of tea, but eBay classified's has a big audience, are not that greedy, and I'd have put that above some of the others you've mentioned. Then there's Pistonheads which probably fits around Motor's/Gumtree in terms of consumer footfall I would guess?? 

 

 

[justina3 518]

Ebay used to be a great place to sell cars until they changed the feedback system and then defaulted to search engine from nearest first to best match all went out the window for us when they did that.

 

 

[Mikey 19]

19 hours ago, justina3 said:

Ebay used to be a great place to sell cars until they changed the feedback system and then defaulted to search engine from nearest first to best match all went out the window for us when they did that.

 

 

Justina when you say changed the feedback system what do you mean? I know what you mean about the default search, but don't you think most people will either change that to cheapest or nearest anyway?

[justina3 518]

1 hour ago, Mikey said:

Justina when you say changed the feedback system what do you mean? I know what you mean about the default search, but don't you think most people will either change that to cheapest or nearest anyway?

In my own experience they don’t, before I stopped using eBay I often used to have the retarded argument with customers who looked at a similar car to mine 150 miles away and the other car was £150 cheaper in the end I used to tell them well take the chance drive 150 miles there and 150 miles back and then hope nothing goes wrong with the car so you don’t have to take it back, where as I am 6 miles away from you……common sense isn’t common.

 

And the feedback system used to allow for sellers to leave negative feedback for customers but eBay removed that option and then almost 99.99% guaranteed your money back if a dispute arises, we used to sell lots of items on ebay not just cars but give up in the end as there clearly not interested in dealers.

 

 

[M.J 35]

If you're using the classified style ads then there is no option to leave feedback from either party.

[Mikey 19]

It's funny how we all have completely different experiences with the same platforms.

I still quite like eBay as they at least give you the freedom to construct proper paragraph's, and freehand to write as much as you like about the car, plus decent sized photo's.... I find listing only in classified's isn't as painful as the regular auctions, plus I get quite a bit of custom from Southern Ireland being only 10 minutes from the airport and an hour from the Holyhead ferry.

Personally not had any problem regarding feedback yet...

Edited November 22, 2016 by Mikey

[Max Branning 149]

I find ebay much easier to find what your looking for as opposed to autotrader. If i am price comparing a car i always go to ebay first and can get comparable cars in 2 or 3 clicks where as AT i find too many pop ups and stuff.

Cant really complain about ebay really very good value as you get a showroom etc with your package at a realistic price. I honestly think that although AT is probably the "market leader" and first on anyones mind, anybody searching for a car will also look on ebay to see what is on offer. I did a search earlier on AT within a 10 mile radius of me and probably less than half of any proper traders that i know of where advertising on there, so buyers are not really getting a very good choice of the market in my opinion.

[Trident 24]

I'm with you Max, you can search ebay so much easier than AT!! gone are the days when customers uniquely use AT, it might be their first stop, but they will still go round the houses and search other sites...

[sparky 274]

With regards to ebay, I think they are the one player in the current markey who really could take on AT if they  wanted a bigger piece of the pie.