AT, motors.com, car gurus annoy dealers. Dont they?

[Dealer research 4]

I wondered, after browsing here for a while now AT, Motors and CAr gurus seem to have thier flaws and, for some reason, work against car dealers in certain areas, example of this is Cargurus stating how long a car has been on the forecourt! AT saying if a car dealers price is good or high. The list goes on but how do others feel about this?  Considering your paying them good money to advertise....what do you hate about them and....what could they do better? feature wise to make it easier for Dealers and, treat dealers fairly. (p.s, i think its realtively expensie to advertise a car on these platforms. motors.com seemed ok but now charge 27p per view or summit???)

Thoughts

[Max Branning 149]

Unfortunately as dealers we have very little choice in terms of advertising. Facebook seems to be gathering pace with many dealers as another option to get sales but many will stick with the same old costly route that gives results. 

The advertisers know this and rinse us for every penny possible.

I doubt it will change anytime soon.

[Dealer research 4]

Thanks for the reply. My thoughts too, shame really. BTW, im a student doing research for a paper on the motor industry but....a passionate car fan!

 

[Mojo121 229]

eBay is great for us, it's cost effective and although not purpose built it works and people use it for odd-ball cars. Also use Gumtree as its owned by ebay and a small extra cost and no extra admin

AT we don't use purely due to cost

Cargurus we setup with today, have used them before, but for free its a no brainer.

Hope that helps

[metcars 397]

5 hours ago, Dealer research said:

Thanks for the reply. My thoughts too, shame really. BTW, im a student doing research for a paper on the motor industry but....a passionate car fan!

 

Perhaps we could help your research by filling in a survey?

[sparky 274]

11 hours ago, Mojo121 said:

eBay is great for us, it's cost effective and although not purpose built it works and people use it for odd-ball cars. Also use Gumtree as its owned by ebay and a small extra cost and no extra admin

AT we don't use purely due to cost

Cargurus we setup with today, have used them before, but for free its a no brainer.

Hope that helps

I've never understood why ebay don't do a more purpose built motors platform. I really do think they are batting below their average and could do AT some serious damage if they put a bit more effort into it.

[metcars 397]

55 minutes ago, sparky said:

I've never understood why ebay don't do a more purpose built motors platform. I really do think they are batting below their average and could do AT some serious damage if they put a bit more effort into it.

Maybe they're waiting to see how it all plays out at AT, just like the other players in the market

[Dealer research 4]

13 hours ago, Mojo121 said:

eBay is great for us, it's cost effective and although not purpose built it works and people use it for odd-ball cars. Also use Gumtree as its owned by ebay and a small extra cost and no extra admin

AT we don't use purely due to cost

Cargurus we setup with today, have used them before, but for free its a no brainer.

Hope that helps

Cheers for the reply Mojo121. I thought cargurus charged something like £250 a month to list? Also from research i noted an annoyance from the dealer industry that they stated how long a car had been on a pitch and if the price was expensive/cheap?

1 hour ago, sparky said:

I've never understood why ebay don't do a more purpose built motors platform. I really do think they are batting below their average and could do AT some serious damage if they put a bit more effort into it.

Ebay is cracking and i thought the same but I doubt dealers would move to an alternative platform and say bye bye to AT (cold turkey)? Maybe run in tandem i suppose but that means 2 lots of advertising payments which (i presume) dealers wouldnt want to double the marketing budget to give Ebay/new platform a go. I can see how dealers are kindov caught in the AT trap the more i research it. Thoughts? BTW. its funny because AT is actually a basic platform, Im sure there are annoyances or features dealers wish it had! 

10 hours ago, metcars said:

Perhaps we could help your research by filling in a survey?

Hi Metcars, 

Cheers for the reply. I thought that but wondered if it was too cheeky!

My main question was really about AT, Car gurus, e bay and Motors. The positive and negative of each of them or if that was too much....AT only. 

Plus....(just said this in a previous comment) AT is a bloody basic platform but has the power of so many dealers on it that no one will go cold turkey with another platform but then, wont (i presume) want to run another platform and pay for it as a viable alternative to AT. So dealers are caught. (not to say AT is all bad BTW. im on it all the time looking at cars)

So suppose.....What features from these platforms are missing? or a nice to have? 

[RS-Autos 3]

I think AT is far too expensive and if comments on here are true, looks like the tide is starting to turn against them.

CarGurus is OK for free, but I'm on contract with them now and find that a waste of money so I will be cancelling as soon as my 6 month term is up

eBay is by far my best outlet in terms of leads and cost.  I will look into tagging gumtree onto that.

Any other good suggestions people use?

I have experimented with Facebook, but not really crakced that and I've also tried Google AdWords, which seems worthwhile, but hard to really quantify.

[Dealer research 4]

16 hours ago, Max Branning said:

Unfortunately as dealers we have very little choice in terms of advertising. Facebook seems to be gathering pace with many dealers as another option to get sales but many will stick with the same old costly route that gives results. 

The advertisers know this and rinse us for every penny possible.

I doubt it will change anytime soon.

Hi Max, ta for the reply. Facebook is great but for me (a car lover) i just use AT now as a car magazine to look at cars. From research ive found the below...whats your thoughts

AT - Great for numbers but expensive and complicated billing i think. the pricing index with "fair" price etc is annoying dealers (anything else good/bad?)

motors.co.uk Free listings (brilliant) but then strange pricing model £8 a car then pay per "lead assist" at 27p a lead assist so that £8 can end up being £30/40 quid quickly (sounds great alternative to AT)

Ebay - Listing fee and selling fee but have great visitor numbers but not a true car platform (is that a problem if it shifts cars, suppose you cant upload a feed)

cargurus - they take your feed automatically and list how expensive cheap it is and how long its been on the pitch. plus they charge (couldnt quite get an answer from them) £250 a month to list (unsure if thats unlimited cars or if i have that completely wrong) any update on that would be mega.

Sorry for the long reply but thoughts?

 

Dave

[andymc1973 199]

i found with the ebay the money off brigade where still in the majority

[Dealer research 4]

8 minutes ago, RS-Autos said:

I think AT is far too expensive and if comments on here are true, looks like the tide is starting to turn against them.

CarGurus is OK for free, but I'm on contract with them now and find that a waste of money so I will be cancelling as soon as my 6 month term is up

eBay is by far my best outlet in terms of leads and cost.  I will look into tagging gumtree onto that.

Any other good suggestions people use?

I have experimented with Facebook, but not really crakced that and I've also tried Google AdWords, which seems worthwhile, but hard to really quantify.

Hi RS and cheers for the reply. 

Been trying to find out about cargurus but secretive! please let me know the contract thing? I rang and they said £250 a month but is that for unlimited cars?

No one has mentioned adwords before but i know (done right) its powerful. On the quantify thing...you can actually get true figures of visits and how much spend resulted in inquiries on a specific vehicle you know? They do phone number thing where you get a report on number of phone calls (BTW you can get a phone number for each car you sell on adwords so you get a report per phone number) hope that helps but just ask me and ill help. 

[Rory RSC 596]

Sell my cars from AT.

I don't like some things about the company but tbh I have tried to embrace everything and get the most value out of my spend with them of late.

If you can function without them and they don't work for you then all good, for me I sell cars quickly as a result and its gets people through the door so to speak.


Motors is such a waste of time and the worst performer for me behind car gurus and ebay.

[Dealer research 4]

2 minutes ago, Rory RSC said:

Sell my cars from AT.

I don't like some things about the company but tbh I have tried to embrace everything and get the most value out of my spend with them of late.

If you can function without them and they don't work for you then all good, for me I sell cars quickly as a result and its gets people through the door so to speak.


Motors is such a waste of time and the worst performer for me behind car gurus and ebay.

Hi Rory, 

Cheers for the reply, Thats what im hearing tbh, AT is the king and you either live or die by it. (also, im not saying AT is all bad, just wondered the impact of new boys like motors car gurus etc. they just cant compete by the looks of it.)

7 minutes ago, andymc1973 said:

i found with the ebay the money off brigade where still in the majority

Dealers told me that for cars under £2500 ebay was the king but be prepared to take a 10% discount from buyers! 

[metcars 397]

3 hours ago, andymc1973 said:

i found with the ebay the money off brigade where still in the majority

Sadly, any negotiation that doesn't involve the seller looking the buyer in the eye during negotiations is going to encourage silly offers

[It's me 615]

hi bethany

[metcars 397]

3 hours ago, Dealer research said:

Hi Metcars, 

Cheers for the reply. I thought that but wondered if it was too cheeky!

My main question was really about AT, Car gurus, e bay and Motors. The positive and negative of each of them or if that was too much....AT only. 

Plus....(just said this in a previous comment) AT is a bloody basic platform but has the power of so many dealers on it that no one will go cold turkey with another platform but then, wont (i presume) want to run another platform and pay for it as a viable alternative to AT. So dealers are caught. (not to say AT is all bad BTW. im on it all the time looking at cars)

So suppose.....What features from these platforms are missing? or a nice to have? 

AT are in trouble. Other platforms are sitting on the fence like vultures waiting to pick the bones out of the fallout. These same other platforms can also see what some traders could/would pay for their advertising? It would be incredibly naive to think that these 'other' platforms won't be 'adjusting' their pricing when the coast is clear?

Just my opinion