Thank you community! 1 last question and proper thanks

[Dealer research 4]

Hi All, 

Im new here and contrary to what some have said, Im not from AT! The truth is, we are here to DESTROY AT from a dominance perspective

I just what to say, thanks to this mega community for answering questions and essentially just being helpful! You could have told me to sod off so for that i'm saying cheers everyone! 

So who am i? I'm from a startup, i was compiling research on essentially why so many of these big companies like AT seem to be so arrogant and take your money, make changes without asking and generally messing you about simply because they can! (Based on the comments you gave me!)

With that in mind. With so many of the dealers at least somewhat annoyed....

QUESTION 

Would you give an alternative a go? First 3 months would be free for early adopters plus we understand you already pay for ads but would you pay someone unproven (honestly) if it was crafted around you?

The alternative would be crafted from your comments, to work for you rather than us. 

Examples of this could be....

App first priority (you all know how many view on mobile now)

No contract

Simple pricing. we're talking 2 tier. nothing else. (WTF, A/T, car gurus and motors have ridiculous ones for mobile, web ads, etc)

No "fair price, expensive price etc comments on the ad"

No, "how long its been for sale"

We use the price guide like parkers or glass etc that you, as a community prefer (based on a poll that we would do)

Local search results first

Purely focused on cars not other tat

Uses your AT feeds so no messing/faffing about to use it. 

There's so much else we have planned but the truth is. We want you to tell us what you want so it works 100% for you rather than the other way round. That's why we've been asking away randomly! lol. 

If you've read this far, any comments would be great and also, we'll be putting this all on the site with the full list soon but we want your advice. Anyone that is interested, we will be releasing a "early release" for dealers to play with, test, and tell us whats missing before it went live. If your interested we can (can we cardealermag admin?) put the website on here when it goes live and you can register interest. Any dealer that registers gets the first 3 months free. In return we get your feedback and cars on the site! 

Ta 
Dave. 

 

[jimreidvehicle 255]

Hi Dave, can I ask you what your main objective is by building what many will see as'just another classified website'?

Please don't think I'm being negative, I just want to understand where your drive is coming from and what your aspirations are?

As I'm sure you are fully aware many have already entered this market and failed, many with very deep pockets (not saying yours are not) So what makes you think you can succeed where so many have failed?

As I say trust me , I'm not trying to trip you up or be negative in any manner, but you will be asked this and these types of questions many many times before the sceptical Motortrade out their hands in their pockets.

Jim Reid 

[Dealer research 4]

Hi Jim

Cheers for the reply. Honestly, i dont mind any questions good or bad! The bad questions are brilliant because if we cant answer them, we're knackered! We need to be able to answer all difficult questions.

At the end of the day we need to be different and these questions ensure we craft our offering to....

1. Add more value to dealers than the competition

2. Sells cars for dealers! 

3. Gets end users using it. 

We have a USP (a secret sauce, a colonels secret herb mix so to speak!) that isnt ready to be mentioned yet. Its ground breaking and we are due to go live on September 1st with Beta testing for Dealers interested (for free obviously). Website will be live by 1st August with what we do, what we are about and how we are different (thats where people can sign up for 3 months free and Beta testing for our feedback).

Funding - Seed funding already raised 

Cheers

P.S We've hit a bump in the road and need help - Are your feeds to AT all generic and an CSV/XML file or something else? Anyone willing to share a feed so we can see what it looks like? 

Dave 

[Dealer research 4]

3 hours ago, jimreidvehicle said:

Hi Dave, can I ask you what your main objective is by building what many will see as'just another classified website'?

Please don't think I'm being negative, I just want to understand where your drive is coming from and what your aspirations are?

As I'm sure you are fully aware many have already entered this market and failed, many with very deep pockets (not saying yours are not) So what makes you think you can succeed where so many have failed?

As I say trust me , I'm not trying to trip you up or be negative in any manner, but you will be asked this and these types of questions many many times before the sceptical Motortrade out their hands in their pockets.

Jim Reid 

Hi Jim,

could I just ask you why you think other classified sites never worked? 

[jimreidvehicle 255]

1 hour ago, Dealer research said:

Hi Jim,

could I just ask you why you think other classified sites never worked? 

You picked me up wrong, I didn't say that they didn't work I just stated that they had failed in their objective, which was to topple AutoTrader, however I note that your reply didn't mention this.

My personal opinion is that the only classified that will successfully conquer AT will have to be Dealer Owned. IMHO 

 

[Dealer research 4]

Thanks for the reply Jim. All valuable things to think about. 

Have a good week 

[trade vet 702]

Hi Dave,might be a bit late,but missed this one yesterday.I am sure we all want you to get up and running and do well.However,I don't think first 3 months free is a good idea.Thousands will want in and thousands could walk- motor trade mentality.Why not first month at intro rate then 2 or 3 months free! Being older,I know little about digital data,apps or imogis etc,but it appears to me that long distance customers need more confidence to make them journey to view at dealers they know nothing about.People don't always believe review sites or the "about us" stuff on websites.I am thinking of something like an Ofsted for car dealers.Dealers have to pay say £200 and you send some responsible person like an ex cop to inspect dealers premises,take photos and make a report.This could  be based on dealer origin,stock presentation,workshop,showroom or display facilities,proprietors or sales managers CV,staff qualifications or length of service etc or anything that will enhance the business.If the dealer likes the report,it can be I included on your website and people can view it by clicking onto Verified Dealer Profile etc.....You did ask for ideas.......I will now wait for the flak !

 

[sparky 274]

Well I really hope you can be the Levi Roots of the motoring advertising world but  I'm a tad sceptical to say the least. All the best with it though.

[Dealer research 4]

19 hours ago, trade vet said:

Hi Dave,might be a bit late,but missed this one yesterday.I am sure we all want you to get up and running and do well.However,I don't think first 3 months free is a good idea.Thousands will want in and thousands could walk- motor trade mentality.Why not first month at intro rate then 2 or 3 months free! Being older,I know little about digital data,apps or imogis etc,but it appears to me that long distance customers need more confidence to make them journey to view at dealers they know nothing about.People don't always believe review sites or the "about us" stuff on websites.I am thinking of something like an Ofsted for car dealers.Dealers have to pay say £200 and you send some responsible person like an ex cop to inspect dealers premises,take photos and make a report.This could  be based on dealer origin,stock presentation,workshop,showroom or display facilities,proprietors or sales managers CV,staff qualifications or length of service etc or anything that will enhance the business.If the dealer likes the report,it can be I included on your website and people can view it by clicking onto Verified Dealer Profile etc.....You did ask for ideas.......I will now wait for the flak !

 

Trade Vet - Thanks so much for the reply! Some food for thought. The reason we are here on this forum, plus other forums is to find out what would be of real value to dealers, rather than just creating "another" classified site. we're mobile first (60%+ of all AT views are mobile). 

The thought process was......

Free for dealers for the first 3 months (Dealers interested prior to launch sign up)

We then have vehicles on, dealers play with it, we then get valuable feed back about whats good, missing thats of value to dealers, bad and changes to be made. 

We make changes then officially go live. 

For us, its all dealer led to work FOR dealers. The other thing to note is that, we know that for the first 3 months, its about getting dealers vehicles on and public visiting it. Therefore, theres no financial penalty for dealers putting stock on with us as,(we're not daft) cars may not sell due to low traffic

BUT.....we've got to start somewhere! 

2 hours ago, sparky said:

Well I really hope you can be the Levi Roots of the motoring advertising world but  I'm a tad sceptical to say the least. All the best with it though.

Hi Sparky, We have sleepless nights and doubt ourselves sometimes too! I know i do as the creator of this. Many sleepless nights and remortgaging etc! 

I wouldnt do that if i didnt believe there was a better way to work than AT(i know other competitors out there but none seem to get it right)

Anyhow, Would you give it a go for first 3 months free? (no contract either BTW!)

[Gavin@Rousdon 137]

Motors, EbayMotors, Autovolo, CarGuru's, RAC Cars, I'm sure there are many more, all said they were going to break AT hold on the market. The truth is none have, not even come close. 

A company needs to come in and copy what autotrader do but make it better and it needs to be like that from day 1. It needs to be free for 12 months whilst spending £millions on marketing just to get dealers to cancel their AT contract. In reality its no good having 80% of Autotraders dealers use your site, you need 80% of Autotraders customers to cancel their contracts and come to you. Anything less and you are just a support act.

[metcars 397]

15 minutes ago, Gavin@Rousdon said:

A company needs to come in and copy what autotrader do but make it better

Define 'better'? I assume you mean better for the dealers not for AT. I can't imagine anyone taking over from AT and running hugely differently. AT's mistake was/is that they squeezed too much. But dealers will always be squeezed by advertisers, its a business too right? Yes new replacement AT can offer a few months free or a 'pen', but once the dust settles and the honeymoon period is over its back to normal. I am concerned that many guys feel this brave new world is going to be wonderful, I'd wait and see.

PS: I don't advertise on AT, just my opinion as an observer

[whitestone679231 113]

Autotrader got where they are by initially offering a web presence for free to dealers who advertised in the magazine, (at the time I laughed and said internet wot a load of bollox it will never catch on), even though I no longer give them any money I acknowledge that they are the market leaders and only a very well established cash rich existing company can build up to the level that will compete with them,,, the likes of e-bay, car gurus, motors etc are the ones that should be the credible threat, I doubt an unknown new comer could get a foot in the door, many have tried but soon given up.

[Gavin@Rousdon 137]

2 minutes ago, metcars said:

Define 'better'? I assume you mean better for the dealers not for AT. I can't imagine anyone taking over from AT and running hugely differently. AT's mistake was/is that they squeezed too much. But dealers will always be squeezed by advertisers, its a business too right? Yes new replacement AT can offer a few months free or a 'pen', but once the dust settles and the honeymoon period is over its back to normal. I am concerned that many guys feel this brave new world is going to be wonderful, I'd wait and see.

PS: I don't advertise on AT, just my opinion as an observer

Better as in drop the 'good price' etc, drop the finance adverts around it and make the adverts and site look good (which AT do)

7 minutes ago, whitestone679231 said:

Autotrader got where they are by initially offering a web presence for free to dealers who advertised in the magazine, (at the time I laughed and said internet wot a load of bollox it will never catch on), even though I no longer give them any money I acknowledge that they are the market leaders and only a very well established cash rich existing company can build up to the level that will compete with them,,, the likes of e-bay, car gurus, motors etc are the ones that should be the credible threat, I doubt an unknown new comer could get a foot in the door, many have tried but soon given up.

Thats the point, even the one's who haven't given up still only have 80% of the stock and have started doing what AT do, finance adverts around adverts etc. I'm afraid AT were ahead on the game when the internet took off, until an other massive revolution like the internet happens again which AT miss (like Yellow Pages 15 years ago) they are here to stay. 

[Dealer research 4]

24 minutes ago, Gavin@Rousdon said:

Better as in drop the 'good price' etc, drop the finance adverts around it and make the adverts and site look good (which AT do)

Thats the point, even the one's who haven't given up still only have 80% of the stock and have started doing what AT do, finance adverts around adverts etc. I'm afraid AT were ahead on the game when the internet took off, until an other massive revolution like the internet happens again which AT miss (like Yellow Pages 15 years ago) they are here to stay. 

Hi Gavin. Cheers for the feedback. Mint info there by the way with "good price" thing and also finance ads. That's already NOT on ours. 

However....How come it has to be free for 12 months? Why not 3 months or 6 months? We're playing around with 3 months currently to get stock on and TBH get feedback from dealers on what we can add, change to make it work better for them. 12 months is a bit of an ask? I dont know if any competitors of AT offered that initially? 

BTW i dont know so im just asking! 

Feedback im getting is majority wish there was a valid alternative to AT, but may not give us a chance even if it was free? 

Thoughts? 

Cheers again - Honestly, all the comments are mega cos we're crafting this as you give us feedback!

Dave

Sorry i should of also said....

For dealers willing/wanting to drop AT they need to be confident the newcomer is providing the same amount of leads (obvs if not more) to even consider dropping AT

Cheers

Dave

[Dealer research 4]

Henry Ford

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

[Gavin@Rousdon 137]

6 minutes ago, Dealer research said:

Hi Gavin. Cheers for the feedback. Mint info there by the way with "good price" thing and also finance ads. That's already NOT on ours. 

However....How come it has to be free for 12 months? Why not 3 months or 6 months? We're playing around with 3 months currently to get stock on and TBH get feedback from dealers on what we can add, change to make it work better for them. 12 months is a bit of an ask? I dont know if any competitors of AT offered that initially? 

BTW i dont know so im just asking! 

Feedback im getting is majority wish there was a valid alternative to AT, but may not give us a chance even if it was free? 

Thoughts? 

Cheers again - Honestly, all the comments are mega cos we're crafting this as you give us feedback!

Dave

It doesn't matter if it's free for 3 months, 6 months or 6 years, unless you are going to match AT in advertising your product (as in your site) to the car buying public any site will fail. I spend near £3k a month with AT, they take that money and use maybe 50% of it to drive consumers to use their website and take the other 50% as profit (no idea what the split is in truth). It brings customers to me, I don't care how much they make. Unless you are prepared to have an advertising budget in the £10's of millions to get people using your product you can't compete. 

It's like what Manchester City had to do to get where they are today, spend millions after millions, loose millions after millions just to get near the other teams.  

5 minutes ago, Dealer research said:

Henry Ford

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

So he made something different to a horse. A car is vastly different

You are making a website, not that different to what AT done.

Maybe invent a drone that picks up cars from a dealer site and drops them onto a customers driveway, 30 minutes later the drone either returns which the car or with a BACS payment. Now that is different

[Dealer research 4]

12 minutes ago, Gavin@Rousdon said:

It doesn't matter if it's free for 3 months, 6 months or 6 years, unless you are going to match AT in advertising your product (as in your site) to the car buying public any site will fail. I spend near £3k a month with AT, they take that money and use maybe 50% of it to drive consumers to use their website and take the other 50% as profit (no idea what the split is in truth). It brings customers to me, I don't care how much they make. Unless you are prepared to have an advertising budget in the £10's of millions to get people using your product you can't compete. 

It's like what Manchester City had to do to get where they are today, spend millions after millions, loose millions after millions just to get near the other teams.  

So he made something different to a horse. A car is vastly different

You are making a website, not that different to what AT done.

Maybe invent a drone that picks up cars from a dealer site and drops them onto a customers driveway, 30 minutes later the drone either returns which the car or with a BACS payment. Now that is different

Hi Gavin

That sounds mint! We can only try. I do honestly know what your saying BTW. 

Its what we've thought about for the past 18 months, We're s*^%ting it but confident too. we need Dealers to help us. 

we've got something which is different to AT. What dealers think of it is another thing, thats why we're here to recruit Dealers to try it and give us feedback. 

The whole process was for this to be built around dealers using their input. 

On the marketing side. AT spent approx £15 million on Marketing last year. They are an old dinosaur in this new digital world (albeit a T Rex!)

The amount we budgeted to spend on marketing is a miniscule amount compared but....

New school advertising vs Old school advertising is stupidly good value for money. not just in terms of cost but in terms of targeting a very specific audience. Why do you need to carpet bomb EVERYONE in the UK. Why not just people who are looking for cars? but then even better why not spend advertising money on people who are specifically looking for a Ford Focus? 

Traditional ad spend (tv, papers, magazines etc) costs £28 per 1000 people (approx)

Digital spend (online) costs £2.50 per 1000 (approx) but is HIGHLY targeted

Cheers

Dave

 

[trade vet 702]

Dave.....as I recall,like the AT mag back in 82?,their website was never free from the outset.We were spending over a grand per week in the mag,I think we may have gone on for £1 per car.There is plenty of room for you in this market and you don't need to charge much when you see AT doing 49% net profit.I have just spotted another site CarsinKent,it has 8000 cars,loads of dealers and I imagine they are making money.I hope you do well and if you do,AT will just buy you out.Good Luck.

Dave.....as I recall,like the AT mag back in 82?,their website was never free from the outset.We were spending over a grand per week in the mag,I think we may have gone on for £1 per car.There is plenty of room for you in this market and you don't need to charge much when you see AT doing 49% net profit.I have just spotted another site CarsinKent,it has 8000 cars,loads of dealers and I imagine they are making money.I hope you do well and if you do,AT will just buy you out.Good Luck.

[grant8064 219]

Best of luck with it.

I'll have three months of any advertising for free

[Dealer research 4]

13 minutes ago, trade vet said:

Dave.....as I recall,like the AT mag back in 82?,their website was never free from the outset.We were spending over a grand per week in the mag,I think we may have gone on for £1 per car.There is plenty of room for you in this market and you don't need to charge much when you see AT doing 49% net profit.I have just spotted another site CarsinKent,it has 8000 cars,loads of dealers and I imagine they are making money.I hope you do well and if you do,AT will just buy you out.Good Luck.

Dave.....as I recall,like the AT mag back in 82?,their website was never free from the outset.We were spending over a grand per week in the mag,I think we may have gone on for £1 per car.There is plenty of room for you in this market and you don't need to charge much when you see AT doing 49% net profit.I have just spotted another site CarsinKent,it has 8000 cars,loads of dealers and I imagine they are making money.I hope you do well and if you do,AT will just buy you out.Good Luck.

Cheers Trade vet!

Really appreciate the positive words. We're not here to take dealers for all they've got. We think there is a better way to do this and....

Ask dealers what that should be

Make that site for dealers

Get dealers uploading cars (for free for 3 months, longer if dealers think it should honestly be longer)

Get the general public on

Sell cars!!!

Cheers and any other comments (bad or good) are welcome! 

Have a strong rest of the week

Dave

 

7 minutes ago, grant8064 said:

Best of luck with it.

I'll have three months of any advertising for free

Of course you can...theres a catch...we just ask for £5k upfront first

BTW we're joking. Only thing we will ask you for is feedback on your thoughts on it and if you'd change anything. 

Be in touch as we get closer. 

Thanks for giving us a chance. 

[Max Branning 149]

What exactly are you going to do marketing wise so that joe public know you exist?

Even if you have every single dealer in the country advertising their stock on your site, unless joe public actually use it to search for their next purchase and the dealer knows without shadow of a doubt that that lead came from your site, there is no way any dealer is going to sign a contract and hand you over cash ( not for long anyway )

Put yourself in the mind of a buyer who maybe has not got a clue where to look for a car, what comes to their mind first.

I have tried several options to AT that were all a waste of cash AA cars / Motors / RAC all dead money for me. Ebay is the only real competitor for AT for me as it actually brings in leads for a good value contract.

Do you honestly believe you can offer more and have a bigger budget than AA  / Motors / RAC and do something that they could not....?

[Dealer research 4]

2 minutes ago, Max Branning said:

What exactly are you going to do marketing wise so that joe public know you exist?

Even if you have every single dealer in the country advertising their stock on your site, unless joe public actually use it to search for their next purchase and the dealer knows without shadow of a doubt that that lead came from your site, there is no way any dealer is going to sign a contract and hand you over cash ( not for long anyway )

Put yourself in the mind of a buyer who maybe has not got a clue where to look for a car, what comes to their mind first.

I have tried several options to AT that were all a waste of cash AA cars / Motors / RAC all dead money for me. Ebay is the only real competitor for AT for me as it actually brings in leads for a good value contract.

Do you honestly believe you can offer more and have a bigger budget than AA  / Motors / RAC and do something that they could not....?

Hi Max, 

Cheers for the message. 

Short answer is yes. 

Yes as in, we have a better offering to dealers (not just our charges) and yes as in the Public because AT isnt perfect (thats also what dealers have been telling me here)

We dont have the budget of AA, Motors etc. but we dont need the budget either. There are more cost effective ways to reach audiences. 

I know what dealers want in the end.......Cars being sold! and thats the number 1 priority. Do you need to be charged 3k for the privileged? no you dont.

I suppose though, the proofs in the pudding. We're un tested and potentially living in cloud cuckoo land but you've got to try and take on the big players, worst case we miss and lose everything, then get a job, either way for dealers another potential competitor may give AT another nudge at the fact, they need to change something for you guys. 

We've got to try. My passion is cars, I use AT EVERY DAY, just browsing cars, i thought there was a better way and here i am. I've put everything into it, remortgaged, actually said no to investment from "a dragon" (was that stupid? possibly but i thought, if they are interested, others will be). If we didnt try we'd never do anything. 

Its a dream that i'm trying to bring to life! 

Cheers and have a strong week 

Dave

[Max Branning 149]

If you really could of got a dragon on board then that is the kind of help you would need to get noticed by the public.

When someone wakes up in the morning and decides they want to go out and buy a new car where is the first place they are going to think of looking?

Obviously it is not all just AT but unless people are purposefully going to your site to search then its going nowhere as no dealer will pay for it and then you cant generate any revenue to keep it going, unless you are relying  on advertisements to prop it up?

Im still not sure if this is a wind up thread though to be honest !

[Dealer research 4]

4 minutes ago, Max Branning said:

If you really could of got a dragon on board then that is the kind of help you would need to get noticed by the public.

When someone wakes up in the morning and decides they want to go out and buy a new car where is the first place they are going to think of looking?

Obviously it is not all just AT but unless people are purposefully going to your site to search then its going nowhere as no dealer will pay for it and then you cant generate any revenue to keep it going, unless you are relying  on advertisements to prop it up?

Im still not sure if this is a wind up thread though to be honest !

Cheers Max, First of all, its not a wind up. Release 1st August as a web holding page explaining exactly how were different and to sign up for an alert on the launch. That TBH is pretty much aimed at dealers. 

Launch is 1st October. I should say we're App first focused...again this was based on research.  

No ads with what we're doing. No finance quote things etc. 

The reason we are on here (and other forums) is to honestly find out what this app should do for dealers and what it shouldnt do. What AT does well, but what it doesnt do well, then make that for you. If we miss then so be it. We've given it a go. 

Dragon side. honestly thats what i thought but....my thinking was this. That would, at best, be 3/4 public messages about investment then radio silence and they move on (but still have a lions share of us). so we'd be giving away alot of the company for 3 or 4 public messages. people soon forget about what so and so said a month ago...hope you see where im coming from. Of course those kind words would be mint, but as soon as the dust settles, we're on our own with hardly any compan owned by us. 

Cheers

Dave. 

P.S Would you give us a go for free? 

[Gavin@Rousdon 137]

It won't work.............it just won't. 

We have heard it all before. It gets boring after a while. 

Motors were going to clean up a few years ago, they was going to be a dealer council listening to dealers and much more. Now it's just a shite clunky website that looks worse then AT and may sell you a few cars a month if you are lucky. I would hate to think how much Cox Automotive lost trying. I'm sure they have wrote off the loss so on paper it makes a decent profit, you rarely see a TV advert for them now so they aren't pushing it hard anymore. The truth is they had that money to loose.

I'm with MAx, its a wind up threat. All talk and zero to show, no name, no website, no mock up website, nothing.