What is the best automotive website provider?

[Megan 0]

Hi,

 

I am a small car dealership looking for an affordable website solution. I am not very internet savvy but acknowledge the importance of having a good website and reaching out to people online. I wondered if you could all help me? How do I go about getting a website sorted for my business? What provider does everyone else use, and why? I need my website to be found online too so I imagine i'll need some sort of marketing to go alongside.

 

Any ideas??

[BCC 9]

Id personally just get a small independant web developer to make you one, doesn't cost a lot for a decent site and saves paying out monthly. I personally think its looks a lot more professional than the template Auto Trader or Clickdealer ones.

[Arfur Dealy 823]

 CarDealer5 without a shadow of doub

[Row 71]

CarDealer5 gets my vote too.

[Jon 2]

Cardealer5 for me too.

[rich89 11]

Guys suggesting Cardealer5, I was originally with Net Director who charged an absolute fortune. It was costing well over £4k a year for a fully managed site, how does something like this compare? 

Are slight changes etc easy to do? 

Are the feeds to advertising sites seamless? I never quite got the full description sent over which meant I had to manually change every advert anyway.

[Bluechip Classics 7]

From memory I think the basic package is £360 plus vat a year, so sounds very competitive but I've no idea what 'basic' means.  

Think I'll be going down a bespoke route personally, likely to suit my requirements better 

[Rory RSC 596]

Bespoke has a major draw back without stock feeds and integration.

 

Click dealer are very, very good value for money with a superb helpful and friendly team. Some of the best in the business who always do what they say they will.

[Jimbo 11]

How much is click dealer?

how much would a basic-ish bespoke site with say 8-10 pages cost

[umesh 336]

click dealer are a great team but if you want just a good value for money site then dealer 5 - bespoke (as i have) does have issue with stock feed - just decide what you need/want/costs. 

[Bluechip Classics 7]

Sorry for the dumb question as I'm new to this, but I assume when you say stock feed you mean the ability to quickly upload photos and details of new stock?

Thanks in advance

Pad

[Rory RSC 596]

51 minutes ago, brightonpad said:

Sorry for the dumb question as I'm new to this, but I assume when you say stock feed you mean the ability to quickly upload photos and details of new stock?

Thanks in advance

Pad

With a lot of bespoke sites, I could be wrong. You have to advertise on the website, then ebay, then autotrader, then motors etc etc. Or as a minimum advertise to website, then autotrader and let autotrader feed to others.

 

With a managed site like a click dealer site you put one advert up on your website then it feeds to all of your platforms which is a bit easier going. Depends on the numbers.

 

To be honest a pro looking site is your shop window and in this game website cost is quite low down compared to other bills. A good and easy to use site will make a big difference.

[Jimbo 11]

How much are you guys paying for bespoke websites

[Bluechip Classics 7]

1 hour ago, Rory RSC said:

With a lot of bespoke sites, I could be wrong. You have to advertise on the website, then ebay, then autotrader, then motors etc etc. Or as a minimum advertise to website, then autotrader and let autotrader feed to others.

 

With a managed site like a click dealer site you put one advert up on your website then it feeds to all of your platforms which is a bit easier going. Depends on the numbers.

 

To be honest a pro looking site is your shop window and in this game website cost is quite low down compared to other bills. A good and easy to use site will make a big difference.

Understood, thanks for the explanation Rory.

cheers,

Pad

[grant8064 219]

I'd recommend Cardealer5 for smaller outfits trying to keep costs down and clickdealer for bigger firms.

Both are really good as others have said. Cardealer5 we used for approx 18 months and it's cheap, well presented and reasonably flexible for a template site.It basically does what it says and is no nonsense. A good product IMO.

Clickdealer costs significantly more but we've found greater SEO results, great finance integration, more flexibility and detail in the backroom software and a fantastic support team. It costs though so is more suited for slightly larger dealers I would suggest.

Clickdealer support though is second to none as far as i'm concerned...a great well trained team.

I wouldn't touch a bespoke tailor made site with a bargepole given that these two firms are out there and cover most ground between them.

 

[whitestone679231 113]

Click Dealer are about the best for value and service, been using them for a good few years now, no hassle and easy to use even for a dinosaur like me.

[Jimbo 11]

Whats the costs on them mate

[whitestone679231 113]

16 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Whats the costs on them mate

think its about 40 odd quid a week but give them a ring as they do different packages, ie our facefuck auto feeds through them etc, they are very approachable and don't give you the hard sell.

[Jimbo 11]

Looking at car dealer 5. 

The basic package is £360+ vat a year but isnt responsive. 

The next one up is £450 and is responsive. 

Is it worth getting it responsive so it shows on all tablets and desktops?

says it auto loads to AT and Ebay pro - i dont have ebay pro just use standard ebay so not sure how that would integrate. 

Interesting though

[trade vet 703]

Anybody heard of Wicks or there is Squarespace. Apparently it’s free to build a website and the hosting package is about £10 per month !

[Dealer 54]

Give New Star Media a look, quality websites with direct feeds to whichever avenues you choose to advertise with eg autotrader, eBay, motors, cf247 etc.