RAC Cars to be bigger than Auto Trader?

[James Baggott 227]

Half a million cars by the end of the year. That's what RAC Cars hope will be the case as they pass the 200k mark.

That would make the site bigger than Auto Trader in terms of volume of cars.

What do you think? Can they do it? Should Trader be worried? Let me know

http://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/rac-cars-reaches-200000-milestone/92873

[Phil H 124]

I think AT should be worried not just from the likes of the RAC but from the backlash from the dealers who for years have seen the prices that we pay for advertising go up year on year well above the rate of inflation, I spoke to one dealer the other day whose AT bill was now nearly £6000 per month and showed him a portal that I've been developing for some time now that has the ability to really take a lot of business off several of the big boys in different sectors of the job including AT and he was amazed by it. His exact words where I've been telling AT for years that it's not the big boys that you need to watch out for but for the little boy who comes up with something revolutionary and can run it for a fraction of the costs of a big organization and he believes what I've got is it. Only time will tell but it'll certainly give them a run for their money and stop dealers margins being eroded by the big boys. 

[Tom 164]

They'd have more cars on RAC if I could get registered before 2020  Sounds more trouble than its worth

Edited June 22, 2015 by TML CARS LIMITED

[countryman 13]

To my mind, the problem that the RAC faces is not one of volume of cars advertised, but of brand.

Whilst I accept that the RAC is a well known 'household brand', it is not known for advertising cars for sale. Whilst a high number of vehicles listed for sale will undoubtedly help its organic Google rankings, it would need to spend millions on TV advertising over (at least) a 3 year period to enter the public's consciousness. Just look at what motors.co.uk has spent.

That said, Auto Trader's biggest enemy is itself - it has a lethal combination of complacency and greed. Its business model surely relies on people ONLY looking at the Auto Trader website for their next car. As the number of cars advertised by Auto Trader starts to fall and the number advertised by their competitors increase, more and more consumers will look at other sites to find the car they want.

I firmly believe that only a small number of customers would look only on the Auto Trader website for their next car. I know if I am looking to make a major purchase, be it a fridge or a house, I would not look only at Curry's or the Rightmove website.

So the task in hand for any competitor to Auto Trader is that of awareness.

[jimreidvehicle 255]

If they can communicate the message to the retail customer that AT isn't the only place to look then yes they can be a real threat to AT, but the cost of getting that message out there is massive and is the 'brand image' right for the digital market and the younger user?

[Steve92 80]

I'm completely new to all of this and usually see things from the other side of the fence, however as a private purchaser it would depend on what I'm looking to buy and what budget I have. You guys will have vastly more experience than me but as an example,

i wanted a mini, so looked mainly at the mini cherished website, I did look at autotrader too but the actually car I found was mini direct. I also searched for mini specialists I found the best cars were usually in the dealer network and were not always advertised on autotrader.

bangers, in the past 5 years I've had 4, all have come via eBay in the form of classified adds, all were less than £600 and were in the good days of having tax and mot. Gumtree was the other source for cheapies.

Our Audi TT came from pistonheads as I found that this kind of car was more common on there, it was a private sale too. Currently I'm toying with the idea of a mk1 focus rs, for this I will search eBay, pistonheads and owners forums. There are plenty of mk2 rs's on autotrader but very few mk1's.

how do you guys find the other advertising streams ? I can honestly say that I have searched Motors probably once in my lifetime.

[RH Trading 80]

Last week signed up to RAC cars, my AT bill is £1200 a month so will be ditching if I get any sales

[sparky 274]

.

I firmly believe that only a small number of customers would look only on the Auto Trader website for their next car. I know if I am looking to make a major purchase, be it a fridge or a house, I would not look only at Curry's or the Rightmove website.

 

​That was my  reasoning behind my decision to ditch AT and your probably right, yet when push comes to shove how come many sensible dealers (myself inculded) ignore this view and go running back to AT or simply refuse to ditch them in the first place when there are so many other platforms out there?

 

I suppose the good news is the big players want a piece of that huge pie (one that keeps getting bigger) so in theory that should be good news for the rest of us. I doubt at this moment in time AT are worried, they don't do worry, Motors on the other hand, sadly I can't see this being good for them.

 

 

[James Baggott 227]

Interesting stuff chaps. Keep your thoughts coming

[umesh 336]

Biggest challenge - 'where do consumers' search ! ! 

When everyone starts to simply search in 'Google- / Bing ( Who uses Bing?) prime example - think most of us 'Google' '  and your car comes up in the natural search off your website its going to be the cheapest and best until then we're all going to be using AT, Motors, AA, RAC, eBay, Pistonheads , gumtree, ++++ and sadly with so many platforms to advertise on, ALL claiming to 'bring' results , all adding up to a a lot ££££££ per month spend on trying to get the right customers to buy.

I'm happy to spend lets say £1k a month if I sell off that platform and make £3k - its difficult to justify spending £1k - making £1k who am I working for then?

All about value and ROI ! I guess this debate will go on and on ...

[jimreidvehicle 255]

Agree UMESH, we don't spend money directly withGoogle on SEO, instead invest in AA Cars & Motors who you will find gain most of their leas they sent to us from Google Searches which makes me think would I be better of paying the. £400+ per month with Google rather than AA and Motors? Or even better spend that budget on promoting my own company on Facebook direct to my local community? Bit one thing I don't miss is the massive invoice from Autotrader every month! 

The difficulty for the motortrade if we all knew there was only one place where you were guaranteed to get calls, appointments and sales from then we would only ever use them , but sadly AT can't even guarantee this 

[Philip Nothard 26]

Interesting, when you hear statistics such as RAC having currently 100k views per month compared to Autotrader 8m. 

The question as always however, is how many are genuine buyers in the market, how many are dealers price comparing and the old 'car porn'?

How do these numbers stack up against Motors and the others? 

 

[jimreidvehicle 255]

Guys, I think we are all missing the point a little here! IT IS FREE!

I agree that most if not all of us ( if we do advertise on AT) will get better results from advertising on Autotrader, but look at your end of month invoice from them (I don't get one) and check it against the RAC invoice you get!

Get it now?

If all car dealers advertise on RAC free and the public start to understand the benefits of only having one website to look through to find there next car knowing that ALL the cars are on there, THEY WILL START USING IT, cause guess what the general public have as much loyalty to AT as AT have to car dealers! IMHO

Edited June 25, 2015 by jimreidvehicle
Adding it's free

[Philip Nothard 26]

Agree, consumers/buyers receive the choice and where they search in ever increasing.  There are many examples of successful businesses that don't rely on ONE consumer platform; however, as challengers have demonstrated - it's a case of getting a return on investment (cost and time). Any new challengers to the market, give both the sellers (dealers) and buyers 'choice' - which is always a good thing and not forgetting, it keeps everyone on their toes........

[c_cars 56]

Just a side note but along the same lines of advertising..

We've just put in a cancellation request with Motors as a lot more of our business is coming from other means and magically our account manager has managed to half our monthly invoice and is calling us 3 times a day to discuss retaining us.. A lot more than we got with AT!

[Philip Nothard 26]

It's a shame that to receive the correct customer service, you have to resort to such measures.  No consumer classified platform, has a business without the support from the dealer network.............they are the clients!!!! 

[RH Trading 80]

I'm on RAC now and its free! - make hay while the sun shines as no doubt it wont be free for ever, not had a call yet, its only been 10 days but even if I sell 1 car a year its cost me nothing!

[Jacielee 1]

it is free and will continue to be free, the RAC and RAC Cars will not be charging for the service, to make it work then the dealers also have to play a part and advertise their stock for free... the numbers will grow, the marketing will kick in and the RAC Members and the general public will start using a site where brand is a major factor and supporting the dealer and the consumer work 

[countryman 13]

I have had, what I consider to be, an excellent business idea. It has the added bonus that, if successful, would make a serious dent in Auto Trader's business.

If anybody has a large amount of money to invest, or some serious contacts - give me a call on 01342 457071

 

[Phil H 124]

Ok AT have 8m views per month, alexa say they have an average of 15.33 page views per visitor per day so if you divide 8m by 15.33 you get 521852.5766 visitors per month, these are not unique visitors just visitors. Now AT say that they have 26254 dealers that advertise with them so lets assume that these dealers check their adverts once a week for pricing and advert presentation that's 105016 visitors accounted for, when I was using AT I used to check my adverts (I only used to advertise 5 maximum at any one time) for pricing at least twice a week so if every dealer does the same as me then that would account for 210032 visitors, if they checked their adverts 3 times a week as I believe most people do especially when the job goes quiet then that figure would increase to 315048 visitors from the trade which would actually mean that more people from the trade are using AT to check pricing than potential customers. I would be interested in your thoughts on this especially on how many times a week you check your own adverts so that maybe we can get a more accurate picture on this. Also I'm not sure if the 26254 dealers that AT say advertise with them are just dealer edit customers or include those who advertise on a per advert basis so the number of trade visitors could be a lot higher.

NOW AT I know that you'll be reading this post with interest and I think a public thank you on this post is due for me taking the time to call your dealer call centre and press the option for security, wait 15 mins on hold on the phone, then call your sales line and get straight through to someone to inform you about the security vulnerability that I found within your website only to be told that someone will call me back within 24 hours. They have called me back and I have informed your security team about it who have now fixed it. May I say for the record that it's the quickest return phone call that I have ever had from your company. 

[James Baggott 227]

Auto Trader partners with Trusted Dealers, in latest development...

http://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/nfdas-trusted-dealers-teams-up-with-auto-trader/92978

[sparky 274]

Auto Trader partners with Trusted Dealers, in latest development...

http://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/nfdas-trusted-dealers-teams-up-with-auto-trader/92978

​I've got to be honest, I'd never heard of Trusted Dealers until today.

[Philip Nothard 26]

This year is certainly turning out to be very interesting, as the dynamics change.  The only question I would have, is how will it change Trusted Dealers - many of us can remember when Autotrade-Mail sold out to AT and become too commercialised?  

[countryman 13]

​I've got to be honest, I'd never heard of Trusted Dealers until today.

​Me either. But it's irrelevant anyway, as it isn't for independent dealers - only 'approved' dealers, whatever they might be.

The site's rubbish anyway, painfully slow and only a handful of dealer groups advertising on there anyway with a useless search mechanism.

However, it does prove that Auto Trader have very little interest in smaller independent garages.

[Phil H 124]

Ok I'm confused as to who actually owns Trusted Dealers if you do a whois search for the domain name you only get a limited company number 7342935, so you check that number at companies house and you get trusted dealers ltd and the registered address in Northampton, then you google that address and you get perrys group ltd with the phone number 01604 667300, so you google that number and you get perrys motor sales ltd with the website perrys.co.uk. Google perrys head office and you get the same number and the same address. Confused? So am I.  Can anyone tell me exactly who owns Trusted Dealers or is it just the NFDA in partnership with perrys who are now in partnership with AT. One thing this exercise should teach you is that the internet is not only for looking at naughty pictures.