WHAT DO DEALERS ACTUALLY WANT?

[SuperSteve88 0]

Hi All 

Im fairly new to this so not sure if this is the right place to post but we are considering launching a new platform for car dealers all over the UK. 

The question is what do you actually want and how much are you willing to pay for it? 

There has been a lot of negative feedback about the price of Auto Trader etc... but what is it you guys actual want/ need ? 

No point re-inventing the wheel or creating something now one is interested in so to cut through all the BS..

What do you want (in as much detail as you can)

How much do you want to pay (A number please) 

 

[metcars 397]

An Autotrader, but not run for profit?

[Del Boy 76]

Autotrader, without price markers and other BS stats etc.

For free

[SuperSteve88 0]

OK im not sure about the not making profit bit... I don't think any of us work fro free, but I get that its overly expensive. 

Could you give me some price brackets so I can understand the greedy beast a bit better?

[Nick M.K. 574]

19 minutes ago, SuperSteve88 said:

OK im not sure about the not making profit bit... I don't think any of us work fro free, but I get that its overly expensive. 

Could you give me some price brackets so I can understand the greedy beast a bit better?

Of course: 

My AT for 13 cars is £1200 + VAT a month. 

My Motors.co.uk for 20 cars is £88 + VAT a month. 

I don't know for other dealers but I'd love a platform JUST LIKE Autotrader that works for me JUST AS WELL AS Autotrader and that costs me JUST A LITTLE BIT more than Motors.co.uk

[trade vet 704]

There are plenty of poor performing alternative platforms to AT but because AT have been around for 40 years they are the market leader.

However AT is now costing dealers £150 to £200 per sale depending on your contract.That is far too much as this is now a low net margin business.It would be nice if it was £50 to £60 per sale but there is no chance of that and AT make so much money ( they are valued at several billion ) they could afford to lose 60% of their business and they would still be making millions.So forget it Steve unless you have £100 million to set up,do the TV advertising and operate for a few years at a loss,you would be wasting your time trying to take them on.

[David Horgan 564]

1 hour ago, SuperSteve88 said:

Hi All 

Im fairly new to this so not sure if this is the right place to post but we are considering launching a new platform for car dealers all over the UK. 

The question is what do you actually want and how much are you willing to pay for it? 

There has been a lot of negative feedback about the price of Auto Trader etc... but what is it you guys actual want/ need ? 

No point re-inventing the wheel or creating something now one is interested in so to cut through all the BS..

What do you want (in as much detail as you can)

How much do you want to pay (A number please) 

 

First thing you need to show us is how are you going compete with Autotraders Market penetration , Lots of sites have spent Millions setting up to disappear a short while later  .

One called FIND & Fund spent fortunes , charged us £50 a month advertised on TV spending millions and was invented by Moto Novo Finance , dropped on its head and now limps along as a free site doing nothing at all .

Asking us what we want is the wrong way round , Spend your £100 million on a site and tell us how much its going to cost us , remember Autotrader has the benefit of YEARS of penetrating peoples heads with their name , that's the only reason it works and its why the others cant catch them , which is why they charge so much , simple economics really . 

Then of course the way people search nowadays is changing too , heard of GOOGLE well that's how i sold the last 4 cars , Customer wants a Renault Megane in Black so he GOOGLES RS megane in Black and what happens ? ours popped in front of him so he rang . 

Good luck but my god its not going to be an easy ride unless your loaded with over 100's of millions of ££££££££'s and if you are then you don't need to think about it really do you ? 

[Screenman 47]

To be fair on AT they only made £294,285 profit per employee of which they have 710. Yeh! maybe a tad excessive, how did I miss that boat.

[SuperSteve88 0]

1 hour ago, trade vet said:

There are plenty of poor performing alternative platforms to AT but because AT have been around for 40 years they are the market leader.

However AT is now costing dealers £150 to £200 per sale depending on your contract.That is far too much as this is now a low net margin business.It would be nice if it was £50 to £60 per sale but there is no chance of that and AT make so much money ( they are valued at several billion ) they could afford to lose 60% of their business and they would still be making millions.So forget it Steve unless you have £100 million to set up,do the TV advertising and operate for a few years at a loss,you would be wasting your time trying to take them on.

Well funny you should mention that. 

my business was just purchased by a large PE firm which has given me a bit of spare cash and time. 

Moreover my business was & is lead generation in a much more difficult sector than the automotive world. I was responsible for generating over 10,000 sales per month. So getting good business through the door at a fair price is my speciality. really appreciate all the feedback its really helping me paint a picture. 

[justina3 518]

Firstly I would try the search button this topic has been done to death and back. 

[SuperSteve88 0]

51 minutes ago, David Horgan said:

First thing you need to show us is how are you going compete with Autotraders Market penetration , Lots of sites have spent Millions setting up to disappear a short while later  .

One called FIND & Fund spent fortunes , charged us £50 a month advertised on TV spending millions and was invented by Moto Novo Finance , dropped on its head and now limps along as a free site doing nothing at all .

Asking us what we want is the wrong way round , Spend your £100 million on a site and tell us how much its going to cost us , remember Autotrader has the benefit of YEARS of penetrating peoples heads with their name , that's the only reason it works and its why the others cant catch them , which is why they charge so much , simple economics really . 

Then of course the way people search nowadays is changing too , heard of GOOGLE well that's how i sold the last 4 cars , Customer wants a Renault Megane in Black so he GOOGLES RS megane in Black and what happens ? ours popped in front of him so he rang . 

Good luck but my god its not going to be an easy ride unless your loaded with over 100's of millions of ££££££££'s and if you are then you don't need to think about it really do you ? 

I think a lot of these sites are silly doing the same thing over and over and clearly there's already a king if you just want to do the same thing. 

You are 100% correct the way people search has changed, peoples demands are higher and they're a lot tighter with their money. 

So I suppose we should look at this another way, ego and salesmanship aside how much does it cost on average to sell a car? Does it work on a percentage so higher value cars cost more to sell ? 

 

[NOACROSS 414]

You can have the best shiny site in the world. Getting people to see it is of course the issue. 
Car Gurus ‘may’ be on to an idea/ something different where they get your car to pop up on people’s browsers via (I guess) cookies. Of course, the problem there is they can’t get everyone’s cars on all the time and otherwise rely on people searching and clicking through? Still early days there.

Find and Fund now there’s a white elephant  Far as I could see they never spent the money correctly. Should have pushed the google rankings with the money as not sure the TV advertising hit the mark. Shame  

A streamlined/cheaper SEO would be good, but I don’t know anything about the ins and outs of all that or indeed any of it. . I guess the standard economy’s of scale don’t work there. 
 

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by NOACROSS

[sparky 274]

I want to break free. 

[NOACROSS 414]

2 minutes ago, sparky said:

I want to break free. 

Ha.  Love it. ‘Free from your lies, you’re so....self satisfied....’ :0)

[Mark101 536]

The trouble is if someone finally knocks AT from their perch, they will soon start increasing pricing and we would be back to square one.

[David Horgan 564]

16 hours ago, SuperSteve88 said:

So I suppose we should look at this another way, ego and salesmanship aside how much does it cost on average to sell a car? Does it work on a percentage so higher value cars cost more to sell

Irrelevant question really as it all depends on how fast a car sells doesn't it regarding cost per car , A car can be on 1 hour or 90 days , customers are the controlling force to that and lady luck sometimes 

No it doesn't work on car values as to the percentage price to sell , if that was a case the site wouldn't attract the expensive stock .

So your answer is anything from a £1 as a nominal fee to load to a few £100 , 

This is not the secret to a site that performs well though , ITS MKT PENETRATION ,  the site HAS to get the cars under customers noses . Cant do that it WONT work . That's not easy or someone would compete with Autotrader 

I see the expense of paying a site as a business decision , 1 ; charge me £200 a month and it doesnt work its a waste of money  as it £2,400 a year down the drain ,2;  charge me £2,000 a month and i sell 40 cars a month then  its a better business proposition isn't it .

 

[Kes 7]

On 1/4/2020 at 3:13 PM, SuperSteve88 said:

How much do you want to pay (A number please) 

20

[justlooking 48]

On 1/4/2020 at 5:58 PM, SuperSteve88 said:

I think a lot of these sites are silly doing the same thing over and over and clearly there's already a king if you just want to do the same thing. 

You are 100% correct the way people search has changed, peoples demands are higher and they're a lot tighter with their money. 

So I suppose we should look at this another way, ego and salesmanship aside how much does it cost on average to sell a car? Does it work on a percentage so higher value cars cost more to sell ? 

 

Depends each month.

autoraper bill £1000 per month

sometimes sell 5 per month from it, £200 per sale

sometimes sell more, sometimes less 

[Earunder 69]

On 1/4/2020 at 3:13 PM, SuperSteve88 said:

Hi All 

Im fairly new to this so not sure if this is the right place to post but we are considering launching a new platform for car dealers all over the UK. 

The question is what do you actually want and how much are you willing to pay for it? 

There has been a lot of negative feedback about the price of Auto Trader etc... but what is it you guys actual want/ need ? 

No point re-inventing the wheel or creating something now one is interested in so to cut through all the BS..

What do you want (in as much detail as you can)

How much do you want to pay (A number please) 

 

As others have said, unless you have a starting block of, let's say 200,000 vehicles advertised to start you off or a multi million pound backer I wouldn't waste your time.  There are hundreds of free advertising sites out there that have been lost into emptiness due to the competitive field that this is.

My current spend with AT is £11,152.68 inc VAT per month (Includes Premium, Dealer Finance, Lead Generator @ £200.00 p/m - which we are kicking this month) but the ROI has been shrinking due to the margins in the industry going down significantly in the last 18 months.  It hasn't been helped with the big supermarkets now focusing on finance retention and working off their finance commission as a primary source of income and moving vehicles on for a "over head cost margin".

We're in the process of re-structuring and lowering overheads as I think this year will prove quite a testing time for most of us in this industry.

On a good note for us, Ebay will be launching their new platform this year which I've been looking forward to since their bought out Motors.  That should be good news for our advertising costs.  This in my eyes would mean lower costs all round due to CarGurus, Ebay and Autotrader all plying for our business like it used to and should be!!  Even Exchange and Mart and The Loot don't even bother in this field.

That alone should give you a brief, and to be honest enough insight into this industry and to maybe try something different.  

[Craig F 0]

Hi Steve

If you are serious about this (which it sounds like you are) and have some experience in your field, please do give me a call as I can put you in touch with someone on the same page and may be of assistance.

Regards

Craig Fleming 

[MattR 177]

1 hour ago, Earunder said:

As others have said, unless you have a starting block of, let's say 200,000 vehicles advertised to start you off or a multi million pound backer I wouldn't waste your time.  There are hundreds of free advertising sites out there that have been lost into emptiness due to the competitive field that this is.

My current spend with AT is £11,152.68 inc VAT per month (Includes Premium, Dealer Finance, Lead Generator @ £200.00 p/m - which we are kicking this month) but the ROI has been shrinking due to the margins in the industry going down significantly in the last 18 months.  It hasn't been helped with the big supermarkets now focusing on finance retention and working off their finance commission as a primary source of income and moving vehicles on for a "over head cost margin".

We're in the process of re-structuring and lowering overheads as I think this year will prove quite a testing time for most of us in this industry.

On a good note for us, Ebay will be launching their new platform this year which I've been looking forward to since their bought out Motors.  That should be good news for our advertising costs.  This in my eyes would mean lower costs all round due to CarGurus, Ebay and Autotrader all plying for our business like it used to and should be!!  Even Exchange and Mart and The Loot don't even bother in this field.

That alone should give you a brief, and to be honest enough insight into this industry and to maybe try something different.  

11152.68?? how many cars is that??

[Earunder 69]

2 minutes ago, MattR said:

11152.68?? how many cars is that??

72 + 8 "Bonus"

[NOACROSS 414]

   26 minutes ago,  MattR said: 

11152.68 (a month)?? how many cars is that??

72 + 8 "Bonus"

 

30 minutes ago, Earunder said:

72 + 8 "Bonus"

F.Me. Ouch! Different world. 134 grand a year to AT.  Wow. I’m sure I was ‘only’ paying 4 grand a month to the robbers for 50 plus. Was a few years ago mind. 

It must work for you I suppose. Or at least has until recently. Or perceived to have been. 
 

Yeah, I’d be seriously questioning how to spend a fair bit of that elsewhere- but then you seem to be of the same conclusion. 

[Earunder 69]

3 minutes ago, NOACROSS said:

   26 minutes ago,  MattR said: 

11152.68 (a month)?? how many cars is that??

72 + 8 "Bonus"

 

F.Me. Ouch! Different world. 134 grand a year to AT.  Wow. I’m sure I was ‘only’ paying 4 grand a month to the robbers for 50 plus. Was a few years ago mind. 

It must work for you I suppose. Or at least has until recently. Or perceived to have been. 
 

Yeah, I’d be seriously questioning how to spend a fair bit of that elsewhere- but then you seem to be of the same conclusion. 

Yup it is pretty insane.  I do a (And so should everyone, can't recommend it enough) quarterly review on all our advertising platforms and AT currently sits 2nd for ROI, although dropping due to the margin changes.

We will either be downgrading the premium and upping our numbers or downgrading our numbers and keeping premium.  Main thing I can point out as a little tip is that there is no point advertising all of your stock on AutoTrader now with their relevance order as if it hasn't got over 35 pictures, a video, priced at a maximum of 97.4% then it won't get seem with decent views.  Don't listen to the reps motto of "If it isn't advertised, it isn't seen" as that's "irrelevant" with their new "relevance" search... Don't know if you saw what I just did there.

It's all Hit and Miss really as it depends what stock you have to what stock your competitor has at the time of advertising.  There's times a car comes in and out within 48 hours due to no one else having it locally and someone looking at that point in time and then there's other times when I buy it and no one has it to the time it's advertised there's 20 available.  All Hit and Miss and ifs and buts with a slight bit of general good luck.

 

[trade vet 704]

2 hours ago, Earunder said:

72 + 8 "Bonus"

72 @11 grand per month,I think you need big refund,they are ripping you off.