• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

TrueCar leads- getting worse and worse

sryan

Desk Monkey
Aug 18, 2012
59
8
First Name
S
For 12-18 months the dealership I am at generally get about 50-70 truecar leads w/ an engagement rate of about 40-45% and we generally sell 4-6 cars a month of of truecar

Take the past 3 months. Our dealership has been getting about 30-40% more leads, our engagement rate is at an all time low @ around 25-30% and we are selling less cars off of it.

Anyone know whats going on? I asked around and others have said the same, was wondering why there has not been a thread on this topic

Thanks!
 
I know the stock has taken a huge hit, Painter is gone, and then there's this guy all over the TV...

hqdefault.jpg


Telling people to get on their mobile phones and go to the dealership, see what others are paying for that same car. The worst place customers can be is in front of a dealer (not on truecar) with a price to beat! On the flip-side I'm guessing they thought they could get in the middle of some deals that were happening because of the perception that show-rooming is hurting them. Whatever the case, truecar is getting slaughtered here in our market, most of our dealers will get 5-10+ deals a month from them, none are truecar dealers.

I think Joe made this revelation a few weeks ago.
 
Telling people to get on their mobile phones and go to the dealership, see what others are paying for that same car.

I've noticed this more and more now that I'm out on the floor. I'll go in for a T.O. and see TrueCar on the customer's phone, which is fantastic for me because Mazda's advertising rules leave us a decent amount of profit. The customer feels great because TrueCar tells them they're getting a wonderful deal and I get a profitable deal without paying $299.

I noticed a trend about 5-6 months ago when I was in the BDC. Many of the leads we got were high up in the funnel from customers just trying to get an idea what cars cost these days, people we've already had a relationship with via another source, people at another dealership using it to negotiate, or people that have already bought curious if they got a good deal. It was becoming more rare to actually sell someone a car because they used the TrueCar service. In those cases it was mainly because they were partnered with someone like Consumer Reports which the customer implicitly trusted.
 
  • Useful
Reactions: Jeff Kershner
Well, some more news just out of the TrueCar camp --

Google’s autonomous car division will be headed up by TrueCar President John Krafcik starting Sept. 15, an announcement that caused TrueCar’s stock to fall 5.3% on Monday.

Krafcik’s departure comes on the heels of news that founder, Scott Painter, will vacate his CEO position by the end of the year... mjore


How much longer does TrueCar have at it's current structure...? 1,2,3 or 5 months before we see yet another failed industry disruption???