Have you all read your agreement with Cars.com and found any language stating they can share your data with 3rd parties, or push your data to any 3rd parties? I'd also look at your agreement date, the last time the vendor went up on price, did you sign a new agreement and read it, did you look for 3rd party data share/push language? Of course the reps didn't know, if they know, they might tell.
We read and review every contract front to back. When we used Firstlook, I refused to sign the data share agreement to share our sales transactions data with Edmunds, Polk, and the others. And we made sure Dealer Track DMS does not push any of our data to TrueCar since the 2 are in bed together.
Dealers that don't read the agreements create these problems for everyone and then we all go, "uh-oh". I think our dealer peers are starting to wake up to making sure they read what they are signing, in some cases its too late. We all know Edmunds, TrueCar, etc is sharing your sales transactions data with the consumer. They walk in our showrooms knowing what you have been selling cars for, so naturally they want a better deal, some dealers will give it because they are chasing volume bonuses from OEM's. And guess what, that lower deal gets shared then too and the whole cycle starts again, lowering profits for everyone.
We read and review every contract front to back. When we used Firstlook, I refused to sign the data share agreement to share our sales transactions data with Edmunds, Polk, and the others. And we made sure Dealer Track DMS does not push any of our data to TrueCar since the 2 are in bed together.
Dealers that don't read the agreements create these problems for everyone and then we all go, "uh-oh". I think our dealer peers are starting to wake up to making sure they read what they are signing, in some cases its too late. We all know Edmunds, TrueCar, etc is sharing your sales transactions data with the consumer. They walk in our showrooms knowing what you have been selling cars for, so naturally they want a better deal, some dealers will give it because they are chasing volume bonuses from OEM's. And guess what, that lower deal gets shared then too and the whole cycle starts again, lowering profits for everyone.
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