CarWoo Anyone?

[Dave Erickson]

I'm not so sure that dealers generated a collective opinion to not to use Carwoo to prevent them from being successful. If dealers realized that in relation to Carwoo then they would have the same opinion regarding many lead providers and take a collective non-participation with them too. Dealers, or better yet the internet managers, at many dealers just want easy deals. I think what worked against Carwoo was lack of automation in addition to it being used entirely outside the scope of the dealer's CRM. I think TC is a better program in terms of automation and perceived transparency. Advertising dollars certainly help too Wishing the best on all those that worked hard at Carwoo in your next adventure.

 

[Daniel J. Mondello]

Third party inventory host providers... the leads suck. The customer service (usually sucks). They are expensive. You will make some return on your investment but in my experience it isn't enough profit to justify the cost + me having to go in and audit the success and roi rate all the time.

Invest in yourself. Build your store a kick-ass website.

 

[mcampo2501]

I'm not so sure that dealers generated a collective opinion to not to use Carwoo to prevent them from being successful.

I don't think it was a conspiracy. I'm suggesting that carwoo relied on dealers to play their game in order for their model to work. Unfortunately for them, their game was letting dealers beat on each other in front of the customer. I think most dealers saw this as destructive and chose not to participate. I'm transparency's biggest advocate, and I think it's great that there are places like TrueCar that will let a customer know exactly what they can buy a car for. As you mention there are many places this can be done in today's market. I just never could come to grip with the way CarWoo chose to accomplish this, and I feel better about now that it seems I wasn't alone. The requirement to use their portal was also ridiculous, so we do agree there.

 

[GHouseman]

Sounds like True Cars..... a small group of us will be joining TrueCar, the negotiation-free car buying platform. CarWoo! helped hundreds of thousands of car buyers get a better experience.

 

[yagoparamo]

I'm not so sure that dealers generated a collective opinion to not to use Carwoo to prevent them from being successful. If dealers realized that in relation to Carwoo then they would have the same opinion regarding many lead providers and take a collective non-participation with them too. Dealers, or better yet the internet managers, at many dealers just want easy deals. I think what worked against Carwoo was lack of automation in addition to it being used entirely outside the scope of the dealer's CRM. I think TC is a better program in terms of automation and perceived transparency. Advertising dollars certainly help too Wishing the best on all those that worked hard at Carwoo in your next adventure.

Dave,

There is one thing I learned with TrueCar.

The industry was polarized, they got more internal negative propaganda than anything else I have seen in my life and... they still in business.

TruCar and for that Carwoo will succeed if the ROI works for the dealers and will fail the day the opposite is true.

I don't think we will have another Autotarder.com (where people "feel" they must have it). Those days are over.