Thinking of dropping Dealer.com

[Jarrett]

Even though our Dealer.com sites are of excellent quality I think the relationship with our account manager and the page load times are less than excellent. I have recently emailed two concerns to my account exec and have not even received a reply. I think I still have an account executive. When I do hear from my account exec I am being upsold on new features.

Not so much...

 

[joe.pistell]

...I do think what I need it a firm that is small enough to care about me as a client and good enough to make sure I don't fall on my face.
...But, the one thing that I do have is time. No jumping to quick decisions. Everything is going to be done for a good reason.

We'll see if you pick the vendor that I would have picked if I was to do it all over again (in 2012... not 2007)

 

[Bruce Novicky]

This spurred some great conversation.

Something to remember... your Dealer.com site is not optimal and that is what bothers you. Which also means it could be better, so you need to weigh in making the Dealer.com site better as well... the grass is not always greener.

Also another thing to consider is that you are comparing your Dealer.com site (which is not a "top" example of what they can do) to the BEST examples of what others can do... you are comparing apples to oranges.

 

[JoeMescher]

Hi Clay,

We can certainly understand wanting to get the most out of your website and digital marketing tools. Thanks for speaking with Alex Snyder, he is certainly an expert with great ideas to share. Your account manager and I have been reaching out to you on your cell phone and via email to discuss the SmartSite tools that will most likely resolve any design or functionality requests you have.

Bottom line: We're here listening and would love the opportunity to speak with you directly to address your concerns.

Thanks,

Joe Mescher
Digital Marketing Director, Dealer.com
888-958-7224
[email protected]

 

[MullerToyota]

Joe,

Thank you for reaching out. I do want to let you know that the cell phone is my owners, not mine. However...

I reread some of my comments and I apologize for some of the passion with which I spoke. But, the point I am trying to make is that I have outgrown the need for dealer.com. I don't think I fit in your business model anymore and I am sure I am in the minority. I don't want to cause any trouble, but I do have specific needs that I don't think your company can address without setting a precedent that isn't necessary because you want to make one customer happy.

To sum up my feelings: I want to be able to make custom changes to my site and lower my costs across the board.

I don't feel it is necessary to pay $99 per month for your site to give me a blog that is subpar to one that I could add for free with wordpress. But, I am sure that there is no option for me to add a wordpress blog to a subdirectory of my site for free.

Do I think that social media is going to sell more cars for me? Not really. But, do I think it would be valuable to build a site that integrates with facebook, twitter, linkedin because it may help in our dealer's digital branding? Yes. However, we are talking about a fairly easy task - and yet - it would cost me an obscene amount of money to add that to my site.

Or, something as simple as adding the chat button to my site without having to rely on the production team (whom I have to communicate with through my rep). I would be happy to be able to get into the html and add it myself, but I can't because it is a script.

Again, I understand why you limit control and why it is important. But, the fact is that there is a lot of competition doing things better and cheaper.

Not to mention the fact that my website doesn't really look a whole lot different than any other dealer's website in my area, because they are all dealer.com websites. On that point alone it would be beneficial to change to something different.

I really don't want to make this bigger than it is and I definitely don't want my rep to take any fall because of me. Lisa has done an excellent job and my feelings are not a reflection of the restraints put on her by dealer.com's business model. I am just one little store in the middle of nowhere NJ trying to do something different based on my confidence that I can do better having more control than relying on others to do things for me.

 

[Chris Cachor]

Hey Clay,

Sounds like you're attempting to be on the "bleeding edge" a bit in terms of your standard dealership sites. The most challenging parts of this project is really inventory management and the functionality built around that. However, I think if you find the right guy, you'll definitely have more control over the system you want to build. Everything is custom now.

I'd get the ball rolling with this while you grind out your remaining days with dealer.com. Nothing against them, I just really think you want to take things a step further and much more customized than your average dealer client would. My suggestion is to start looking online for a developer that works exclusively with the large CMS's like Drupal, Joomla, etc. The most difficult part of this project would be inventory management and the functionality around that. Do your homework on what features you like and what vendors provide what. Then hire out someone to do the design and try to find someone who has experience with designing sales oriented websites. I think you'll have great results with that. A good site to start is sortfolio.com

While dealer.com's solutions are pretty good, I think their design skills are lacking in areas and that really, you've just outgrown them. You seem much more of a power user and that, I think will lead you to roll your own solution and "scratch your own itch".

One other thing you can do now is to create a subdomain and point blog.yoursite.com to a Wordpress install if you really want Wordpress. You can do this with the hosted Wordpress (wordpress.com) or by signing up for hosting and having them do it for you. In your domain account (GoDaddy, etc.) just point A record subdomain to whoever is hosting the site. That way you won't have to promote another site and you can get started on your project now. I think this would be very successful for your dealership. A "fish where nobody else is fishing" type thing If you need some help or questions, hit me up. I used to build sites for dealers and am very familiar with who's who and who can provide what and to what extent.....

 

[ibdefaria]

I've never been too impressed with Dealer.com's front end. It seems like if a dealer isn't constantly shoveling money into it, it gets old, stale and outdated quickly--and that's often is apparent to the consumer. And I hear a lot of gripes about value from dealers here.

Developing a site is a large undertaking. Perhaps a hybrid situation like Joe's might be something to seriously look into.

It's a shame that dealer.com doesn't have a Wordpress Engine that will put a little flexibility and power in the dealer's hands, but offer some of the benefits of dealer.com's response and data services.

Wordpress is indeed extremely flexible, but to fully customize it can take you a great deal of time. I would factor in all the time you would spend fixing issues in wordpress or any other blogging platforms. I recommend wordpress, I use it often, but it takes time.

 

[terrencegordon]

Inventory and credit apps can be third-party served.

I disagree entirely and believe this is the missing point of this entire thread. A WordPress website may give you "100% control' but you are going to miss out on what's most important - INTEGRATION.

You can't have a highly intelligent and fully functional dealer website if the largest pieces of the puzzles aren't talking to each other (i.e. inventory & content).

You may be able to change the background from white to black without paying a $100 fee, but you can't have OEM incentives driving your homepage display, or pre-sorting your inventory based on user-behavior, or...I could go on.

Automotive Website Vendors today are more intelligent than ever and are going to continue to get better. Nothing you can do on your own including hiring a Full Service Online Marketing firm could build you something as integrated. Believe me, we work with them all the time. And...I used to be one.

 

[Chris Cachor]

Automotive Website Vendors today are more intelligent than ever and are going to continue to get better. Nothing you can do on your own including hiring a Full Service Online Marketing firm could build you something as integrated. Believe me, we work with them all the time. And...I used to be one.

Terrence, I disagree. Website vendors today provide virtually the same thing across all dealer websites. I can tell which website vendor did which website based on the homepage design or their vehicle details page (without seeing the site credit). It's a shared system. The only thing that's actually "custom" is the homepage design. Inventory, rebates, lead forms, are all shared parts of the system. Sure, they can re-skin it -- but some dealers would rather control the whole experience.

I do agree with you that it is a challenge to integrate with the vendors who specialize in inventory, rebates, credit apps, etc. and that the last person you want designing a custom site like this is a full service marketing agency!

What I believe Clay had in mind was utilizing a modern, mature CMS and hiring a developer to build custom parts of the site (modules) to handle things like inventory. I assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, that he is frustrated with the seemingly cookie cutter functionality among him and his competitors websites. He's outgrown the functionality and wants to do some more custom things, that I'm afraid most website providers won't offer. It's not profitable for dealer website vendors to do one-offs.

I just wanted to offer my advice and let Clay know that it is in fact very possible, and that finding a developer with a great deal of experience in these CMS's can deliver. It's also something I encourage as like I said before, it's not difficult to tell which vendor did which site. I'd love to see some unique features and interfaces. I also think it would be incredibly effective for his dealership if done well!

 

[MullerToyota]

Chris,

I think you nailed it.

Terrence - maybe eCarList provides the kind of intelligence you are talking about, but Dealer.com does not. Plus, I really fail to see how the two things you mention (OEM incentive driven homepage and pre-sorting inventory based on user behavior) are a game changer. Right now I manually change our website monthly based on incentives. And, I think the pre-sorted inventory line seems like BS - no offense.