Does Autotrader guarantee the acv?

...think this is similar to Autotrader auction-style listings...

Just to clarify "vancouver autotrader," AutoTrader.com, the U.S. company, does not operate in Canada, so I believe you are referring to AutoTrader.ca, the Canadian on-line auto site that is not connected to AutoTrader.com. If you are an AutoTrader.com customer and you are having some problems with us, please contact your sales rep to have them resolved.

i do not have much trust in auto trader. they have repeatedly failed to deliver on their promises. but will have to wait to see this one in action.

I just went through the whole process, and although I am in Buffalo NY - it gave me a quote. Using a very nice 2007 Altima 3.5SE with everything but NAV I have here on the lot, according to my GM - the number was almost spot on as far as accuracy is concerned. So I guess it could work - and pop a bit of reality and sensibility into buyers.

I'll be suprised if this trial works out for either party. In all my years of selling I have rarely ever had a customer tell me, Hey thats a really fair trade value you just gave me! We have to sell the trade value, the cost of our vehicle and payments.The Black Book spread is good for us and the customers expectations. Next will be the issue of the customers perception of their trade condition it won't always be accurate. Did not see any mention of a history report weighing on the final value. I'm also guessing it will be overpriced and will we have to decide on different tiers of service!!

Mark from AutoTrader.com here. Thanks for the positive comments and more news to come on the Trade-In Marketplace product (which it's now called) in December, so keep an eye out. Just wanted to note one thing per above related to our site traffic and the foot traffic that ATC generates related to our competition. According to both our internal and industry-standard measures, AutoTrader.com’s site traffic has continued to grow during 2009, routinely hitting north of 15 million unique monthly visitors for most of 2009 and routinely beating monthly totals when comparing a month in 2009 to the same month in 2008. This comes at a time when many of our competitors have seen monthly traffic declines. Additionally, a study conducted by Northwood University with AutoTrader.com showed that AutoTrader.com was responsible for more dealer walk-in traffic than any other third party site. Thanks!

I talked to a dealer friend out of Lawrence, KS. Apparently the trade-in offers are not instant and are being handled much like any other internet lead. The above commenter is correct, it's akin to a sight-unseen black book quote. The offers they are throwing out seem low enough that it may actually deter customers from coming in. Not a surprise considering it's generally a bad idea to commit to trade-in value to customer who's never been on the lot.

Went through the process. Not impressed. Seems like a glorified Black Book On-Line tool.

If AT can get this program working, they will steal a ton of thunder from Cars.com .... lately AT has been slacking in the traffic department ( at least from a dealer standpoint ), being blow away by Cars.com for less money.

If customers can get an actual cash offer for their vehicle online, that can only be good for dealers. On one hand, customers are more likely to visit AT, since only they offer it. And of course, customers are more likely to be reasonable in how much they want for their trade, since they have a cash offer in hand. If the dealer can't offer that much, a buyer is ready and waiting.

Killer feature, no doubt about it.

HUH! U went trough wizard of 6 of 7 steps and it is tons of clicking and selecting options... also ajax do not work very smooth... whole process was quite boring but if I would really sell my car maybe it would not be hard to finish that survey that has something like 500 options.

Why do I think this is really just a thinly disguised effort by Jeff to build the size of his posse - when in reality it will be folks stalking him for this Flip cam, lol... See you Sunday!

I have seen Shaun skip and it ain't pretty.<

Can't make it (this year), but I did happen to just pick up a Flip UltraHD with 8gig, 120 minute recording time ($179 BestBuy) - and wow - what an extremely simple high def video camera with a stereo mike. I also use it with the software available at my website for auto video quotes - where I place clickable objects like pdf, word docs, links, details. Also, making a movie is a snap just within the Flip software, easy to send a customer a Thank You card with a video of the vehicle they want embedded. So many great video things going on now, but yeah - smart campaign Jeff!

Alex,

And you will be right there with him I take it...

I have a feeling the easiest way to win this contest is to just hang-out by the bar. You won't miss Jeff there!

Anytime you see No Rules, its gotta be good.

I've been practicing my skipping all day just in case. Hilarious Jeff!!!

Finally, an excuse to stalk the sh** out of someone. Haha!

I was just about to buy a new Flip but now I am going to wait and win.

Thanks Jeff

Todd

Cool idea, Jeff. But the t-shirt and skipping with @shaunraines would have been priceless

Brilliant social media marketing campaign... Jeff Kershner is truly a member of the automotive digital marketing pantheon of Rock Stars!

In regards to Shaun Raines comments about conference moderators stacking the deck with their own clients as panelists... I agree that this can lead to bias and reduces the value of the panel session. So I want to applaud Mary Butler from Razorfish. Despite the fact that in some areas, many people would look at ADP and Razorfish and conclude that the two companies compete with each other, Mary contacted me and asked me to be on her panel session. Additionally, despite the fact that Ford is a big Razorfish client, she reached out and recruited Chris Barger from GM to be on her panel session. When I asked her about this issue before #JDPAIRT Mary explained that her objective was to have an objective and unbiased roster of panel members that would deliver the most useful session possible.

I have to admit to also stacking the deck with clients when I have had the opportunity, so I really admire Mary Butler's integrity in ensuring that none of her direct clients were on her Social Media Marketing panel at #JDPAIRT... I believe this is the type of objective integrity that Shaune Raines was lamenting the lack of.

Jason:

Thank you for this post. As someone we all respect in our space, I appreciate your comments and thank you for taking the time to speak with Dean and I today.

It’s unfortunate that you feel the way you do about the panel Dealer.com hosted. When you do a panel, you don’t really have much choice as to what it’s about. We were asked by JD power to cover website programs specifically. All the content on our panel was shown to JD Power and approved for the show. We had panelists from three of our clients and also a representative from Group One who is not a client.

We did in fact cover most models in place today. It seems as though you were more upset with JD Power than with Dealer.com as we discussed today on the phone…. We did cover most models in existence today with illustrations and slides showing the setups etc. Perhaps we can work together on future panels with JD Power to make sure your voice is heard.

I wanted to point out one of your comments….

“The Subaru Rep even admits that these OEM website mandates are done because "most dealers don't know what they are doing on-line", thus the need to provide websites to these dealers. So they are honest in saying they are catering to the lowest common denominator on their dealer body. What about the dealers who do know what they are doing on-line? I guess I give a lot more credit to dealers these days, the ones I work with are excellent at their Internet strategies.”

I believe you’re missing the point here…

First of all we have all 500+ Subaru dealerships on our program. Not the 100 mentioned. (Thank you for clarifying on ADM)

Secondly, I cannot speak for Subaru, but I believe that Subaru understands that there is a hybrid model that works well for them. The dealers that do have excellent internet departments have all of the tools at their disposal to really blow it out with their websites, but as you mentioned…this isn’t a forum for pitching products… I can personally point you to some real success stories with measureable metrics if you want to give me a call. Are there some dealers that don’t participate and don’t work on their websites?…. Sure, that happens with every program and it’s an unfortunate realty in our space. Subaru is savvy to realize that it’s about creating a strategy that increases the effectiveness of their entire brand as a whole. In fact, this year Subaru has been the only manufacturer to continue to grow sales and their websites are globally generating 2-3x the lead volume nationally than they were with their previous provider. They also recently had their first sales volume win over Mazda and VW. Subaru might be a smaller company, but they sure know what they’re doing to bring the entire brand forward and their success is undeniable.

“Subaru should Never have been the ONLY example of OEM website strategies on that panel. Mainly because Dealer.com has other OEM relationships that are NOT exclusive that would have made far better examples.”

In regards to this statement… Jason, we asked other manufacturers that we do not have exclusives with to participate and they either declined or backed out at the last minute.

“There should never have been ALL clients of the moderator’s company on that panel. That defeats the whole purpose of these panels and destroys the opportunity to give the listeners the most accurate, most intelligent, most diverse, and most comprehensive information available.”

This statement is not accurate… Yes, we had 3 of our clients on the panel, but not all. Group One is not a Dealer.com client.

All in all, our feedback from the panel was great. The dealers engaged in some real conversations about what models work best from them. DeLu from Subaru did a great job taking some heat form the guys on the panel and made some incredible points himself that the dealers up.

I disagree that dealers were not given the proper information… They were exposed to four large dealer groups that have had exposure to every program under the sun and they gave their non-biased opinion on all of them. The point of the whole conversation was to point out that although some strides have been made to bridge the gap between dealers and OEMs when it comes to website programs, there is still a long way to go.

I think only by working together and keeping the conversations respectful and progressive can we find our way to a solution. There has to be a solution that both dealers and manufacturers can agree on. Until that time, both our companies should continue to work towards that goal together productively in the same space.

I agree…. Sales pitches leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth at these shows, but our panel was not a sales pitch. JD Power is primarily a Tier 1-2 event and getting OEMs talking about programs is a good thing for every vendor in our space.

Thanks again for your comments and we look forward to working with you as we discussed.
Mike