Joe this is for you...

Well I won't back down, no I won't back down

You could stand me up at the gates of hell

But I won't back down

Gonna stand my ground, won't be turned around

And I'll keep this world from draggin' me down

Gonna stand my ground and I won't back down

Hey baby, there ain't no easy way out

Hey I will stand my ground

And I won't back down

Well I know what's right, I got just one life

In a world that keeps on pushin' me around

But I'll stand my ground and I won't back down

Hey baby there ain't no easy way out

Hey I will stand my ground

And I won't back down

No, I won't back down

(-:

Finally the portal is up and running. we are planning for the publication as well in few weeks. have a look on TheMotoring.com and let us know what you think.

thanks a ton for your support.

hahahahaa Entrepreneur, you are so 1998 (read: noob). Grab 10 bucks, go to godaddy and get to work. Stop by in 2021 and tell us how your doing. You've never built a web site, you've never created a business, you've never built a web site to produce a profit.

Your web site will be a leaf on tree... in the Amazon forest. Do you see how the odds are stacked up against you? No, of course you don't because you've never failed... because you've never tried.

Thanks all for opinions/feedback.

I don’t think you need 100 millions to start such a business. It’s about the web site content and what it has to offer to consumers, look, feel and friendliness. I do agree that you need inventory. But you at least have to start from somewhere. Inventory building is going to take some time but if end goal is to provide win-win situation for the buyers and the sellers then business model has full potential to be successful. Buyers find the services/goods they want and service providers get leads for price they want then that is the only thing matters.

Autotrader is way too pricey. and then when you call to get pricing they don't tell you until they get a bunch of your personal information. One website I came accross was Caroodle.com. Only a one time fee of $10 and your car will stay on there until it sells and you can add as many pictures as you want! such a deal. Sold my car in 2 weeks!

Joe, was that a little sarcasm? I remember sitting in a conference room at the Crowne Plaza in Atlanta on my very first day at AutoTrader.com. It was a little over 10 years ago and Chip Perry, the CEO, gave us his Investor Road Show speech. One of the things I still remember is Chip discussing the incredibly high barriers to entry in this segment. Well, at least to do it with any level of success.

In order to enter this field and attract any viewers, you need inventory. Of course it's hard to get inventory when no one is visiting your site. A classic catch-22. ATC started with every car sold at a Manheim Auction, every car in an ADP system and every car in any Trader Publishing magazine.

Anybody that can combine this size inventory - just to start - with a few hundred million in cash to burn while they get established might be able to compete.

WOW! You're building an Auto Portal? WOW. What an amazing business plan you have! WOW.

It never ceases to amaze me when a business has "low barriers to entry" how noobs like this don't do any homework and totally underestimate the business skills needed to succeed.

Team,

I need an opinion here.

With right pricing for dealers and with brand new outstanding and amazing Auto portal like ATC, cars.com etc, How hard is it to work with these dealers which are already using ATC, Cars.com and other big portals? Will they make a switch or there is no room left for new Auto Portal anymore? It seems like ATC and cars.com are everywhere, monopolizing where they go. I am also not sure how they expanded so quickly. Really appreciate your feedback.

Another usefull thing on site is :

You can have your own link on the site, eg: your username is : Kerylen , then your mini site name is, http://themotoring.com/Kerylen

where you can ask people to see your inventory without, without managing your site. All Inventory Items will be searched on the main site and your mini site aswell

Just drop an email on [email protected]

for more information

Most charge @ 1k per month, cars.com,Bargainnews.com and other company's. Autotrader charges the most! They do have a package for 1k which will get you customers. They also have prefered packages for 2500 per month. The simple fact of Autotrader is they will charge you as much as you will pay! Be careful with your negotiating. I use deskmanager software, it ships info to webmanager and that puts all of your inventory on the net in one shot. They are very good, low priced and have a great system. Look into it. Worth every penny,they will also build you your own website. Good luck.

Dave

How much a dealer should really be paying for listing on ATC or any other similar portal?

Can I get realistic and fair pricing model per month based on number of listing that a dealer is allowed to upload to create a win-win situation? and how do you guys upload your inventory to these portal? is it automated of a manual entry?

Interesting news about auto trader, now I know. But for the last two years almost we were paying $3000 a month, but yet we were right on top of many other adds from dealers. I finally decided that if they were going to really want a certain vehicle they would just scroll down and look for my inventory. We got the price cut to $1700 without all them other features. within the same month I was just going to quit on them and I said I needed to the price to be closer to $1000 per month. They rep said that she didn't want to lose our business so she would just do it right now and keep us with the same package.Not a bad deal. Whats crazy is all this time where it say's click to view website, it was not our real website, it was an ugle templete built by autotrader and when I finally got that corrected I finally started getting 3 times the leads then ever before. Now I just have to wonder if 3 to 5 car deals a month might really be worth even the $1000 dollars I am paying, yea maybe so, at least I'm paying $3000 no longer.. Have a good day..

Wow,
I just read this entire thing... I have had a hard time figuring out the value of AT since I started here. I like my rep. but most of the time when they pitch new material I have no clue as to what benefit it could really have... I think we pay too much for the amount of leads generated and the credit center is junk... I just got the yearly review for AT in the mail.. not sure what I will say this year?

Hammer your rep--reduce your costs yourself....you're all paying too much for this "product" that hit it's peak about 2.5 years ago. The "Partnership" dealers are stealing your leads and paying thru the nose for it. If you all just paid the minimum...keeping the playing field level...you would win/lose on the merits of your product offered. Get together at your dealer meetings and talk...collusion is not an evil term here. YOU set the prices based on the value you percieve from the ATC offering. This thing used to be a bargain in the old days. It's all profit for ATC at this point...they've added NO VALUE to the product in several years---yet the price keeps moving north.

I feel your pain laid off. I was on June 30th from ATP,no luck at all still and my city was always in the top 10. I guess all that good talent will start flipping burgers.

I just got laid off from ATC for no good reason. Anyways, I have 7 dealers in an A market that are paying $399 a piece for the feature plus program. This included 9 pics, thumbnail and all the goodies. So, if you are paying more than that call your AC and tell him you want to pay $399 like other dealers. Also, I have 3 dealers paying between $1,200 and $1,800 for a partnership with 10 monthly spotlights. Some of these dealers are renewals that we needed to charge less money to keep them but the majority are new business. The bottom line is, ATC will charge you as much as you are willing to pay, it's like a Vegas BJ! cheers!

Dave L,

How many cars do you sell/month? If your only selling 10/month than your not seeing ROI from ATC. However, if you're selling 30/month this equates to 6 from ATC. At $1500/car it appears that you are getting 3 times your money in return. You can look at this 2 ways...How much does it cost or what is my return? I'm sure you are but make sure you are accurately tracking your floor traffic.

I use Autotrader as a dealer. They charge me $2800 per month for a 60 car inventory for the premium package. Cars.com $950. 40%sales from CARS.com and only 20% from AT. They will not lower the price so after 4 years I downgraded. Do any other dealers have good tested ideas for better lead generation? Any good, any good sites or publictions for independent pre-owned dealers? Thanks, dave

Very sadly, Autotrader became drunk on their own "brilliance", and on the too-frequent bar visits after work; where back-slapping, high-fiving and self-congratulatory excess were the norm. The solutions and ideas of those who were not in the narcissistic inner-circle of the anointed were dismissed; although those solutions and ideas were truly creative, intelligent, practical and easy-to-implement. It's all about whether or not your knee-pads are well-worn... if you get my drift.

I never understood why I had so many damn sales reps for AutoTrader.

We are paying more for Cars.com than we are for AT, primarily bc we are not Premium members and have not signed up for the EMP program they are hammering us for.

I did notice that the "leads leads leads" argument quietly converted to "exposure exposure exposure".

But here's the thing... Cars.com and AT are good lead generators for prospects (except for the past two months we have been on with them.. its been dead). Nowadays, both sites are bombarded with competitive dealer banner ads, on the front page, search results, and even on your personal vehicle info page! How will this benefit the used car dealerships who are on the Featured plans? Again, we are being pressured into the Premium/EMP program, but I feel like I should back out of it.

This is a great read for people who are seeking answers on C.com/AT measurements and ROI lately.

Dale Pollak is looking for AutoTader.com traffic stats from dealers all over the USA for a facinating project.

ATC hasn't had any price increases in over a year. They have also announced no price increases for another year! However, there are new solutions that can dealers can take advantage of.

The Auto Trader price hikes are a concern. Greed is not a favored trait, sadly it's this type of greed that gives the industry a bad name.

ATC is probably decent at inventory aggregation and benefits independent and individual sellers more than branded dealerships, and provide terrible returns to dealer groups compared to SEO efforts on individual inventory records. How much more for my logo? Can I be above the fold? what if they highlight my ad? Give me a break, I'd rather use windshield paint!

Re: Skip Dillard.
You're weak at negotiating, a wimp and probably got your head chopped off by a good salesman at some point. Get over it. Go back to your cube and dream of a day of "civilized" car buying process. You’re too weak to have it any other way!
If the CarMax model works than:
1- They wouldn't be losing money
2- Didn't have to reduce the inflated price of their cars
3- All dealers would do business the same way as them.
But this is not the case; CarMax relies on people afraid of confrontation, hires pencil pushers not salesmen, offer mediocre prices and shaky warranties. The end game in the car business remains the same, buy for A and sell for B, everything else is just BS.
As far as the ATC reps are concerned, they need to get used to making less than 100K per year, their female reps need to get off the boob jobs and the Louis Vuitton Bags, corporate needs to stop spending millions on useless training and meetings and trainers need to stop getting trainees high on the ATC kool aid.
ATC’s profits have flat lined, they are at a plateau, changing the website’s fonts and colors won’t cut it anymore.
God forbid craigslist Autos get their shit together and make their auto search a little better, ATC will be history.