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New car listing site?

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#42
Mike,

I wish you well. This is a huge undertaking. Gathering inventory, developing infrastructure and then generating eyeballs is daunting - and will be costly.

When I went to work for my old classified listings company in 2000, it seems to me we lost 100 million that year. Of course we grew into a very profitable business in later years. Countless startups have attempted to bootstrap their way to success in this field without adequate funding; I can't recall one success.

Coming up with a name is hardly your only challenge.
 
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#43
@JoePistell
I have always worked as part of larger teams. Although I have worked on all aspects of the "stack" so to speak, I have never really done a venture on my own. This would be a first. In all my prior engagements, mostly for large corporations, even when I led teams of upto 10 engineers, the overall role was minuscule compared to the organization's scope.

@Ed Brooks Thanks for sharing the anecdote.

I think we can put this thread to rest.

Summary of feedback:
=======================
- Developing a new site for free (or close to) is unrealistic
- Getting inventory on this site will be difficult
- Without inventory getting eyeballs will be difficult
- Even with inventory getting eyeballs will be difficult
- SERP and your ranking there matters, else expect to shell out (really) big bucks for a PPC campagin.
- Convincing dealers about value will be difficult (eyeballs could have come from elsewhere)
=======================

Thank you all for your contribution.

[As hard as the above may seem obvious, as an industry outsider, I should point out this: I spoke about this "idea" with other industry outsiders, all very smart in their chosen profession, and they all seemed to think that this would be a great "idea". For reference, I have bounced a few other ideas by them, and they have not hesitated to disagree, so I do know they are telling what they actually think. Plus the dealer and dealer tech side of the industry is generally not visible to the general public.]
 
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#44
Summary of feedback:
=======================
- Developing a new site for free (or close to) is unrealistic
I disagree with this point. As a developer I have launched many websites, applications, tools, etc in my career. Many of these were full-blown classifieds sites or ecommerce web applications. For under $5,000 + $10 a month hosting you can have a functional site that can handle 1000s of visitors per day. This is entirely dependent on how much work you can do yourself.
- Getting inventory on this site will be difficult
Yes and no. CarLister gave away ipad minis to any dealer willing to give them an inventory feed. Other sites just offer free eyeballs for 6 months. Dealers can be sold on almost anything, but it is not a one-man over-the-internet job.
- Without inventory getting eyeballs will be difficult
Without inventory you have nothing.
- Even with inventory getting eyeballs will be difficult
With inventory you can fight the organic SERP game. I have dealer website pages that have ranked better than any classifieds site for regional searches (ie: London Ford F-150 showed our page before AutoTrader). It grows over time.
- SERP and your ranking there matters, else expect to shell out (really) big bucks for a PPC campagin.
$5000 a month to start would get you between 3000-5000 eyeballs I think (I don't know the US market nearly as well as Canada - we get sub $1 PPC all the time)
- Convincing dealers about value will be difficult (eyeballs could have come from elsewhere)
Yes. This could go either way as every dealer is different in their marketing, but in general.. yes.
=======================

I don't think the operation is impossible, but you have to understand how the industry works, how they move inventory, how they gross customers, etc. It's just something that those outside of the inventory don't understand as well. I talk to people every day who think that dealerships are grossing $5000+ on new car sales (before back office) - that simply isn't the case in 90% of the operations I meet.
 
#45
Mike, I agree with Craig's summary. Here's your story seen in a different light:

I'm going to invent a new ice cream. As an outsider, all I see is the same ice cream and its consumers are bored with the lack of innovation. I can address this with a new ice cream, I have some ideas, but no developed idea about what this new ice cream is going to be, but, I asked some other outsiders and they seemed to think it's a great idea. I worked in an ice cream plant in the mixing area, although I have no experience in all the other areas, but I am sure I can figure that out.

I have some other things to figure out too. I need to find out
  • How to source the raw inventory
  • what the costs are
  • how much to charge
  • how to sell it.


You can do it Mike, your aiming high and that's a great thing.... but, you've got a lot of mistakes to make before you get there. If you want a short cut, I recommend that you find the most successful car dealer internet vendor and work for them.. for free if you have to. What you'll learn you'll keep your entire life.
 
#48
Hey Mike, I am really liking the fact that you are a full stack developer looking in the auto space. I don't think there is enough who see the opportunities that are here.

My opinion is that the auto space is already abundant in listing type sites. However yours might be different doesn't change the reality that vehicles are everywhere and it's been done. Sure you can build a better mousetrap but thats boring.

Your talents would be better put to use by solving the problem of getting more shoppers in the market more often. How do you create a shopping mindset and how can we promote shopping. Not buying just yet. But get more people in the mood to start browsing. If NADA says that only 2 or 3% of any market is in the market at any point and time. Well what the hell are the rest of the 97% doing?

Listings don't put people in a market that aren't there in the first place.
 
#49
Chris Leslie said:
.... If NADA says that only 2 or 3% of any market is in the market at any point and time. Well what the hell are the rest of the 97% doing?
Click to expand...

Chris,

Take the number of of unique visitors to your website and divide it by your total sales (this is your Shopper-to-Sale ratio)

Question #1:
Why do you sell less than 3% of your car shoppers? (why or how did you lose the other 97%?)

Question #2:
What will return more ROI? Increasing your total shoppers by 1%, or, Increase your Shopper-to-Sale ratio by 1%?
 
#50
Joe I don't think you understand what I am saying at all. I am not talking about my numbers as much as I am talking about the market.

What I am saying is if we have a million people in this city. On average there should be 30,000 shoppers in the market. Right?

What I am suggestion is for him to find ways to increase that 30,000 to 50,000, 75k, 100k
 
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