Car Sales Website Startup

[Carsten]

"they have no paid listings."
Why would a paid listing be bad?

The complicated algorithms are like youtube. Offer free content morph into paying pennies to content providers morph into ads or subscriptions and sell pay pennies to content creators. The big boys are doing something similar by pushing their better paying customers' vehicles.

They are making money off warranties it looks like. But then wouldn't that cut into the dealer profit?

Or is the mailing list ...

It's the mailing list. Brilliant. I should put a burner email in and then schedule out how they will drip campaign me with all their affiliate programs.

 

[joe.pistell]

How do they pull inventory? I see mine on there.

Possibly bought from marketcheck

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

"they have no paid listings."
Why would a paid listing be bad?

Because it doesn't help the shopper find the car they are looking for. It only helps the dealer.

 

[Ryan Everson]

Caredge youtube channel was a hit that they morphed into a shopper's assistant site. It's the new biz model that you could emulate.

Yeah the dad is a former dealership General Manager and the son handles the tech side.

They host almost daily hour long live shows and viewers tip them $5-20+ to get their questions answered live. Plus they have a pretty active community forum.

They would make for a great RefreshFriday episode! @Jeff Kershner @Alex Snyder

 

[Carsten]

Because it doesn't help the shopper find the car they are looking for. It only helps the dealer.

OH! Are you talking about promoted listings?

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

OH! Are you talking about promoted listings?

Yes.

 

[Carsten]

I"m not a fan of those either. Paid promotions are every where. Search Results, YT, Amazon ... like you said, it really does ruin the shopping experience.

 

[autovantaofficial]

Hey All,

Thanks for everyone's feedback. I talked to a person who works at a dealership via email and came to the following decision:

We provide the following services:

• Paid For Marketing: he mentioned that his dealership spent around $50K/month advertising the dealership, which is absurd. It could easily be done for much cheaper if done right. (For example, the highest possible spending on google ads/month is around 2.5K/month, bringing in est. 2K-4K clicks/month.) My service for this will include the development of the ad and the posting, across numerous venues.
• Differentiated Listings: most automotive sale websites have bland listings for each car. They're the same and have no feel/emotion to them. If I could make my listings unique in design for different cars, then it would be something that would make some consumers have a higher inclination to buy it (sell the want, not the need). These listings can also be printed off as brochures for the specific car (including details about Mileage, etc.)
• Warranty Coverage: Again, I provide warranties for the cars for a limited time. Of course they're going to be time limitations and price limitations.
• SAAS Service: any dealership that partners benefits from a SAAS service that helps dealers with inventory management.
• Unique "Car Profile" Feature: any car that is listed on my website receives a unique QR code. This QR code can be printed and placed on the windshield of each car in the showroom. Consumers can scan these QR codes and gets the "Differentiated Listing" for each car, instantly on their phone.
• No Sales Commission: We don't take any sales commission from dealerships.
• AI: Incorporating AI into the car sales industry. Rather than users entering filters, consumers can (don't have to) enter a prompt with all of their needs and the computer will spit out the best cars for them. (Dealers that choose the enterprise pricing plan can also receive a "POS" version of this system)

All of the above services come for a grand price of $7K USD / Month.

Any feedback?

 

[autovantaofficial]

I"m not a fan of those either. Paid promotions are every where. Search Results, YT, Amazon ... like you said, it really does ruin the shopping experience.

I definitely agree. I actually had considered doing an e-com service like Amazon/Ebay without those and power it with AI...but the dev was way to complicated, and getting a large amount of products is very hard.

 

[Carsten]

some one here pointed this site out:

CarEdge - Buy, Sell, Insure, Save

CarEdge is the single best place to buy, sell, insure, and protect a new or used car. Save time & money with real advice from auto experts.

my.caredge.com

That site might give you some good ideas.

What is your core business? I see a lot of different things but I don't know which one is the one unless you're throwing some things out to see what will stick.