Cargurus, Please tell me how this benefits your customer (aka... The Dealer)????

[Rick Buffkin]

To me, there is absolutely NO reason for that number to be there. I am growing very tired of paying sites to list my cars...so that vendor can then tell any prospective customer that I have a shitty price.

@Tallcool1 I couldn't agree with you more!!!

Exactly. They need some sort of hook to get a customer to fill out the lead form. Why do they need to do that? Because we're obsessed with tangibles, and we need leads. Regardless that leads are down, WE NEED LEADS! Stuff the CRM full of leads! I'll cancel you and Autotrader unless I get the Glenngary Leads NOW!

@Brendan Dolan Carguru's promotes themselves as a "Lead Provider". Not so much as a marketing or a branding platform though. Lead counts have been going down for years now! Anytime I speak with a Carguru's rep, they are bragging about how many leads they pumped into our CRM compared to AT or Cars. It's their own fault for creating and promoting that perception knowing that overall lead counts have been declining for years now.

At the end of the day, the dealer is the one thats going to be left holding the bag here!!! The customers are in the dealers backyard. Not Carguru's backyard! The customer knows and has a relationship with the dealer. They don't have any clue who Cargurus is! The dealer is the one who's going to look like the bad guy when they can't sell the car for this Avg. Price Paid figure!!! Who do you think the customer is going to be upset with? Cargurus or the dealer??? Who do you think is going to get a bad review or be accused of false advertising??? Cargurus or the dealer??? As Clint said earlier, nothing good can come from that price being on the listing with it being displayed the way that it is. They are simply reaching to gain additional leads to keep their lead counts up. Or, this is the first step to a bigger application they are going to be rolling out. Either way, they are completely missing the mark. There's so many other things they could be doing to actually help the dealers build value and yet they want to focus on pricing and what they think is transparency.

 

[Mike Robbins]

[QUOTE=" There were several issues discussed, the least of which was their "Good Deal, Fair Deal" value indicator or arrow that appears on their site. [/QUOTE]

What I have learned is that you need to go into your CG dealer dashboard every time new inventory is fed and navigate to the "dealer pricing tool" tab, filter by "newest listings first" and then edit the vehicle options as they are often incorrect or omit important features. Then save and viola, the pricing indicator now refreshes and changes from "fair deal" to "good deal" or "high price" to "fair deal" etc...

Tedious, and a PITA but it works.

 

[Alexander Lau]

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6470344678381223937/

Sean V. Bradley, CSP
Entrepreneur, Influencer, Speaker, Trainer, Published Author, YouTuber, Video & Digital Marketing Expert
I have been speaking to a lot of Dealer Principals and General Managers and of course reading all of the comments both, in and out of our group and one of the biggest revelations is that most of us (me included) had no idea how deep and how serious the #CarGurus situation is. So, it’s been over 1 week and CarGurus only reached out to me on Thursday for a “Phone Call”. I responded that I couldn’t speak on Friday due to my Internet Director Development Workshop in NJ but maybe we could connect on Monday (Today). I posted both their request and my response to the group. They never responded... So, today I sent them a very thorough email asking if they are interested in speaking. I have not heard from the bit await their response. I will post my email in a little bit... ** The Dealers / GMs I have spoken to want clarity and transparency. So, Please answer these questions in this thread. I know a lot of you are pissed but try to refrain from commentary. Just stick to the numbers and facts. *** I will be creating a #CarGurus “Learning Unit” Here, meaning I will be able to organize ALL the #ShameOnYouCarGurus Content all in one place so it will be easier for you And all of our members to view and get up to speed. Please Like, Comment and share. Thank you.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/millionairecarsalesman

 

[Alexander Lau]

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/activity:6469016907667243009/

 

[Alexander Lau]

Thousands Of Dealer Principals and GMs Expose CarGurus For Unethical And Illegal Actions

 

[Tallcool1]

@Alexander Lau , I have been wondering (over the past couple weeks) if this would find its way to Dealerrefresh.

Is there anything that a dealer can do to keep CarGurus from using their inventory? In other words, if I have a disclaimer on my website that says something like "any unauthorized use of this data including photos and pricing is not permitted"...can I block them from using my data?

 

[Alexander Lau]

@Alexander Lau , I have been wondering (over the past couple weeks) if this would find its way to Dealerrefresh.

Is there anything that a dealer can do to keep CarGurus from using their inventory? In other words, if I have a disclaimer on my website that says something like "any unauthorized use of this data including photos and pricing is not permitted"...can I block them from using my data?

Yeah, I was waiting for someone to post it (was filling up my LinkedIn timeline heavily) and then I remembered that this thread existed. I'm not a fan of polluting the dB here with repeat threads, it helps no one. That said, I don't think Sean Bradley has an account here, I could be wrong. Maybe he should start posting, much like how useful @C Dorman has been lately.

As for your question, I don't know. I'm not 100% sure of what's going on or what their specific / exact tactics are, but one would think you could take legal action if you've not agreed to their terms. This partly goes back to the thread on Spincar and their tactics (are dealers aware of what's happening?) https://forum.dealerrefresh.com/threads/busted-spincar-caught-selling-dealer-data.5914/ and Right and Wrong https://forum.dealerrefresh.com/threads/right-and-wrong.6059/ Bradley is getting is right.

As for stopping their scraping technology (because that's what they are doing scraping), that's a taller order.

 

[Tallcool1]

Yeah, I was waiting for someone to post it (was filling up my LinkedIn timeline heavily) and then I remembered that this thread existed. I'm not a fan of polluting the dB here with repeat threads, it helps no one. That said, I don't think Sean Bradley has an account here, I could be wrong. Maybe he should start posting, much like how useful @C Dorman has been lately.

As for your question, I don't know. I'm not 100% sure of what's going on or what their specific / exact tactics are, but one would think you could take legal action if you've not agreed to their terms. This partly goes back to the thread on Spincar and their tactics (are dealers aware of what's happening?) https://forum.dealerrefresh.com/threads/busted-spincar-caught-selling-dealer-data.5914/ and Right and Wrong https://forum.dealerrefresh.com/threads/right-and-wrong.6059/ Bradley is getting is right.

As for stopping their scraping technology (because that's what they are doing scraping), that's a taller order.

Actually, I was referring to the website scraping. I don't know the rules but it seems to me that unauthorized use of my inventory would not be legal.

 

[Alexander Lau]

Actually, I was referring to the website scraping. I don't know the rules but it seems to me that unauthorized use of my inventory would not be legal.

Right, and I think you and I both have seen plenty of example of this cry. Alpha Dog / Jim Ziegler has been bitching about this for years.
http://www.automotivedigitalmarketi...s-9-00-am-do-you-know-where-your-inventory-is (I don't think scraping was huge at this point in time though, groups where bastardizing XML).

I tell you, if someone were able to create a business model around anti-scraping and pitch that to dealers, maybe partner with web platform companies, they might be on to something.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+stop+scraping

Ex: https://www.shieldsquare.com/prevent-web-scraping/

• Actively detect/prevent website scraping & screen scraping
  Secure your content, improve SEO
• Prevent price scraping bots from competitors
  Retain your brand’s competitive edge
• Enhance your website’s user experience
  Save bandwidth and reduce server loads
• Get complete visibility into bot traffic on your website
  See how much traffic is from bad bots, good crawlers and humans
• See comprehensive insights on bot types and their sources
  Take the right action on various bot categories as per your business needs

 

[Alex Snyder]

I've been watching this too. It seems third party classified sites can't make a model work that doesn't piss dealers off. Cars.com has avoided becoming the devil out of being the lesser of the evils.

As for scraping, that's on the website provider. If they want to do something about it the job of keeping up with scrapers and bots is a never-ending, expensive, affair. Dealers need to work through NADA or some other organization to battle companies like CarGurus in court. Without an enforceable law it is just the wild west.

My beef, on these issues, has and will continue to be with NADA. I've always felt like they don't put enough focus on online matters.