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

[joe.pistell]

TRUE CAUSE OF THIS MISSION OPTIONS SNAFU:

1) ME (and thought leaders like me)
How in the hell I missed this ridiclous error puzzles me. I vividly recall seeing how CarGurus buried the options and remember concluding how I knew it'll cause more leads and I let it go. But, little did I know to audit the trim/options to see how it influenced the pricing model and to see how well they've pulled thru the details. Ugh. My Bad.​

2) DEALERS
Dealer's are lead sluts AND Dealers don't walk their digital lots, so, they have no clue as to what is right and what is wrong. They think that the internet's top KPI is a lead, yet 80% of their sales came from internet shoppers that never submitted a lead.​

This should be fully automated. The balls' in your court CarGurus.

*leads are often a product of a failed user experience

 

[Alex Snyder]

Is CarGurus doing national price comparisons? vAuto is market-based, so the discrepancy would be quite apparent if that's the case.

 

[Tallcool1]

@Dan Sayer , there are a couple different levels to CarGurus listing acquisition methods.

One is like you and I get them our inventory. We are paying subscribers, so we send them a file every day (or in my case several times a day). They don't scrape for our data because we are supplying it.

The other method is they scrape websites to boost their listing volume. They supply non-paying dealers with anonymous leads (email only that must be contacted through the CarGurus email system).

The data flow in my store goes like this......I upload a CSV file to Carbase (my website provider). We then upload photos to our website once the inventory file has been sent. We edit any equipment on our own website. (Typically we are talking about items that a decoder CAN'T catch like custom wheels or aftermarket remote start). Carbase then sends my data on to CarGurus, Cars.com, AutoTrader, or anyone else that I want it to go to. At that point, we have to go into CarGurus and edit the majority of units. So I guess I would need to talk with Carbase to see if there could be additional information that they could send.

 

[Tallcool1]

Is CarGurus doing national price comparisons? vAuto is market-based, so the discrepancy would be quite apparent if that's the case.

I am told that they are doing regional price comparison, not National. This is going way back (couple years) so I don't know if this is still accurate. The comparison data set does NOT match the particular search parameters, but does basically fit the region that the car is geographically located within. So say that someone runs a zip code based search and wants to look within 100 miles of that zip. The price comparison data will NOT consist of the vehicles that were filtered within that 100 miles. It will be the regional data set.

 

[Mike Robbins]

Assuming you have had the conversation with CG support (@Tallcool1 and @Mike Robbins) about what information is available in your inventory file that they can map to correct those issues? 75% sounds really high for issues. In my experience I have found that a couple (and they aren't fun because it takes some digging) phone calls and screen-shares can knock out the issues really quick with any trim, options, color, drivetrain, etc issues. CG has no interest in giving incorrect information to their shoppers either so they'll be motivated to find a solution with you.

Dan, I have been back and forth with my PM at CarGurus as well as 3 way convos with my inventory feed providers and CarGuru's inventory feed team on the trim/option errors & decoding to no avail with no real resolution. In fact, just last week our new PM contacted me to introduce himself and wanted to make sure that we were familiar with how to go into the backend tool and edit trim and options to accurately reflect inventory for best listing placements and good/fair.. price indicators. I thought that was odd. We get our share of quality leads from them but I'm about done hand-holding and babysitting my listings with them.

 

[Tallcool1]

As some may know, I am an Independent dealer an a pretty small one at that. We try our hardest to stay on top of our listings and the competitive set of vehicles in our market. Of course most of you guys don't have the time to manually do this stuff.

The question I often ask myself regarding CarGurus and my competitor's listings: I wonder if anyone has come to the realization that their inventory sure looks better if there is an option or trim level that "accidentally" gets clicked here or there. I'm sure that nobody would do that on purpose.........

 

[Dan Sayer]

Do you have verifiable data that shows them using feeds only. I'm guessing they might do both to get as much as they can at all points or scrape when they need to scrape. I could be very wrong. Agreed, on big vs. little in terms of feed vs. no feed availability.

I'm 99.9% sure, only because of my recent conversations with CarGurus, that they don't scrape at all. Even the dealers on the free lead program have a feed set up with CarGurus. Do we actually have an example of a dealer who got a free lead from CarGurus on a unit of his that DOES NOT have any agreement? OR a unit listed on CarGurus that is from a dealer who is neither on the free or paid programs? @joe.pistell?

 

[Chris Leslie]

Dealer's are lead sluts

you know it !

 

[Tallcool1]

I'm 99.9% sure, only because of my recent conversations with CarGurus, that they don't scrape at all. Even the dealers on the free lead program have a feed set up with CarGurus. Do we actually have an example of a dealer who got a free lead from CarGurus on a unit of his that DOES NOT have any agreement? OR a unit listed on CarGurus that is from a dealer who is neither on the free or paid programs? @joe.pistell?

I poked around a little bit, and found this article. This is from last year, so there is certainly a chance that things have changed since this was published. I have reached out to several peers to find out who doesn't send them a feed. Where the challenge lies is that many of their website providers likely send a feed and the dealer doesn't even know it. carsforsale would be a good example of one of those providers.

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/copyright-infringement-on-a-website-the-82587/

 

[Chris Leslie]

Nice pull @Tallcool1 This really sheds some light on how they think as an organization.