So, in keeping you up to date on my conversation with CarGurus, here is the string thus far. The first response (very bottom) was from my question to him of "How is the range (New car) determined? Is that range only within that model and trim? If the high end of the range is with all the features and the low end is the base then why would a fully loaded unit get a Poor(red) rating?". This is a Dealer Account Executive replying (I removed his name) and not high level management so please consider that the views may not be completely on par with corp CG. I do appreciate this guy's speed and candor but also realize he is speaking with general caution. I did reply to the last one asking about scraping data from a dealer site. I'll let you know what they say.
Yes completely. I appreciate your feedback and I’ll make sure I forward this to my product team because they are always looking for new ways to improve it. Our new car product is far from perfect and a working progress right now. 95% of your CarGurus leads are going to come on used vehicles. I understand that this can be aggravating if you do work a CarGurus new car lead but this will change. We move very quickly as a company so when something is flawed and recognized it will be changed.
Dealer Account Executive
CarGurus
From: Dan Sayer <dans@andersonautogroup.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2018 9:08 AM
To:
Subject: Re: Average Price Paid
(EXTERNAL)
There are price variation on New by region though. There are differences in both incentives and volume in markets. I don't think it is safe to say "similarly equipped". Shoppers aren't looking at that term thinking and interpreting it in any other way than "same". Also, you are deciding what a customer should pay by adding red, yellow, green color bands and labeling the range as Good, Fair, etc. If you literally just provided an "average range paid" along with the number range and then clearly stated that "This is a national average of what customers paid for this model and trim level. Your price may vary based on options and equipment, supply, and regional incentives."
I understand the spot a Classified vendor is in and wouldn't pay you a dime if you didn't have the shopper traffic you attract BUT there has to be some agreement on not confusing the shopper or creating anxiety unnecessarily. We do not make money on New cars (and the really really strong dealers are maxing out at a 3% margin). We price our New using tools from vAuto and Cox, who I would assume have more sold data than you. So when we price New to be competitive in the market and tell the shopper we "price to market", having a 3rd party show a national average range on what may or may not be an accurate sample size of data for our region, it erodes at our trust.
Does that make sense?
Dan Sayer | VP of Digital
Anderson Auto Group
Nebraska - Missouri - Kansas
402.464.0661 Office
402.730.7632 Cell
dans@andersonautogroup.com
www.andersonautogroup.com
From:
To: "Dan Sayer" <dans@andersonautogroup.com>
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2018 6:08:50 PM
Subject: Re: Average Price Paid
Great question. For new cars this is determined by nationwide sales data which is different than are used car pricing analysis which compares pricing on similar vehicles within 50-100 miles.
We get thousands of sales data records per month and compare what price a similarly equipped (make/model/trim) vehicles has been sold. It’s good to note that we are excluding outliers such under or oversold vehicles. We are not deciding this by what we think a customer should pay. This analysis has come from what real customers have already paid.
Another thing to note is we don’t actually give a good or poor rating on the vehicle we just provide this range. I think it’s safe to say that “similarly equipped” doesn’t always account for a fully loaded car with all the bells and whistles. If you come across a well-educated customer that wants a better price on a fully loaded vehicle then you can explain that the range is only taking general make/model/trim into account and not all major options.
Dealer Account Executive
CarGurus
