Chris,
Not sure why you wanted to post that on a Dealer.com profile, but I'll assume you're a Dealer.com client. For how I'm going to respond it doesn't matter who you're with.
Any Internet/Marketing Manager worth their salt has considered going outside of the automotive industry for a website solution at one time or another. I can tell you that I weighed that option every time we changed site providers. The problem I always came back to was inventory. I have yet to find an outside web provider who can adequately handle automotive inventory. In fact, most of them ran away when I started to elaborate how vehicle inventory works online. It isn't as simple as having a Sony TV model 998803 where you have an endless supply and one price that fits all. New cars maybe, but used cars - no. And with your inventory being your single greatest marketing asset there really couldn't be a bigger deal.
You also brought up costs. You get what you pay for. Yeah, you might find some Indian to exploit, but how long is that going to last and will it really help you progress over time?
I'm glad to hear you thinking outside of the box, but it isn't worth it to go outside because you'll be coming right back for some plugin solution(s). And then your reporting isn't 100% accurate and you're dealing with multiple vendors instead of just one. By that time you probably haven't saved any money anyway.
Not sure why you wanted to post that on a Dealer.com profile, but I'll assume you're a Dealer.com client. For how I'm going to respond it doesn't matter who you're with.
Any Internet/Marketing Manager worth their salt has considered going outside of the automotive industry for a website solution at one time or another. I can tell you that I weighed that option every time we changed site providers. The problem I always came back to was inventory. I have yet to find an outside web provider who can adequately handle automotive inventory. In fact, most of them ran away when I started to elaborate how vehicle inventory works online. It isn't as simple as having a Sony TV model 998803 where you have an endless supply and one price that fits all. New cars maybe, but used cars - no. And with your inventory being your single greatest marketing asset there really couldn't be a bigger deal.
You also brought up costs. You get what you pay for. Yeah, you might find some Indian to exploit, but how long is that going to last and will it really help you progress over time?
I'm glad to hear you thinking outside of the box, but it isn't worth it to go outside because you'll be coming right back for some plugin solution(s). And then your reporting isn't 100% accurate and you're dealing with multiple vendors instead of just one. By that time you probably haven't saved any money anyway.
