Edmunds TMV vs TrueCar - Dealers, wake up!

[Joe Pistell]

In other words... "how great is this lead?"

Ask Edmunds to limit the payout time to 2 weeks.  NOT.

Ask edmunds to limit it to a test drive based on the vehicle chosen. NOT.

Ask edmunds to de-dupe itself if the vehicle purchased did not match the  edmunds up.  NOT.

Ask edmunds to de-dupe itself if the buyer sent in another lead from another site that was newer than the edmunds lead. NOT.

Ask edmunds to de-dupe itself if the buyer sent in another lead from another site that created a test drive (a physical visit). NOT.

Dealer beware this model.
Consumers are everywhere, there are shopping sites everywhere, buy into this model and your ad costs PVR can explode.

 

[Guest]

I'm not so sure about this. We already tell all ZAG partners what our price is (USAA, etc) what's wrong with one more? (Truecar.com)

I put a lead in myself from truecar's website to track the process. going to get more data. Has anyone else seen any real numerical flaws here?

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Yes this is typical, however as the "laws" tighten this too faces challenge.

 

[Joe Hobbs]

I have the Edmunds contract sitting on my desk for both stores.... I not going to sign do not think it is worth $3,000 for a 15 miles radius around the stores.....Then they want me to sign paper that i declined it sorry not doing that either.... 

 

[joe.webb]

Joe - you ROCK.  IF (and that's a big i"if") those were the terms of agreement, I think we'd all see the value in it.  Even if we know that they won't allow such stipulations, I think we should go ahead and try by asking for them.

Why should they be rewarded for business any different than how an Internet Manager or BDC person is paid?  If a customer comes in and purchases a vehicle 1 month after the salesperson last spoke to the customer, do they get credit?  No.  Nor should the lead provider.

If a BDC person leaves a couple of voice mail messages and the customer walks in 3 weeks later and purchases a car, do we reward the BDC person?  No.  So why would we reward the lead provider?
I understand the flaw to my argument is that follow-up takes time, but we do such a poor job of sourcing on our showroom floors in the first place, I think some more reasonable, proven sourcing programs must be put in place first before we pay Edmunds per sale.

We've all seen the instance where a customer walks in with a newspaper tucked under their arm, salesperson logs them into the CRM as "Newspaper" for the advertising source, and sells them a car, just for the CRM to trigger an alert that the customer has been going back and forth with an ISM for 2 months.  Which source, may I ask, contributed most to them coming in?  - And there is the bugaboo for opening up a third-party provider for making that decision for you (and in their favor, most-likely).

 

[Dave White]

Jeff - great post! and Joe Pistell your observations are spot on. In an effort to garner more "quality" leads, dealers are often tempted to sign up for these things, and have no idea what the ramifications are. The Internet Manager goes to the GM or owner and says "we have an opportunity to get these great leads and only pay for the ones that buy".  No more questions asked...

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Smart decision. I did the same. As Joe points out above, I believe you would be adding to your PVR.

Edmunds is a research site. I'll give Cars.com and AutoTrader my money first. Plus they have never asked for my transactional data.

Cars.com and AT should jump on this so when a dealer threatens to drop one of the 2 to transition over to Edmunds.com, they can educate the dealer on the agreement with Edmunds and what it means to the industry.

 

[Patrick (blog)]

The problem is that these customer member programs are not going to go away.  Customers are always looking for a special deal.  Zag goes after these large organizations like USAA, the NRA, Geico, the Hartford, Bank of America, etc. and says "Hey, put a member program on your site and we'll run it for you" (maybe even pay them to have it up there) and these organizations are just not saying no. So you can lose direct access to these customers or pick up a crucial (to the small-midsize dealer) 10-15 deals a month and still make money if done properly. 

The best way to fix the problem if you are going to stick with Zag is to collude with the other dealers on the program in your area and agree with the GMs or ISMs not to price below invoice.  Unfortunately, in my area, one stubborn (and stupid) manager at another dealership wouldn't jump on board and so a race to the bottom began.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

" Unfortunately, in my area, one stubborn (and stupid) manager at another dealership wouldn't jump on board and so a race to the bottom began."

Patrick, that's usually the issue only take one to ruin it. One slow month and agreements and handshakes fade away.

Having a buying program isn't the issue. It's the scrapping of our data and being used for consumer consumption - that's the issue (or not).

If I had I owned a local sub shop or a local electronic store, like hell would I allow a company to look at every single transaction and post my average profits for each product on my front door before entering into the store.

 

[Guest]

I questioned the DMS access and this is the message I got from them:
“Participating Dealers” for our consumers, not people who
just want to “get leads” and continue the old dissatisfactory practices with
them. It would be disingenuous of us to provide TMV and related transactional
data to consumers and then display “participating dealers”, and the closest as
“Premier Dealers”, who are not really participating in the process. These are
the information points that consumers come to Edmunds.com for. It has been
proven by our large group partners and individual dealers where we piloted this
program to be a better experience for the consumer and dealers sell more car to
them (and at higher grosses I might add).

 

The match back component of this data is very helpful for us
to determine and do our best to be sure the dealer is realizing the ROI we
believe he should be, and as we may have set forth in setting expectations with
the dealer. The information can be key in advising on Best Practices. Also,
this market intelligence can be helpful in “closing the sales loop” from the
factory advertising being sent to drive traffic to the Dealer Locator pages.

After reading this I told them no thanks. They are nuts...