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Edmunds TMV vs TrueCar - Dealers, wake up!
- Thread starter Jeff Kershner
- Start date
- Jan 25, 2012
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Nope, they are still there. See if this one works:
http://www.edmunds.com/confessions.htmlIt links to all of their articles. Now don't get me wrong, I think this is a great consumer research site. I just have a problem with the way articles like: "Confessions of a Car Salesman," "Confessions of an Auto Finance Manager," as well as others give a picture that feeds on the publics already poor perception of a very honorable industry.Now take that and add the data issue on top of it, I wonder why any dealer would think of doing business with either Edmunds or Zag. I doubt that they will take these pages down. This issue has been raised before with the only response by one of their leaders being "we are a consumer driven site. With 13m visitors a month, we cater to the consumer."I question an organization that doesn't at least soften the tone of their so called exposes on dealers and then put their hand out to ask dealers to pay them, too.
http://www.edmunds.com/confessions.htmlIt links to all of their articles. Now don't get me wrong, I think this is a great consumer research site. I just have a problem with the way articles like: "Confessions of a Car Salesman," "Confessions of an Auto Finance Manager," as well as others give a picture that feeds on the publics already poor perception of a very honorable industry.Now take that and add the data issue on top of it, I wonder why any dealer would think of doing business with either Edmunds or Zag. I doubt that they will take these pages down. This issue has been raised before with the only response by one of their leaders being "we are a consumer driven site. With 13m visitors a month, we cater to the consumer."I question an organization that doesn't at least soften the tone of their so called exposes on dealers and then put their hand out to ask dealers to pay them, too.
- Jan 25, 2012
- 32
- 37
- Awards
- 3
- First Name
- Ralph
- May 1, 2005
- 5,999
- 1,914
- Awards
- 12
- First Name
- Jeff
This issue has been raised before with the only response by one of their leaders being "we are a consumer driven site".
"we are a consumer driven site"
"we are a consumer driven site"
"we are a consumer driven site"
"we are a consumer driven site"
"we are a consumer driven site"
"we are a consumer driven site"
- Jan 25, 2012
- 32
- 37
- Awards
- 3
- First Name
- Ralph
Yes, Jeff, and that is total BS. It's what used to be called sensational journalism. Now it's called the tabloids. I wonder what it's like for an automotive research site to be paired with TMZ by their potential customers.
Without the car dealer, many websites would not exist. The hefty fee's dealers are forced to pay up month after month just to show up online at the usual high traffic sites, is gradually seen as nothing more than an inflated cable bill. These companies would not have the money to have invested in the infrastructure and develop the technology which we see today - had us dealers refused to pay what they have demanded, and gotten. Just like the cell phone and cable companies who over-charge us all, we are the ones who built the towers and paid for it all. Now we are forced to belly up more each month to use what we essentially created.
Furthermore, websites like Autotrader, Cars, Edmunds, and so forth - have never made it public on their websites to the consumer, that the free quotes people send in, are in fact paid for by the participating dealer. It would be nice for these sites to make this known, so that possibly the quality of leads would go from crappy, to not so crappy.
And do we really need more "Confessions of a car salesman" from the biggest instigator - Edmunds - to further squash consumers trust of car dealers. They are quick to build your suspicion, and promote you to acquire SEVERAL quotes to obtain the most competitive price - or - they ought to come clean, and tell them we're really padding our pockets, and if your lead is junk, who cares, the dealer still pays.
Furthermore, websites like Autotrader, Cars, Edmunds, and so forth - have never made it public on their websites to the consumer, that the free quotes people send in, are in fact paid for by the participating dealer. It would be nice for these sites to make this known, so that possibly the quality of leads would go from crappy, to not so crappy.
And do we really need more "Confessions of a car salesman" from the biggest instigator - Edmunds - to further squash consumers trust of car dealers. They are quick to build your suspicion, and promote you to acquire SEVERAL quotes to obtain the most competitive price - or - they ought to come clean, and tell them we're really padding our pockets, and if your lead is junk, who cares, the dealer still pays.
I always feel websites like Edmunds.com kick dealers like us all to the ground, only to step on our hands harder when we try to push ourselves back up. I just may have to start a blog or and create a you tube video titled "What Edmunds.com doesn't want you to know about". Since they are a consumer driven site, and people generally hope to hear the TRUTH, I'm sure I can get a few million eyes on it. Perhaps Edmunds "confessions" could include a very visible positive spin on the dealer network which keeps them humming along financially.
Last number I got from Zag was that they had 4,500 dealers. If that is true there is no need complaining what's done is done. What I do not understand is why dealers will allow Zag to post your price and two others and not give any exclusivity. The bad part about that model is the dealer 50 miles away may beat your deal by 1 or 2 hundred and the customer in your backyard will drive. You never get a chance to sell the value of your store, your people, your service, the contributions you make in the local community etc. I can understand agreeing to a great price when they bring the customer to you but the online dealer vs dealer model puzzles me why a dealer would play.
Jeff,
Edmunds’ new
advertising program is neither pay-per-lead nor pay-per-sale.
Pay-per-lead from a site like Edmunds misses the point. We have over
14 Million consumers a month who are researching the purchase of a new or used
car on the site, yet less than 1.5% of them actually submit a “lead” to a
dealer. The other 98.5% are using the site to decide where to buy, they are
just not sending leads, I mean, would you? JD Power recently did a study
that showed that Edmunds has twice as many buyers using the site in the month
that they purchase as the average automotive research site (including Cars and
AutoTrader). In addition, according to Comscore 64% of our audience is
not using any other 3rd party automotive research site (once you take out the
Million uniques we are directly sending to AutoTrader, its 58% otherwise).
There is a reason that every OEM advertises to Edmunds' audience, and the
same reason applies to dealer advertising.
As for the
pay-per-sale model, it sounds great since you only pay when you sell, but you
are relying on the company that is billing you to tell you what they
"sold" for you, which sounds like more than a little bit of a
conflict of interest to me. In addition, as others have pointed out in
this thread, most programs that charge on a per-sale basis also create an
environment that either force dealers to sell cars at a loss, or to play the
games that cause sites like Edmunds to write things like "Confessions of a
Car Salesman". That article ends with the following:
"Of all the advice
I've offered, I'd just like to stress that it's important to remember that
buying a car should benefit both you and the dealer. While I have focused
on deflecting the sales techniques in the dealership, I don't recommend
becoming overly defensive. If you deal fairlywith the car salesperson, and you
get the same in return, the transaction can be enjoyable — even exciting. It
really should be. So, I wish all of you a great shopping experience and many
years of driving pleasure in your new car."
The entire article
is still on the Edmunds site, maybe this will work: http://bit.ly/gXMUdH
As far as Edmunds
"Suckering Dealers" into submitting transaction data to us as a
result of our new advertising program; we are clear in our pitch and in our
contract that we require transaction data to participate in our advertising
program. Even before the new program, we have had over 40% of all
transactions being submitted to us from dealers that have elected to do so because
they want to ensure the accuracy of TMV. As for our new program, we feel
that you have to participate to participate, meaning that if we are going to
promote your brand next to TMV you have a vested interest in ensuring the
accuracy of that value.
TMV is the local
MEDIAN selling price of the vehicle in the market, meaning that 50% of
transactions occurred above, and 50% of transactions occurred below TMV.
We may be off here and there, which is why we are always attempting to
increase the accuracy of that value by increasing the number of transactions we
use to calculate the value. As we commit to in the contract that you have
published, we do not sell, share, or publish the raw data to anyone else, nor
do we expose the individual transactions
to consumers, including those that occurred so far below invoice that were
probably demos or loaners (unlike others), and despite your speculation, we
have never forgotten the fact that we created TMV over 10 years ago to provide
guidance to consumers to help empower them to get a fair deal.
I will invite any
dealer on this site to look over every one of your last weeks' transactions,
including all aspects of the deal, and compare it to the TMV price on Edmunds.com right now, and if we are not close to
your average, then maybe you should send us your transaction data.
If anyone has any questions about the new product, feel free to contact me directly.
All the best,
Johnny G
Director, Dealer
Initiatives
Edmunds.com
Edmunds’ new
advertising program is neither pay-per-lead nor pay-per-sale.
Pay-per-lead from a site like Edmunds misses the point. We have over
14 Million consumers a month who are researching the purchase of a new or used
car on the site, yet less than 1.5% of them actually submit a “lead” to a
dealer. The other 98.5% are using the site to decide where to buy, they are
just not sending leads, I mean, would you? JD Power recently did a study
that showed that Edmunds has twice as many buyers using the site in the month
that they purchase as the average automotive research site (including Cars and
AutoTrader). In addition, according to Comscore 64% of our audience is
not using any other 3rd party automotive research site (once you take out the
Million uniques we are directly sending to AutoTrader, its 58% otherwise).
There is a reason that every OEM advertises to Edmunds' audience, and the
same reason applies to dealer advertising.
As for the
pay-per-sale model, it sounds great since you only pay when you sell, but you
are relying on the company that is billing you to tell you what they
"sold" for you, which sounds like more than a little bit of a
conflict of interest to me. In addition, as others have pointed out in
this thread, most programs that charge on a per-sale basis also create an
environment that either force dealers to sell cars at a loss, or to play the
games that cause sites like Edmunds to write things like "Confessions of a
Car Salesman". That article ends with the following:
"Of all the advice
I've offered, I'd just like to stress that it's important to remember that
buying a car should benefit both you and the dealer. While I have focused
on deflecting the sales techniques in the dealership, I don't recommend
becoming overly defensive. If you deal fairlywith the car salesperson, and you
get the same in return, the transaction can be enjoyable — even exciting. It
really should be. So, I wish all of you a great shopping experience and many
years of driving pleasure in your new car."
The entire article
is still on the Edmunds site, maybe this will work: http://bit.ly/gXMUdH
As far as Edmunds
"Suckering Dealers" into submitting transaction data to us as a
result of our new advertising program; we are clear in our pitch and in our
contract that we require transaction data to participate in our advertising
program. Even before the new program, we have had over 40% of all
transactions being submitted to us from dealers that have elected to do so because
they want to ensure the accuracy of TMV. As for our new program, we feel
that you have to participate to participate, meaning that if we are going to
promote your brand next to TMV you have a vested interest in ensuring the
accuracy of that value.
TMV is the local
MEDIAN selling price of the vehicle in the market, meaning that 50% of
transactions occurred above, and 50% of transactions occurred below TMV.
We may be off here and there, which is why we are always attempting to
increase the accuracy of that value by increasing the number of transactions we
use to calculate the value. As we commit to in the contract that you have
published, we do not sell, share, or publish the raw data to anyone else, nor
do we expose the individual transactions
to consumers, including those that occurred so far below invoice that were
probably demos or loaners (unlike others), and despite your speculation, we
have never forgotten the fact that we created TMV over 10 years ago to provide
guidance to consumers to help empower them to get a fair deal.
I will invite any
dealer on this site to look over every one of your last weeks' transactions,
including all aspects of the deal, and compare it to the TMV price on Edmunds.com right now, and if we are not close to
your average, then maybe you should send us your transaction data.
If anyone has any questions about the new product, feel free to contact me directly.
All the best,
Johnny G
Director, Dealer
Initiatives
Edmunds.com
From the horses mouth:
We outsell 20 other dealers in our market and know EXACTLY what people pay for Nissan's and have so for 20 years. We know the RMV - that's "Real Market Value" - better in our market than Edmunds or TrueCar will ever think they know. Pulling numbers from the DMS is one thing, but can these websites be really trusted they are in fact sharing the REAL NUMBERS? We can't know! And we do not! The bottom line is they could care less about dealers, because they know dealers will pay up to be listed.
I truly feel within the next 3 years, a better research/pricing website paradigm will emerge, that is car dealer fueled, by honest dealers like you and I, who love their customers, and the product we are privileged to sell.
You will see vastly improved Lead generation that will make an edmunds free car quote form look like a stomped on piece of origami, lit with a blow torch.
1. A customer cannot buy a car from Edmunds.
2. Edmunds does not service nor do they warranty vehicles.
Why are they acting like they can or do?
We outsell 20 other dealers in our market and know EXACTLY what people pay for Nissan's and have so for 20 years. We know the RMV - that's "Real Market Value" - better in our market than Edmunds or TrueCar will ever think they know. Pulling numbers from the DMS is one thing, but can these websites be really trusted they are in fact sharing the REAL NUMBERS? We can't know! And we do not! The bottom line is they could care less about dealers, because they know dealers will pay up to be listed.
I truly feel within the next 3 years, a better research/pricing website paradigm will emerge, that is car dealer fueled, by honest dealers like you and I, who love their customers, and the product we are privileged to sell.
You will see vastly improved Lead generation that will make an edmunds free car quote form look like a stomped on piece of origami, lit with a blow torch.
1. A customer cannot buy a car from Edmunds.
2. Edmunds does not service nor do they warranty vehicles.
Why are they acting like they can or do?
