Inventory protection Idea that doesn't work

[yagoparamo]

If someone wants to steal your images/inventory, they will. People have multiple layer hidden files and... they get stolen. These are public files.

You can easily put a copyright overlay in your images with most inventory software. However since when pirates care about copiright warnings? Ask Captain Phillips.

Written warnings are useless. Check your (no intent of defamation here, just for example purposes) Autotrader, cars, or almost any 3rd party ad sites, you grant (for other reasons) all rights to them to use your feed however they feel fit to promote your inventory.

So don't get me wrong; I AGREE AND SHARE YOUR FRUSTRATION, however I believe the best way is to get the AG office in your state to ban non agreed advertising as a possible way of fraud (which in many cases is) to the consumer and their job to ban these and protect the dealer.

 

[Alexander Lau]

Sorry, that'll never work. IMO, that's like asking torrent users to stop downloading illegal software, etc.

If a dealer site is being hosted by a 3rd party and that's the vast majority, the platform provider should create mechanisms to stop scraping bots, etc. That's probably a tall order and will never happen, but that is on the vendor. I'd ask questions if I were a dealer.

Not that I disagree, it is an issue.

 

[Carluminati]

So I guess the consensus is WE GET MORE VIEWS with these scraper sites, and that's ok with me too.

 

[Carluminati]

Have fun with that. How about instead of whining about the world changing, you try and provide a better service for your customers so they don't need to go through a third party?

How about I hire some hackers and DDOS the hell out of them, and you.

 

[marcelus]

How about I hire some hackers and DDOS the hell out of them, and you.

Nice to see your grasp of technology is just as good as your grasp of copyright.

 

[Carluminati]

Don't take me too seriously Marcelus, I'm never going to be as good as you and I'm okay with that.

 

[Alexander Lau]

I've been known to use both http://www.mozenda.com and https://www.import.io myself. They are quality tools and it just depends on what you're trying to accomplish with scraping. It's not evil or illegal.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@marcelus I don't have any issues with legitimate third party websites. None. I think it's healthy to have them in the mix and it creates good competition. Can visitors get more info about vehicles on some of those sites?? ABSOLUTELY!! We have contracts / agreements or the inventory providers that I choose to use have agreements structured and set up with them. I do have an issue with a crappy third party aggregate that is trying to poach customers from my PMA by presenting themselves as the good guys and me as the bad guy. It's already a muddy uphill battle from the git go gaining the customers trust. Then a you have a crappy aggregate that has no relation to you at all except scrapping your website that has the pricing completely wrong intentionally. It's structured that way to get the customer to contact them. It's complete BS. We work extremely hard to keep our pricing consistent across all the marketing channels to create consistency so if the customer sees the car on my website, AT, Cars, etc... your gonna be presented the same price for the vehicle / product. If you don't have consistency, doubt gets created. That's exactly what carjojo is doing. That site is not about providing more info or a better users experience. It's built to create doubt. That the customer can't / shouldn't trust the deal the dealer is providing them. That the customer should use their services to get a better deal. That my friend, is complete BS!!! I have zero and I mean ZERO respect for companies like that. NONE!!

 

[autohitch]

I see what you are saying on there. I pull up a new Tahoe and it shows me a vin, but I don't see real pictures, just stocks. But I'm not sure how much you should be worried about this JOJO site because when I google that vin number I see the car listed everywhere else for 3k less than JOJO has it where they claim 5k savings. They're probably no better than a truecar where you end up with some savings but nowhere near what you could do on your own with a phone and an email address.

I do however agree that if you are going to scrape the listings, your website copy shouldn't be one massive slam on dealerships. It's all over that website and they are really going to bury themselves with the dealers.

 

[marcelus]

@marcelus I don't have any issues with legitimate third party websites. None. I think it's healthy to have them in the mix and it creates good competition. Can visitors get more info about vehicles on some of those sites?? ABSOLUTELY!! We have contracts / agreements or the inventory providers that I choose to use have agreements structured and set up with them. I do have an issue with a crappy third party aggregate that is trying to poach customers from my PMA by presenting themselves as the good guys and me as the bad guy. It's already a muddy uphill battle from the git go gaining the customers trust. Then a you have a crappy aggregate that has no relation to you at all except scrapping your website that has the pricing completely wrong intentionally. It's structured that way to get the customer to contact them. It's complete BS. We work extremely hard to keep our pricing consistent across all the marketing channels to create consistency so if the customer sees the car on my website, AT, Cars, etc... your gonna be presented the same price for the vehicle / product. If you don't have consistency, doubt gets created. That's exactly what carjojo is doing. That site is not about providing more info or a better users experience. It's built to create doubt. That the customer can't / shouldn't trust the deal the dealer is providing them. That the customer should use their services to get a better deal. That my friend, is complete BS!!! I have zero and I mean ZERO respect for companies like that. NONE!!

So you have a problem with someone taking advantage of the decades long reputation dealerships earned for themselves of screwing over customers? You don't get to play the victim on that one. You knew what the public perception of dealerships was before you got into the car industry and it's not going away any time soon no matter what you do. It's going to take a generation or two to die off before perception matches reality. Even the younger car buyers grew up being taught something along the lines of dealership=stealership. Matilda was a major kid's movie in the 90s that had a major plot point of the dad being a slimy used car salesman under investigation by the FBI.