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Inventory protection Idea that doesn't work

Oh man, a few things here.

@Carluminati don't be fooled by "more views", you are not getting anything for free

@marcelus I don't know what reputation you are talking about; that of lawyers, policemen, real state agents (those are the worse by the way) or maybe you are talking of lazy Mexicans, etc (don't want to go deeper on that one but you get my point). I'm overly tired of people like you perpetuating these labels. I'm part of the car industry and I don't tolerate your discrimination. Furthermore whether the industry has a harsh reputation or not has no bearing on whether we have to allow others to steal from us.
 
@yagoparamo I mentioned exactly what reputation I was talking about in my very first sentence. So because you obviously haven't even read my comment I'd suggest you go back and read it before you start trying to put words in my mouth. Once you've read my comment I'd be happy to continue the discussion.
 
I prefer "If you buy a house right next to a night club, don't complain that it's loud at 1AM," but they're similar.

Edit: to keep with the pirate example: You bought the Queen Anne's Revenge from Blackbeard and turned her into a legitimate merchant ship, but you're still somehow surprised that people think "Blackbeard/ pirates" when they see her.
 
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@marcelus Here's an example. Your looking for a car on the internet and have been doing research for a few months to find the car that meets your needs. You happen to come across CarJoJo's website. You search and find the exact car your looking for. It has the options you want and the pricing is very attractive and right in your budget. You call the dealer to find out if the car is in stock. Yes! It's there. You set your appointment with a sales rep to visit the dealership and everything is flowing smoothly. You prepared before your visit by cleaning out your current vehicle and finding your paperwork, insurance, etc... Your ready to do a deal. You arrive at the dealership and everything is in order just as the salesman said. You like him / her, the car and the dealership. It's perfect. You then start working numbers on the vehicle and the price the sales rep shows you as their internet sales price is $1,200 - $1,500 higher than what you saw online. The rep explains that this is their internet sales price. You say No! It's on the website cheaper than that. The rep assures you that this is their internet sales price. Now your feeling uneasy and that this rep is trying to take advantage of you by charging you a higher price than what you saw online. The rep pulls up their dealership website and BOOM. Just as he stated, it's on their website for the exact price he presented to you. You may be thinking that they some how changed it since you set your appt and now looking at on their site. That's not the case.

Who's fault is it???? Who is the liar in this scenario (Keep in mind this scenario happens almost on a daily basis)???? Who's the shady one?????? The rep did his job. The sales mgr did his job. You / the customer did their job. So who's fault is it!!!

Can you kinda see how this website that posted this BS pricing can mislead a customer. The customer thinks the dealer is shady and it's not even the dealers fault!! They scraped the dealers website and placed pricing on their site that is unobtainable for the dealer to do.
 
We are currently working on some technology that will block scrappers from grabbing page information from a site...I will keep everyone posted as we progress with this.

Tell us more.
Scrapers are getting smarter than ever.
I can spin up a command line instance of Chrome, visit every page of your website with valid headers and user agents and save every asset to my machine without you knowing it's any different than a real user. I use a real computer, a real browser agent, full javascript support, etc.

When doing that, I've yet to find anyone who could block it without also making a bad experience for their own users.

I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze.
 
@Rick Buffkin So is carjojo somehow stopping your rep from explaining that they just make up their own pricing? Do they stop you from explaining they're getting sued for that in CA? Do they stop you from showing customers your listings on autotrader, cars.com, cargurus etc with the right price? Do your reps just shut down whenever someone pulls the "I saw it for cheaper at xyz" or the "My cousin's friend's brother's room mate got it for way less" lines?
 
@marcelus Of course it gets explained to the customers!!! But... understand, the rep / dealer is having to explain pricing errors that isn't their fault and from the git go the customer is already loosing faith in what your telling them. Most ppl understand but... some don't. Those customers who somewhat believes that stigma about all car dealers are shady prob now feels like they are experiencing it first hand when it was never the dealers fault to begin with!! Thats my point. The dealer didn't ask to advertise their inventory on that website. Most prob don't know it even exist. But, the site is getting traffic and they are pulling customers in and each customer that visits it, is basically being lied to by the site provider and not the dealer!!! The customer isn't going to call / contact the site provider. They're gonna contact the dealer and if the info is wrong, they're gonna feel mislead by the dealer. Not the site provider.

The rep or manager should not have to explain to a customer that this garbage 3rd party website is spreading false information!! The customer or the dealer shouldn't have to experience it. Period!!! It's simply bad all the way around.

As I stated earlier, I have nothing against 3rd party websites. I think it creates healthy competition and they give their visitors a great experience(for the most part) with info and choices.