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Inventory protection Idea that doesn't work

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#41
@Rick Buffkin

I wouldn't implement anything on your site that may affect sales or how customers interact with your site. Indexing shouldn't a concern for inventory pages.

I still think it is worth that the GM/Principal calls the AG in your state.

You can also have the dealer's attorney send a nasty letter to their office and threat to take them locally to court if they don't take your inventory down.
 
#42
You guys know what's really funny? I just thought: What if 3rd party sites could scrape for consumers instead...? We would all love that, right? Then I thought: Well, someone actually tried that. It was a platform where car buyers input what they wanted and dealers went there to find them and try to make a sale. You know what happened? A ton of dealers complained that it wasn't fair! So, I guess scraping for anything doesn't work in this industry.

This whole chicken and egg problem is something we are working through now before we start testing our Beta because as a former dealer I respect the process. The way I see it, I shouldn't profit off of your inventory being on my site. Maybe sharing those advertising revenues is a work around? I do know there are better scraping methods available until dealers can be directly signed up. You can set up an API pull that works several times a day so the information is accurate. #1 for me would be: Why not just ask a dealer if it's ok to proceed in exchange for shared revenues and potential leads? Who would fight that?
 
#43
I received an email from support that basically says; Carjojo is a consumer website that, in the course of working only for consumers, incidentally provides dealers with free sales leads. We do not enter agreements with dealers or take any fee of any sort from any dealer. As a representative of buyers only, we send to dealers (without any dealer commitment, obligation or cooperation) buyers who are often qualified and ready to buy.
Also, it is very clear from our website that the “Carjojo Estimated Price” for a vehicle has not been provided by or agreed to by any dealer; it is merely our opinion of the best price a consumer is likely to be able to negotiate with a dealer, based purely on public information etc.

Based on the FAQ section, I don't think anyone with any sense would use this service. Merely my opinion. I haven't spoke with any dealers that have actually received a lead from this company. Maybe it's a west coast anomaly?
 
#45
@Chris Leslie That's to funny!!!

At the end of all of this, If it's not these guys, it will be someone else if there's not someone already doing it. I think this is a hemorrhage that dealers need to put something in place to stop it from happening. Close the gaps on the free listing sites and who is really getting your inventory and who should be getting it. Bottom line, get control of the inventory.
 
#46
Rick Buffkin said:
@Chris Leslie That's to funny!!!

At the end of all of this, If it's not these guys, it will be someone else if there's not someone already doing it. I think this is a hemorrhage that dealers need to put something in place to stop it from happening. Close the gaps on the free listing sites and who is really getting your inventory and who should be getting it. Bottom line, get control of the inventory.
Click to expand...

@Rick Buffkin how do you suggest dealers start "getting control"?
 
#47
@Cody Teegerstrom

Personally, I think this would be a good start. When a SRP is loaded for the first time, fire the captcha JS call. This may not stop all the bots but, it will stop quite a few of them. It would also help give more accurate data in GA as well. You would think that website providers would at least offer something like this but they don't!

https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/invisible#programmatic_execute

upload_2017-8-30_22-3-35.png

Next would be cleaning up your export list in your inventory syndication dashboard. Chances are if you login and look at the sites your inventory is being exported to, 50% you've never heard of before or have never received a single lead from.
 
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#49
@yagoparamo I completely understand what your saying and I think you're 100% correct. But something needs to be done at least at the dealership level instead of leaving the door completely wide open to any scraper / pirate that wants to visit the dealers website and take any amount of data they choose.
 
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