We got a ton of heat from CarGurus.com. I think the customers really like the "good deal" "fair deal" type stuff.. I'm sure this has already been pointed out, since I haven't read the last few pages, but I just wanted to throw my $.02 in.
The Top Vehicle Listings Websites - Who's NEXT?
- Thread starter Jeff Kershner
- Start date
- Apr 10, 2011
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- Manny
Flosho, Yes you are right!
Not only do the customers love "good deal" "fair deal", the search engines love them more.
That's why they scrape the the dealers bad reviews and post them. Then they turn around and sell it to the
dealers, and have their customers post good reviews!
"Good deal" vs "Fair deal"
"Pros vs Cons"
"Lease vs Purchase"
Google eats and breathes on this!
We linked to the "Are you Feeling a Disturbance in the Force?" blog post on our website because we think it's so true. We happened upon the article when we were in development of our service, and it happened to really solidify what we were perceiving in the online automotive classified space. So let me analyze the article and describe what we took from it:
It's MotoMiner.com. I hesitated for a long time to write anything here, in fear of being spammy or too "markety," but at this point, we aren't actually selling anything. We recognized a need and are in this to help buyers find vehicles and help dealers get their vehicles found. And hopefully, we will actually prove @Jeff Kershner right.
I guess the question remains for us if we are "the disturbance in the force," but we know we have something unique and very beneficial for both parties involved (buyer/dealer) in online vehicle classifieds. What do you guys think?
(here is our "What Is" video, since video is easier to ingest than text)
- "All of the above mentioned classified websites, in one way or another, do little more than host a dealership’s inventory on their own website and VDP display… for a small fee. Some may do it better than others…"
As Jeff mentioned, all the players basically use the same model: dealers export inventory to them, then the players charge a small fee to basically show an additional VDP to potential buyers. The problem with this is that dealers don't need another VDP; they just need their vehicles as easy to find as possible. This helped us realize that there was no need for another "normal model" classified service. We need to innovate and change things up.
- "Some send emails with like inventory to your potential prospects (still not sure why some got pissed about this)"
Most players try to hijack leads for their own purposes, rather than drive buyers to the dealer's website. This makes money for the player but is obviously not done in the dealer's interest. Dealers want traffic to their website. Period. This is where the most accurate and up-to-date information is found, and the website is built to best drive a buyer toward action, so it is the best place for potential buyers to land. This point led us to another idea: just link to the dealer's website. No gimmicks. No lead hijacking. Just a link.
- "I feel a disturbance coming – a new breed OR a dramatic shift made by an existing listing website that could potentially make such a change that they shake up the industry and provide dealers a very different but valuable solution."
We were feeling the same thing. Cars.com and AutoTrader already had this current model down. CarGurus came in and changed things a little bit, but they still use the same basic model. A dramatic shift was needed - something very different but valuable.
- Stop forcing dealers to export their inventory. As a player, doing it this way means you only have a small subset of vehicles that are actually for sale. Many dealers are left out because they can't or don't export. So we decided to go and get vehicle information from the dealer websites ourselves. No hassles for the dealer. No payments, no contracts needed.
- Don't create another VDP for the dealer. Just get the basic vehicle data from the dealer, then display it to potential buyers in search results. If the buyer wants more information, they click through directly to the dealer website.
- No more hijacking leads! There is no need for another service that displays vehicle classifieds and tries to keep potential customers on their own website, so they can hijack the leads. Buyers just want to find vehicles that are available, and dealers just want buyers to get to their website, so they get the lead directly.
It's MotoMiner.com. I hesitated for a long time to write anything here, in fear of being spammy or too "markety," but at this point, we aren't actually selling anything. We recognized a need and are in this to help buyers find vehicles and help dealers get their vehicles found. And hopefully, we will actually prove @Jeff Kershner right. I guess the question remains for us if we are "the disturbance in the force," but we know we have something unique and very beneficial for both parties involved (buyer/dealer) in online vehicle classifieds. What do you guys think?
(here is our "What Is" video, since video is easier to ingest than text)
Last edited:
- Apr 29, 2011
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- Chris
John, excellent job on the site. It's a valuable resource I'll tell friends and family about. The bot is pretty handy too - are you considering an API?
Great to hear, Chris, thank you! What exactly do you have in mind when you mention an API? Do you mean something like a Google Search API that would allow searching MotoMiner's database on your own website?
- Jul 8, 2014
- 23
- 10
- First Name
- William
@John Washam When I search for a vehicle on motominer.com why does it indicate the seller as Sunset Cars when it is actually a different dealer?
The third and forth car down. Only connection I can make are these are not dealers that have signed up with you guys?
https://motominer.com/Search?Vehicl...122&ZipCode=98087&SearchRadius=50&Ulla=&Ullo=
The third and forth car down. Only connection I can make are these are not dealers that have signed up with you guys?
https://motominer.com/Search?Vehicl...122&ZipCode=98087&SearchRadius=50&Ulla=&Ullo=
- Apr 29, 2011
- 505
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- First Name
- Chris
@John Washam on the search results page I think a last updated timestamp would be good. I'd imagine an index with 22 million vehicles would take some time to crawl through and update dealer trades, sold vehicles, pricing updates, etc.
First, thanks for your input. MotoMiner just launched late Q4 2014 and your feedback is highly valued.
William, thanks for the heads up. It appears washingtoncarsearch.com is grouped with sunsetcars.com. Sometimes MotoMiner will merge websites & their vehicles if it detects they are running under the same rooftop (physical address). Corrective action is being taken for this and will be resolved shortly. washingtoncarsearch.com will be removed from the MotoMiner index as it not an individual dealer's website.
Dealers want their website/vehicles freely discovered with no entry barriers. Dealers want buyers to go straight to the VDP. The VDP has the latest & best vehicle information and should have the best hooks to convert them to a lead.
Buyers want a more comprehensive and transparent vehicle search. Why not take them to where the information was found: the VDP? Like Google/Bing, MotoMiner presents a link to take them directly to the dealer's VDP. The VDP is the best source of information about the vehicle and where the buyer can contact the dealer directly without fear of having their personal information resold to other 3rd-parties.
In many ways, the model is better for the buyer and for the dealer.
William, thanks for the heads up. It appears washingtoncarsearch.com is grouped with sunsetcars.com. Sometimes MotoMiner will merge websites & their vehicles if it detects they are running under the same rooftop (physical address). Corrective action is being taken for this and will be resolved shortly. washingtoncarsearch.com will be removed from the MotoMiner index as it not an individual dealer's website.
Like Google & Bing, MotoMiner is a true web search engine, only it's for vehicles. You don't need to export your website to Google or Bing to have your website content searchable by consumers. This same principle applies to MotoMiner with your website's vehicles.
Dealers want their website/vehicles freely discovered with no entry barriers. Dealers want buyers to go straight to the VDP. The VDP has the latest & best vehicle information and should have the best hooks to convert them to a lead.
Buyers want a more comprehensive and transparent vehicle search. Why not take them to where the information was found: the VDP? Like Google/Bing, MotoMiner presents a link to take them directly to the dealer's VDP. The VDP is the best source of information about the vehicle and where the buyer can contact the dealer directly without fear of having their personal information resold to other 3rd-parties.
In many ways, the model is better for the buyer and for the dealer.
That's a great idea, we'll put that onto our improvement list. Thanks for the feedback!
Just to give you a little more insight into MotoMiner, vehicle changes are detected every two days. If MotoMiner detects new vehicles, they are indexed immediately. For existing vehicles, they are re-indexed once per week to reduce stress on dealer websites. Obviously there's a balance there, and we're doing our best to balance keeping data fresh, yet not overwhelming the infrastructure that hosts dealer websites.
You're right, it takes a lot of time to do this work, but we have a lot of horsepower running 24/7. It's an intense number - we process terabytes of data every month!
- Jul 8, 2014
- 23
- 10
- First Name
- William
I do like the idea of this. But the 2 vehicles I pointed out do not take you to their VDP's on their respective dealer sites. shouldn't it devert to landroverseattle.com or jaguarseattle.Com Rather than Washingtoncarsearch?