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Thinking of dropping Dealer.com

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#21
We build our own sites at Suzuki of Wichita for many of the reasons you cite in wanting to leave dealer.com. We spend substantially MORE money on our own designs than it would cost us if we went with a vendor solution such as dealer.com. BTW, I have lots of respect for the guys at dealer.com having met many of the principals over the last few years.

As several have suggested, running your own site can present challenges that you are unaware of now and could cause you LOTS of headaches. Having control of my own site is important to me which is why we do what we do. Just don't think you are going to find a cheaper solution. My experience is that you PAY for complete control and really really need to know what you are doing before embarking on a project such as this.

I have always been an advocate of designing one's own site for lots of reasons (you should ask Jared Hamilton about some of our conversations on this matter), so I support what you are wanting to do 150%. You just need to make sure you are walking into this endeavor with your eyes wide open. It's not easy, it's not quick, and its WAY more expensive than finding a provider that does this for a living.

Just sayin'
 
#22
Tom,

Thanks for the input! Just out of curiosity, how much do you spend maintaining and hosting your sites? I spend roughly $36,000 a year with dealer.com for one store. I genuinely don't know how a self maintained site can cost more than that. Any more input on costs would be greatly appreciated.
 
#23
I only mention Wordpress because of it's universal adoption, flexibility and platform maturity. Not to mention support and scalability. There are so many good plugin developers, it would be a prime candidate to build upon.

Outside of that opinion, I have nothing to sell you--sheesh. It's like a commercial break after every three posts.
 
#24
If you know the right web designer you can get a fantastic and functional site template for five to eight thousand. Programming to duplicate a Dealer site costs about ten thousand if you network properly.

But data security is tough. There are so many vectors of attack that most people never consider. You simply must have to have a security audit of your code and that can get expensive.

On a side note nothing I write on this forum is ever trying to sell anything, that's just not my way.
 
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#25
Matthew Taylor said:
But data security is tough. There are so many vectors of attack that most people never consider. You simply must have to have a security audit of your code and that can get expensive.
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Could you please elaborate on this? For example, say I have somebody like GoDaddy hosting my site. And for an easy example - I hard code 20 vehicles with the VIN, Year, Make, Model, and Price. Where is the data security?

What data? Is somebody going to "hack" my site or blog? Are they going to try and capture information? What exactly are you saying Clay should be afraid of? What could you do that Clay couldn't do himself?

Sorry, if this sounds rude, it's not. I'm very curious...
 
#26
There's no transactions taking place. There's really no need for an audit in that kind of application. Especially if you can connect the customer lead data into a third party CRM. The rest of the data is displayed.

I wouldn't let Godaddy host my cat's birthday party, let alone a Website. :)
 
#28
davidmoon said:
I only mention Wordpress because of it's universal adoption, flexibility and platform maturity. Not to mention support and scalability. There are so many good plugin developers, it would be a prime candidate to build upon.
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I quite like wordpress and I agree that it is very powerful with a ton of great plugins. I'm just not sure if it would be the right tool for a new and used dealer site. But, it may be the right tool, just not sold 100% yet.

Matthew Taylor said:
If you know the right web designer you can get a fantastic and functional site template for five to eight thousand. Programming to duplicate a Dealer site costs about ten thousand if you network properly.
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I was thinking around $10,000 would be a good budget. Hell, its still less than half of what we spend with dealer.com in a year...

davidmoon said:
There's no transactions taking place. There's really no need for an audit in that kind of application. Especially if you can connect the customer lead data into a third party CRM. The rest of the data is displayed.
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Agreed. Although I wonder how this would affect online credit applications...

ewalraven said:
Ok then, other than a company you are associated with. Who would you recommend for a dealer managing a website on their own?
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We have a dedicated server with inMotion hosting for roughly $299 per month. It is a bit of overkill for what I use it for now. I would think this should be able to house all of my sites. I am looking at about 200-350 unique hits per day to our Toyota site and less than 1,000 for all three stores.
 
#29
MullerToyota said:
Tom,

Thanks for the input! Just out of curiosity, how much do you spend maintaining and hosting your sites? I spend roughly $36,000 a year with dealer.com for one store. I genuinely don't know how a self maintained site can cost more than that. Any more input on costs would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

I think that's high for something that's not completely flexible. But as most things in the world this industry; little makes sense to me.
 
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