I think information transparency is the most valuable thing to share. Good or bad. Im definitely guilty of over complicating it at least once a week Joe
Uncle Joe's Makeover Diary 2.0
- Thread starter joe.pistell
- Start date
- Apr 7, 2009
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...from my journal back in '08,
I was kicking up dealer refresh blog post ideas
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...from my journal back in '08,
I was kicking up dealer refresh blog post ideas
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In our new Internet Marketing World... Inventory is advertising.
What?
I am here to tell you that money once allocated to ad dollars need to be placed into floor plan to support selection!
Why?
Let's take a walk and explore my findings.
I've studied traffic records of the web sites I've built, the web sites that I have managed and web sites of other car dealers all over the USA. Here's my most telling finding: Shoppers are drawn to selection like a moth to a flame, so much so it's an unfair fight.
The more units you have on the ground, the more you dominate your shopper's car search time. And as logic tells us, is the longer you have with your audience, the more branding opportunities you'll have. As you keep your shopper glued to your site, your "value added" features have time to deeply root themselves into the shopper's value equations. An added bonus is that consumers can only spend so much time looking for a car on the net. The larger your selection, the longer you'll keep them away from your competitors (aka Win-Win).
From my research, this general rule applies. For every 100 units you have under your umbrella, you can expect to keep your visitor for 1 minute. That means if you have 300 units on the ground, you can expect to keep shoppers tied up and kickin' tires for 3 to 4 minutes per visit. Like wise, if you have 1,000 units, 10 minutes per visit is quite normal.
To put this into perspective, AutoTrader.com and Cars.com keep their shoppers tied up for 12 to 15 minutes per visit. So, if you have the size, you can offer up a shopping experience that rivals the classified sites. I say use every ounce of your marketing energy to create the best web shopping experience you can muster. Pull every string, twist every knob, dangle every carrot you can find, get them to your web site and get them warm safe and comfortable.
From a shoppers perspective, if you're inventory is priced smart, then your dealers name pops out in several searches. At some point, the consumer arrives at a place where they know they have to hit to streets to complete the process, and then your site will have served up the knock out punch with the depth and breath of selection and your value added goodies.
Joe
p.s. Like to see your own numbers and your competitors? Visit Compete.com, drop in your domain name and take a look. It's not perfect, but it is relative when doing competitive analysis. Speaking of which, keep Compete.com handy when your local TV and radio reps try to sell you Banner ads. If you're big enough, they should be buying traffic from you!
- Apr 7, 2009
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This dude is legit, he's a dealer principal with a giant twitter following.
https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1621193620723204099?s=20&t=s7btEgobcGRZ7MfxzRlc3g
His treads are great content.
Speaking as a marketing/merchandising guy, his twitter work delivers amazing insights. The results above caused me to see AT in a new light.
I liked this comment in particular "Cars & Bids, Bring A Trailer and even eBay at times. I realize these are specialty sites for the most part. During the pandemic it felt like AutoTrader got buried in phony ads from dealers with cars that were not available. It became a lot to sift through."
I think the worst part of post-covid car shopping became the very high likelihood that inventory listed online was not at the dealership, already sold, or not ready for retail. Its odd how the goal of "merchandising better" ended with frustrating the shopper as much as possible. In the pursuit of "pretend we have the most inventory" we managed to drive MANY shoppers away entirely.
- Apr 7, 2009
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Anyone know of an IMS with API?
It needs to read/write (i.e. REST or GraphQL). Anyone using DealereProcess's new Units? I think its write only https://unitsinventory.com/faq/
It needs to read/write (i.e. REST or GraphQL). Anyone using DealereProcess's new Units? I think its write only https://unitsinventory.com/faq/
- Aug 30, 2019
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- Collin
I've got to do a selfless plug on this question, having spent the better part of the last year building an IMS with a RESTful API. I'd be happy to build out a demo account for you as I have only been working with dealers I know during this beta stage. The API is currently used in production for multiple dealer websites and a couple of additional products I have developed.
This platform is built to be very modular and supports API Tokens as well as Oauth 2.0 authentication. So users can have one login across multiple products.
Key features currently include:
- Feed injestion in any format from any vendor via FTP (to get the inventory up and running vAuto, Homenet, whoever take your pick)
- Syndication export in any format via FTP, SFTP, Web Hosted File
- Notifications on events (IE notify X user that a vehicle is retail ready)
- API authentication (Tokens or Oauth2.0)
- Stock Tag/Label Printing (Buyers Guides as well)
- Image overlays on a per-syndication basis
- AI Background Removal for exterior photos
- Too many more to list, and deployments daily for new features. Taking requests as well at the moment!
- Apr 7, 2009
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- Apr 7, 2009
- 4,835
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- Awards
- 10
- First Name
- Joe
Why I am a rabid fan of Frikentech's payment UX
- Cox Automotive's 2019 Car Buyer Journey Study: 2019 Car Buyer Journey Study Released - Cox Automotive Inc.
- CarGurus' 2019 Buyer Insights Report: https://dealercenter.cargurus.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019-CarGurus-Buyer-Insights-Report.pdf
- Edmunds.com's 2019 Used Car Report: New Cars, Used Cars, Car Reviews and Pricing | Edmunds
- Apr 7, 2009
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any ChatGPT power users here will LOVE this hack (below). High performance ChatGPT requires a well constructed prompt (gives GPT context). The hack below asks ChatGPT to help construct and iterate the prompt. GrandPa Joe's 
#MindBlown. .
#MindBlown. .I want you to become my prompt engineer. Your goal is to help me craft the best possible prompt for my needs. The Prompt will be used by you, chatgpt. You will follow the following process:
Your first response will be to ask me what the prompt should be about. I will provide my answer, but we will need to improve it through continual interactions by going through the next steps.
Based on my input, you will generate two sections, a) revised prompt (provide your rewritten prompt. it should be clear, concise, and easily understood by you), b) Questions (Ask any relevant questions pertaining to what additional information is needed from me to improve the prompt).
We will continue this iterative process with me providing additional information to you and updating the prompt in the revised prompt section until I say we are done.
