Has anyone tried skipping all these vendors that specialize in dealership websites and going straight to regular webdev company all kinds of sites?
It seems to me that most of these dealership web companies just whip you up a shitty website, then charge you $500-$2000 a month for basically nothing. And it blows me away how ugly most of these websites are that the vendors make. You'd think that if it was the only kind of website you make, and you use basically the same template for every dealership you work with, that your websites would be top notch.
Given that these website vendors are giving every dealer basically the same site, and it only costs about $50 a month to host a website, what exactly are we paying them all that money for?
I understand that with most web development companies, usually you pay a big fee up front to have the site designed, then a small monthly payment after that just to cover to cost of keeping the site up and the occasional update. I don't know what these dealership are charging you $1000+ a month for.
The one benefit I can see from choosing one of these dealership vendors instead of a regular web developer is that you can see exactly what you're going to get before you get it. Choosing a company that has never made a website for a dealership could be more risky if it turns out they don't know what they're doing. The only problem is, in all my searching, I've only found one dealership vendor who's making websites that are up to my standards.
