What do you pay for your website provider?

[Chris Cachor]

Dealerships don't know they're getting butt-hurt because they don't have the IT background to know that its ridiculous to pay that much per month.

Ha! They're paying twice that to generate 30 leads on a third party classifieds site each month. I think it's the last of their worries, honestly. If they were that sensitive to price, they wouldn't be paying it. Hell, their Carfax bill is probably more. For the value they get out of it - it's really probably the most price effective form of marketing they can buy.

 

[AWW_Spencerport]

Ha! They're paying twice that to generate 30 leads on a third party classifieds site each month. I think it's the last of their worries, honestly. If they were that sensitive to price, they wouldn't be paying it. Hell, their Carfax bill is probably more. For the value they get out of it - it's really probably the most price effective form of marketing they can buy.

That doesn't mean it's worth it.

Just because other things are outrageously priced does not mean anything. In fact, it probably goes deeper to show that Dealers are getting screwed on a lot of their marketing bills because they never thought to question the insanity of some of the price gouging.

I forwarded my brother-in-law this thread. He owns one of the largest web design firms in Upstate NY and has worked on websites for NASA, Kodak, IBM and others. He texted me and said "Is that guy (you) kidding?". I replied "I don't think so". He replied "I guess i'm in the wrong genre". The fact of the matter is that the prices that Dealers are paying for "Dealer websites" would never be even a THOUGHT in the broad web design field. Dealers are paying Dealer.com $30,000 per year to RENT a cookie cutter website. For most web design firms, $20,000 you should get your very own custom website with every feature you want imaginable and it would be yours for life.

You said judging by my response on inventory feeds that I've never done this before. I've done this over a dozen times. I've built database management systems for department stores and con-vexed them with their online presence. An inventory management tool is in its basic form a database table with stock numbers querying each vehicle and being presented on your website in the form you wish it to be. It's not very complex. And once the code is written, the web firm applys that code to every customer thereafter.

It's really sad the state of the market today.

 

[Chris Cachor]

You said judging by my response on inventory feeds that I've never done this before. I've done this over a dozen times. I've built database management systems for department stores and con-vexed them with their online presence. An inventory management tool is in its basic form a database table with stock numbers querying each vehicle and being presented on your website in the form you wish it to be. It's not very complex. And once the code is written, the web firm applys that code to every customer thereafter.

Why aren't you building the site out yourself? I mean you did own your own web design agency. And you've designed all these systems. Surely, this should be a trivial task for you, right? Hell, you could probably run circles around Dealer.com and charge a fraction of the cost, too. You've priced it all out. I would give it a shot if I were you....

 

[AWW_Spencerport]

Why aren't you building the site out yourself? I mean you did own your own web design agency. And you've designed all these systems. Surely, this should be a trivial task for you, right? Hell, you could probably run circles around Dealer.com and charge a fraction of the cost, too. You've priced it all out. I would give it a shot if I were you....

That's what I did for years.

 

[kcar]

I can attest to that, contacted 80-90 website firms, prices are in the $15-40K range. High end is somewhere near $50-60K, but that's professional elite firms, doing $100K contracts for their clients anyways. Most of the firms I reached out to wouldn't take on a project like this which is a given (most only want to do a basic or full website and get paid, not an inventory code section). But there was a small handful that would. I even was able to get the price down to $5K-8K with some freelancers.. I mean you can replicate any other vendor out there, everything they have is possible to do yourself..

 

[ajholland]

I am by no means a web design or web building expert, but we looked at a local web design firm who builds excellent, beautiful websites. About $15k and it's ours for life. However, the problem we found is that when Google wants to change their algorithm, who makes the change to the website? They weren't going to. Every change would require them to bill us and they really weren't SEO experts. Realistically, there aren't enough website experts who can build there own sites in house, so dealers pay a premium price to have it managed by an outside company who knows what they are doing.

If you take a look at nearly every dealership, we pay a premium for lots of services we shouldn't because it's easy and let's us focus our time and attention on selling cars. I wish I had the time and expertise to build and maintain our sites myself, but I don't have either!

 

[kcar]

I am by no means a web design or web building expert, but we looked at a local web design firm who builds excellent, beautiful websites. About $15k and it's ours for life. However, the problem we found is that when Google wants to change their algorithm, who makes the change to the website?

Your website development firm, or the other million people who can code/develop websites.. Get on a solid platform like Wordpress, even if it's someone else's code there's plenty of people that will work on it. The best fit is to get a firm that will produce the site and work on it after at a billable rate.. Google algorithm changes shouldn't or affect how you have your website setup.. Dealers don't participate in any blackhat tactics so there's no reason for the website itself to change due to an algo change. Not to mention all the algo changes to be concerned about are are focused on link building.. Again off site things.

They weren't going to. Every change would require them to bill us and they really weren't SEO experts. Realistically, there aren't enough website experts who can build there own sites in house, so dealers pay a premium price to have it managed by an outside company who knows what they are doing. If you take a look at nearly every dealership, we pay a premium for lots of services we shouldn't because it's easy and let's us focus our time and attention on selling cars. I wish I had the time and expertise to build and maintain our sites myself, but I don't have either

At $15K even if you're billed for changes, there's still massive savings though! I'll take it you mean website experts in the dealer industry*, as there's a ton of experts in the website development industry who will go to work with a single phone call.. I agree though, dealers do spend a ton of time selling cars, but I just believe we all know where customers are shopping at, online! It's important to stand out, and if you save money in the process more power to those who do it! I wish I could get 100 dealers together, work with one firm that can handle each dealer's needs, and we'd build our own platform, share it, and we'd all save in the process! Maybe one day once I wrap up my inventory script I'll share it with the dealers as an opensource/free project and revolutionize the way dealers do online websites.

 

[sweece]

Sup everybody?

Thought I would chime in here as we have a custom Wordpress site at out store.

It's certainly more work to run your own site, no doubt about that. It's also more expensive. You'll have to weigh your options and decide if building your own site is beneficial to your store.

We paid under 30k for the development for our site after all is said and done. 30k was the average estimate we received from various dev shops for a custom build. It's been a great experience so far in terms of flexibility and our increased ability to track marketing dollars.

I have to give a shout out to DealerTrend. They have a tool that you can use to integrate Wordpress with your inventory feed. It literally works right out of the box and all you would need to do is hire a designer to skin the site. I'd say this is the route to take for the less technically savvy.

 

[edduval]

This thread inspired me last night.


Been coming by this site for years and never felt I had much to contribute. Finally logged in and made a comment the other day and now this.


I've built about half a dozen dealer sites in the last five years and always use WordPress.


In order to accomplish this I've written about a dozen different PlugIns and a couple themes.


Last night I packaged up the primary PlugIn and uploaded it to the repository at WordPress.org


WordPress › Car Demons « WordPress Plugins


If any of you are considering taking the plunge at managing your own WordPress site this might be a good starting point.


I've been considering uploading it for sometime and then selling the themes and advanced PlugIns (like Facebook Inventory, MailChimp Integration, etc).


I even registered a domain name and built a site for it, but I simply don't have the time or funds to start a company or to refine the PlugIns to perfection.


Sooooo, in an effort to give back to the community here I've decided to release everything for free.


You can go to www.CarDemons.com and use the code 'c1d2z9' to get into the site. After Nov. 1st I'll change the access code until I can support the projects properly, but the main PlugIn will always be available at WordPress.org


In the meantime perhaps this will help someone else out there.


I'll log out and go back to trolling now.

 

[kcar]

Sweece is right! Mike at DealerTrend is an awesome guy, he's extremely customer focused... And his product literally sells itself, I've had a chance to work with it first hand, and it's the full package.. No need to worry about data feeds, inventory setups, it's pretty much a 1-click install.. I had looked into this in the past, still am, and the average bill from a 3rd party to re-design the inventory area to your preference is around $1500. But consider the savings, I think it's $299/month, that's a phenomenal deal! Anyways, just wanted to shout out to the DealerTrend crew, keep up the great work! Kcar approved.