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Originally Posted by dealerpix  Many companies, or developers, like us do specialize in independent dealers, true, but I think this is where we, as the "smaller" guys need to begin to change things. |
This is just starting to happen. As car dealers realize the potential of the internet and start to weed out what is useful and what is not, they will eventually catch up with the rest of the technological world. It seems that many of these small companies are the ones that are coming up with the innovative ideas, and not the big ones. These small companies, capturing business of this niche market are what is driving these dealers to move forward.
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Originally Posted by dealerpix My company develops the AutoWebEngine.com script that is used world wide, mostly by the smaller independent dealers. A big problem is that we don't have access to all the tools needed. My company just finished a partnership with a company to offer data polling of DMS systems for franchise dealers to poll their DMS systems. We have plans for much more. |
I'm curious who this company is.
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Originally Posted by dealerpix The bigger issue though is that all these "big" companies offering these ridiculously priced services has almost, in a way, trained dealers to want these useless sites and tools. If you walk into a franchise dealer and ask them about getting their site listed in Google, for example, many will either not know what this benefit will be, or, they will tell you they are at the top. You look at their listing in Google and see they are paid Adwords, not organic links in Google. They don't have a clue because these big companies have trained them to want their services. Some time ago, when we were first developing our AWE system, I worked as an Internet manager. I of course know all about valid design and the sort. I had a salesman come in from a popular company that specializes in Flash sites for dealers. His main goal was pushing how fantastic looking, and when asked about how their site would help our SEO, he claimed they could help get us at the top of searches. Even though he did not specifically state it, it was via Adwords. |
Many of these companies don't know a thing about
SEO. All they know is how to sell a dealer an over expensive flash website and make it look pretty. They are really just giving the customer (dealer) what they want. Unfortunately this is not always what the customer's customer is looking for.
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Originally Posted by dealerpix The automotive web services industry really does need to come up with a set of standards to follow. If all of us, companies and developers like ours, can come together and develop these standards and really promote them, I think we can bring valid design and services to dealers and get these big guys to either step out of the way, or perform their jobs as they should. The biggest thing is that we really need to educate dealers on what they should be looking for in a web system. With 80% of all shoppers visiting dealer sites before they visit the actual lot, these dealers cannot afford to do this wrong. |
I recently peeked into the real estate business and I was astounded at how organized things were. The trend MLS system is amazing. It's essentially the same idea as listing a car. You have a number associated with the house being sold (vin) and there are certain features of the home that are listed (option codes). I believe sometime in the future, the car industry will eventually come to more and more agreements on basic standards as the small companies supporting the industry become smarter, larger, and more efficient. Dealers will eventually be forced to comply with new mediums if they haven't already.