Car Scrappage Scheme… The Real Story??
Is It Working?
Being at the sharp end of new car sales, we have been watching the unfolding scrappage scheme with interest. The ‘PR’ is that the scrappage scheme is brilliant for all concerned but, from what we can tell, it is hardly that, is tailing off rapidly and both customers and dealers are not getting the deals they expected.
Does it Help Dealers?
The overall answer to this seems to be ‘no’. Why not?
- The administration time for these sales, both in negotiation as well as transaction, is much higher than for other sales
- The deals are not as straightforward, because there is blurring of where the discount can be applied, and where not, and to what extent the full £2,000 can be claimed
- The profit margin for these sales is negligible, and on top of that some manufacturers are not giving bonuses to such sales, or inflating sales targets in this difficult marketplace
- Furthermore, the vast bulk of sales are on the smallest cars, so it is more about the cheapest possible new car purchases, not helping with the range of cars that a dealer needs
- 25% of dealers have reported no change in footfall and sales - so it’s not the silver bullet that all were hoping for
- It is not really a ‘green’ measure as evidence still is that the best you can do is to hold on to your car and delay your purchase. The manufacturer of a new car is very carbon-intensive, far outweighing the emissions benefits. Not to mention the environmental ‘cost’ of scrapping your car
Does it Help Customers?
If you are a customer looking for a new car and have a scrappage car available to you, then we recommend that you choose the franchise very carefully. The stats from the AM-Online website are very revealing as the car makes which are outperforming the market are also the ones being as straightforward as possible with you. Manufacturers like: Chevrolet, Kia, Hyundai, Skoda and Toyota are the ones benefiting. Others, who we won’t name, but who are not really offering the full discount, or forcing the buyer into certain models of car whose MRRP have mysteriously increased over the last few months, are not benefiting.
If you are a customer just looking for a new car, then we hope that the dealer has enough time to deal with your custom as they are currently snowed under with unprofitable and time-consuming management of these scrappage offers.
So, What Is the Verdict?
Our verdict, given that all manufacturers have been raising prices across the board over the last four months by between £500 and £1,500 it seems this ‘deal’ is not all it has been cracked up to be. In fact, net, the consumer is worse off as a result of all this.
Furthermore, whilst 30,000 sounds like an impressive figure, this is from launch (over two months ago) and is the total sales figure for the entire country. Interest is already tailing off, and we expect that this scheme will slowly fade away, with dealers being left in the same position of trying to sail through difficult waters…
As always, we can help. Call 0845 680 3100 to speak to us about how we can help dealers promote themselves online.
PageRank In the Automotive World…
It’s one of those things that you watch and, whilst it doesn’t mean absolute success or failure, it’s rather like a barometer or a thermometer - it is a measure of popularity.
We often get asked ‘how do people find CarQuake’ and whilst we can point them to searches like Best Car Deals, New Cars for Sale and Cheap New Cars as indications of good search engine performance… it’s still not enough.
So, Where Do We Stand?
Well, just another observation to add to the mix - CarQuake is now Page Rank 6. Whilst this doesn’t mean anything in terms of business performance it is a testament to where we’ve got to that when comparing with much ‘bigger’ brands, we hold our own nicely…
Page Rank 6 (same as CarQuake): Autotrader, Yahoo! Cars, Top Gear
Page Rank 5 (lower than CarQuake): Exchange and Mart, Autoquake, Moneysupermarket
Page Rank 4 (considerably lower than CarQuake): Broadspeed
Page Rank 3 (very low): UK Car Discount
We’ve even got a higher ranking than some of the Manufacturers (we won’t mention any names!).
To be fair, we still have a long way to go… but the signs are very encouraging.
The 5 Biggest Dealer Website Mistakes
As a marketing supplier to a number of franchised car dealers, as well as the operator of the hugely successful new car sales website ‘CarQuake’ - we’ve compiled our ‘top 5′ mistakes that Car Dealers make in their websites.
1. They Focus Too Much on ‘Cheap’
There is a large difference between ‘cheap’ and ‘value’ - and it’s not just in the semantics. It’s the difference between getting the appropriate quality and not noticing what quality is. You can tell when a dealer has a cheap website… because there’s no attention to detail, getting around the website is a chore and finding offers is practically impossible.
2. They Don’t Measure Their Website Visitors
With the Internet, there is no excuse - you have no reason not to know what traffic is coming in, and what visitors are doing on your site. After all, a good car dealer pays full attention to anyone who steps on their premises… so why should your website be different.
3. They Focus on Marketing Spend, Not Yield
Don’t fix a marketing budget - because you can be sure that whoever operates it for you, internally or externally, will just spend it. Set a spend per sale, and then aim at this… you’ll be surprised how your profitability increases, and whoever runs your spend for you will also be called to account.
4. They Ignore Server Speed
This is easily missed. Most dealer websites we test are slow… too slow. This not only affects your website visitors (and tests their patience), but if you are running Adwords campaigns, it means you are also downgraded for this too.
5. They Don’t Optimise Their Site
Most dealer sites are barely optimised for Search Engines, which is absurd given that, apart from the manufacturer, dealers are in the best position to take advantage of optimisation. Furthermore, dealers don’t even optimise the conversion paths for site visitors - often the offers are a dead end… and the visitor leaves the site without ever enquiring! A website is an ongoing 24/7/7/31/365 process.
… Don’t Get Left Behind…
If you would like us to give you a FREE telephone appraisal of your dealer website and offer you a few pointers on how you can improve your website - then contact us, or call 0845 680 3100 and put a bit of dynamism into your website! We can tell you:
- What the key problems are with your current site
- What you need to do to address them
- How you can generate more business online
- How you can become a proactive, successful, online dealer
So, don’t despair, it’s not to late to turn this around.
CarQuake - Featured in The Sunday Times
It’s amazing how things sometimes happen in reverse…
We access the CarQuake site on Monday morning and are astonished to find out that we had a really busy end to November. Sunday’s traffic was the best single day of traffic in November…
Given all the tools at our disposal, we look at our analytics - traffic is up, particularly direct visits and on searches for ‘CarQuake’ in the search engines. So, what does that mean?
Another look and we see that direct links from TimesOnline.co.uk have increased tenfold. So we go there, do a search and find this article: ‘A Brand New Car, I’ll Take Two Please‘… and there we are… The best offer for a SAAB in the UK. Then, we find out that the same article was published in the Sunday Times. Unfortunately, we are unable to correct that CarQuake also has the cheapest new land rover discovery prices in the UK… and that CarQuake is not a ‘broker’ - it puts buyers directly in touch with supplying dealers! Still, publicity is good.
In terms of the stats, here’s the interesting bit - the traffic on the day from Sunday Times online was about 15% of that estimated from the printed newspaper (direct searches and traffic). However on Monday, the online version was more like 40% of the traffic estimated from the newspaper and we expect that by the end of the week, the online version will have overtaken the print and will for the foreseeable future.
It pays to be as smart with the way you measure media as with how much you spend, and episodes like this really help us evaluate both!
Car Sales Slump… Ouch!
Car Sales Drop 21% in September
So, it’s happened in September following a pretty miserable August… we get the feeling it’s going to be a long winter with March months away and little evidence that anything will change soon in the marketplace.
At least some of the car manufacturers are trying to slow down production, but even then the gap between the real market and what they would like it to be still seems to be too wide.
So, how can we help? Read more
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