Of course, it’s been said that there aren’t many buyers like this, but you only have to look at the evidence presented to dealers – both in terms of sales into and out of territory, as well as the growth in numbers of online suppliers – to realise that whilst the overall level of interest in new cars is arguably declining, the online car buyer is on the increase.

With CarQuake at the cutting edge of online car buying: being the UK site with the most efficient means of buying a new car.

We see both ends of the spectrum – from the car buyer who wants a smooth and easy path to a new car to the dealer who wants to take more control over their marketing.

The Path to Profit – for Dealer and Customer

The place where we can see most dealers ‘drop the ball’ is not necessarily in the marketing, but in the sales process. There are two main reasons for this:

1. Dealerships are not immediately set up for and compatible with distance selling
2. Dealerships aren’t managing the customers in the right ways to ensure satisfaction

So, in order to help dealers serve customers better – both for their benefit and for the benefit of future buyers – we have prepared a report offering a detailed look at the Internet Car Buyer and how best to serve them and gain additional sales business.

What’s in the Report

In our report, we will offer some detailed research and case-studies on:

• Why timing is crucial to the sales process
• What you must say on first contact
• Quality of enquiry is paramount
• How to offer the best deal
• Why part exchange is an opportunity
• Why efficiency must balance effort

So, if you’re a franchised dealership and you want to take advantage of this exclusive report, then please contact us. And just ask for the ‘Car Buyer Report’ in the message field… and we’ll send you this report and keep you informed of any other  key developments in the field of Internet Car Buying.

Though most think that CarQuake is all about the price, something we pride ourselves in is the service offered by our dealers. When we claim that we offer the easiest way to buy a new car, what we mean by this is both a good price AND a good service. Recently, one of our staff put this to the test.

What We Were Looking For

The target car was a Ford S-Max Titanium. The detail of the spec was to come out of the conversations, but we decided to try the ‘traditional’ routes to market as well as the new ones… and here’s how they got on…

The ‘Local Dealer’ Experience

Offer: £16,995 for a New S-Max with Scrappage including a hidden £800 finance ‘bonus’

“We visited the local dealer on a Saturday afternoon, it was very quiet and there were staff around. Yet myself, my pregnant wife and our two kids were ignored. When we finally got hold of someone, the dealer didn’t even have a single new or used S-Max on site to show us because the business manager had taken it on holiday (why he couldn’t have taken any one of their Galaxy models was a question that sprung to mind, but was not asked!). They didn’t qualify us, capture our contact details or try to follow us up, and we were told that they would have a car in about 10 days time – when the business manager returned from holiday. They had two other locations, but didn’t attempt to get a car sooner for us.

“So, we returned and had a viewing and test drive and, to be fair, these were done properly. We decided we wanted panoramic sunroof and half-leather. So, this should have made the overall ‘deal’ about £18,500. But the finance offer was withdrawn, the special price was allegedly no longer available to them that quarter (even though it was their fault for the delay)… and suddenly they were asking for £20,000 for the car saying that no other Ford dealer would be able to do better than that. We left…

“We were phoned up a month later by another member of staff who informed us that the previous salesperson had left the business and asked whether we were still interested. No, we’d ordered elsewhere. The salesperson wasn’t particularly concerned as to reasons why – but we explained that we had bought an S-Max, but just not from them.”

Time wasted: 3 hours
Price differential: £1,500

Final Price: £20,150

The ‘Internet Best Deal’ Experience

Offer: £17,395 for a New S-Max with Scrappage inc. Metallic Paint

“So, at the same time, after visiting the local dealer first (and giving them the first opportunity) we also searched online and there was a great deal from a large national dealer group. We filled out the form on the website and sent it in. The dealer called up that afternoon, but we missed the call and it went to voicemail. It was a pretty garbled message, and we called back and left a message with the receptionist.

“We waited a week. Called again, the salesperson was apologetic and said that our message was not passed on to him. We went through the deal and, guess what, it had changed too. The metallic paint offer had somehow disappeared and because it was a factory order, the price had gone up. From expecting to pay about £18,750 the price was now £19,290.

We said that we would continue to look around for the car, and they said that they’d get back to us at the end of September when they knew what deals were available for the last quarter of 2009. We have still not received that call. But it’s too late in any case.”

Time wasted: 1 hour
Price differential: £500

Final Price: £19,290

The ‘Straight’ Experience

Offer: Price Match (within reason) Promise

“So, we called the next nearest dealer, just explained we were cash buyers and wanted to buy an S-Max, but it seemed that the two dealers we had previously spoken to were unable to match their advertised offers with real prices to us. Initially the dealer didn’t think they could compete, but with the shenanighans of other dealers, we returned to them and had an exchange of emails and were able to agree, in principle, what the price would be.

“We visited the showroom and by then we’d had the test drive and knew exactly what we wanted. We went through the paperwork and put a deposit down there and then for the new car and will be taking delivery late October. We’ve invited this dealer to participate on CarQuake… now they’re our kind of dealer.”

Time used: 2 hours
Price differential: None

Final Price: £18,780

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.

A recent study by trading standards in January in Warwickshire estimated that 27% of used cars available for sale were unroadworthy.

However, that is nothing compared to a Hertfordshire report in June… five in eight used cars sold were unsafe.

And, yet, these were cars available on traders’ forecourts. Not online, but in a place where it was expected that they would have been properly checked.

So, What do we Think is Driving This?

On reflection, there are two elements we believe drive this:

1. Traders see low priced used cars as unworthy of proper scrutiny because there’s not much margin in them – so they take cars on spec and hope to shift them with minimum effort
2. The squeeze on the consumers’ pocket is also affecting what a car can be priced at, lowering margins and again taking profit out of the car

What’s the Solution?

It is our view that the benefits of buying Approved Used Cars as opposed to purchasing from Traders is the only way in which a customer can have confidence in their purchase – both in terms of the way in which the car has been checked and prepared as well as the backup of the manufacturer when things go wrong.

Sure they cost a little more, but they’ll last far beyond the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on car bought privately or through traders. Trust and quality go hand in hand!

New cars sales seem, on the face of it, to be rising… tell the franchised dealers the great news… or perhaps they know something that we don’t? Word on the street is that there are a lot of dealers out there with stock of new cars, having bitten the bullet for Q1 and wondering how they can achieve decent NEW business in Q2. After all every pre-reg takes a new buyer out of the marketplace.

Yes, the Pre-Registration issue raises it’s ugly head. Put simply, this is deliberate devaluation of beautiful new cars… register them to make them ‘not new’ even if they haven’t been driven. Curious strategy? Only in the motor trade… where the production lines churn out more cars out than there are buyers for them.

We’re also predicting some rough weather at the premium and 4×4 ends of the marketplace as people steer away from high ownership costs to tighten their belts. Anyway, doesn’t the New Ford Mondeo send a few shivers down the spine of BMW? It should do, it’s a whole lot of car. And Citroen are pitching the C6 straight at the German driver… blatantly.

It’ll be interesting to see what strategies manufacturers adopt in a tough marketplace. Anything has to be better than pre-registration… doesn’t it? Or, perhaps, it’s still the best way to hide discounts!

Motor Trader on the recent Which? Report

Customers save, on average 11% more… They also save their time (and patience) by shopping online for new cars… and Dealers come out poorly. In the most part, they are forced to tow the corporate line, and then they get slammed on customer satisfaction for trying to ‘do the job’ (i.e. not discounting cars).

The reality is that customers don’t like brokers, they’d prefer to deal with dealers who are up-front about their price offers and don’t engage in gamesmanship. These customers are easy to manage and transact with… and, guess what, they’re flocking to the only legitimate online new car sales website – CarQuake. Which is why CarQuake customers also give really good customer satisfaction ratings on CarQuake deals.

It’s obvious, really. Dealers who know what customers really want, use CarQuake. The rest all discount to similar levels, but prefer to be at the mercy of opportunists in the marketplace.

Which?; Motor Trader; SMMT

If you want us to help you manage the end-to-end marketing of your cars online, then contact us today. Soon, we will have services for more than just new factory orders… we’ll be able to also help you sell:

• New ‘on the way’ ordered cars
• Physical new cars
• Nearly new cars
• Approved used cars

There are some exciting developments we just can’t publish yet, but if you contact us, then we will definitely keep you posted on our developments.

We wanted a manageable online phone system where we could buy phone numbers, route them to whatever numbers we wished, record calls if and where necessary and, most importantly, use different numbers for different campaigns AND get realtime reporting of the calls.

So, we did want any determined business would do… we just went and built the thing with our telecoms partner. Thus Call Trakr was born! You can read a little more about it on the site, or contact us if you want to find out how it could work for your business. After all, if you really want to know if a particular campaign worked for you… the only way to be sure is to use Call Trakr?

It really is a neat piece of kit.

Until recently we could only speculate as to why, however now having more than one dealer on the same franchise, we’re confident that we know the answer: simply, it’s to do with the efficiency and professionalism of the dealer in managing the leads.

Observation 1: Customers of performing dealers send unprompted ‘praise’ emails
Observation 2: Customers of underperforming dealers email/call us to chase enquiries
Observation 3: Dealers with distance selling experience are more successful

To this end we have developed a service that helps dealers boost their ability to generate sales: we audit dealers to identify shortfalls in service quality, and then provide key advice and strategies for them to develop their online marketplace.

In our experience, it’s all about value and delivery. If the dealer knows the offer is good, then it is still up to them to convince the customer that they’re the right supplier.

The first product out of DA Plc stables launched in September 2006, aimed squarely at the online car buyer who wanted a deal, but wanted to talk to the franchised car dealer. You can see the fruits of our labours at www.carquake.co.uk … go grab yourself a keenly priced new car!