I meant to post this a week ago because we are doing everything for our websites in house now. Design, build, maintainence… What do you think? Any ideas on improvements?
I dont mind it… but no ability to sort by transmission kinda stinks… but i’m sure we (car enthusiasts) are the minority on that.
Edit: but on the wellsville page I CAN search by transmission thats wierd
there are 2 types of websites here… manufacturer sites and our own. We built basilcars.com and the sites for the resale stores, the other sites are built by each manufacturer and we have no control over them. Thanks for the feedback!
How many times can you put the Basil logo and the other big car manufactures on this website?
Looks real good, and searching through the inventory is very fast. I was just car shopping recently and went through everyones websites on a daily basis.
A few things you can improve upon:
- Remove the “call for price” crap. If a dealer can’t be bothered to list a price, a consumer can’t be bothered to call. Is it a secret or something? Here’s one that I found:
http://backwebs.homenetinc.com/BasilCars/details2.asp?path-taken=used&vehicle_id=P5005#tippytop
Is that truck so special that you can’t list the price? Most consumers will just move on, there are hundreds of Silverado’s on EVERY lot. I did all of my searching late at night so calls were out of the question.
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Have an accurate inventory. Most of the cars listed are only a fraction of what each dealer actually has. I was delivering to Mike Barney Nissan and saw a fresh Silverado trade in. It was in the back of their lot with no plates, and a detail guy told me it had been traded in 3 or 4 days prior. It still isn’t up on their websites inventory. I’m sure that sometimes they go to auction, but i’d say that isn’t always the case.
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Little things like your Corvette listings could use some help. They all list the “engine cylinders: V-8” and “drivetrain: RWD”. I mean come on now. Get it fine tuned for each model not generic. At a quick glance on a used vehicle I would want to know, mileage, auto or stick, trim level, engine, etc, etc. For a Corvette omit the engine part and replace with interior color or something. For a Silverado instead of saying “number of cylinders:6 or 8”, list the actual motor. They made 6 different V-8’s for the 2007+ models. 4.8, 4.8FFV, 5.3, 5.3FFV, 6.0, 6.2.
Here’s the highlight from a Corvette you have for sale:
2008 Chevrolet Corvette
Transmission: Manual
Exterior Color: Black
Drivetrain: RWD
Engine Cylinders: 8
VIN # 1G1YY36W485109559
Maybe change it to:
2008 Chevrolet Corvette
Transmission: Manual
Exterior Color: Black
Interior Color: Gray/Black
Trim Level: 2LT
VIN # 1G1YY36W485109559
Or a Silverado you have listed:
2007 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT 4x4
Transmission: Automatic
Exterior Color: Silver Birch Metallic
Drivetrain: 4WD
Engine Cylinders: 8
VIN # 2GCEK190571728159
You don’t need to list “automatic” because they don’t offer a manual transmission. List it like this:
2007 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT 4x4
Cab type: Extended Cab
Exterior Color: Silver Birch Metallic
Drivetrain: 4WD
Engine: 5.3 Flex Fuel Vehicle
Trim Level: LT
VIN # 2GCEK190571728159
When I worked at a garage, more people than I would have guessed didn’t even know how many cylinders their car had. Some random joe schmo probably doesn’t know standard options on vehicles. I don’t think it would hurt to keep transmission listed.
↑X2
Then it wouldn’t really matter what is listed for the joe schmoe anyway, since they wouldn’t understand what they are reading. So fine tune it for the educated people who know the difference between a V-6 and a V-8, like myself and other buyers out there.
Automatic or standard is a simple option that a lot of people would be interested in. It’s not like your trying to explain steering box ratios or variable valve timing to some old lady. Saying it should be marketed to just the savvy is like me saying bleach should be only sold as Sodium hypochlorite because I’m a chemist, and other chemists know what it is.
I’m not saying we have to go nuts listing everything, just most people aren’t that interested in cars to know differences between models. I know people that have gotten faster top of the line cars just because it had a sunroof not because of the bigger all disc brakes.
The Basil Logo is the logo for each location that does not have a manufacturer. The manufacturer logo’s are there many times as well because you would be surprised how many people ask what brands we have for sale even after looking through that page.
Thanks Joelster for the ideas, we were thinking alike there because more than a few of the things you suggested are already being worked on. One thing we have had a hard time with is getting the inventory on the site within 24 hours because the info is pulled from our DMS (dealer management system) automatically and the system will only allow certain info to be loaded into it. We are looking at resloving that with a new DMS but considering how significant that is to our business, not to mention the cost, we are taking our time choosing a good one. Hopefully with a different system we can do things more efficiently.
Thanks guys!!I appreciate all of the feedback.
THIS DEFINITELY. The last 3 cars I’ve bought have been from online searching. When I see “call for price” it immediately translates into, “we’re asking way too much, but want to run our lame ass sales pitch on you to see if we can get you to bite anyway”. Forget it. Your online buyer already knows what the car they’re looking for is worth so either list a fair price or don’t bother listing online in the first place.
That doesn’t mean you can’t list a car for 18k online and sticker it for 22k on the lot. The CR-V I found for my mom was listed exactly like that. I talked to the sales guy via email and phone and had pretty much closed the deal before I got to the lot. When I did go to check the car out in person the sales guy caught me do a double take at the much higher sticker than what they had listed online. He was honest about it and said, “our typical online buyer knows exactly what a car is worth so we price them near that to get included in search results, where a typical walk in wants to come in and work numbers”. Translated, sometimes they rip walk in people off but that doesn’t work online where people are comparing prices across multiple dealers.
decent layout and site in general… but the front page has too many redundant links and I feel it could be greatly simplified. At first look my thought was “holy shit there is a lot going on here” but once you’ve read it all you realize it’s only because everything has been repeated so much.
i didn’t mention that is on the site because the car was loaded through the system but the price was never loaded, they have to be loaded manually. Which is another product of our system that needs replacing.
---------- Post added at 06:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:58 PM ----------
is there a way we could change that but still make it user friendly for those who are computer illiterate? That is something we’ve talked about too but can’t accomplish the mission without all the links.
site looks good… i like it
Are you stalking him or something?
Gah… I fail at reading dates. I was looking at the site thinking, “man, it looks the same as the last time he asked us to check this out”.