Carzone Integration

tomED

Hi everyone

Just wondering if anyone has worked with CarZone used search system on websites they've developed and if so, what kind of integration options do they offer?

For example, do you have to continue to use the site they provide for the client or is there XML feeds or anything of the like?

Thanks a million
Tom

Eoin

tomED wrote: »

Hi everyone

Just wondering if anyone has worked with CarZone used search system on websites they've developed and if so, what kind of integration options do they offer?

For example, do you have to continue to use the site they provide for the client or is there XML feeds or anything of the like?

Thanks a million
Tom

I'm interested in this also. Here's one of my local garages: http://www.rays.ie/cars.htm It's a link to a carzone powered site, though styled differently. Doesn't look great though. An XML feed would be brilliant, if they supplied it.

I'd be grateful if you would post back here, should you hear anything.

EKRIUQ

Looking at the RTE website it appears just to be a java feed and there style sheet around it, I'm sure they would have come up with something else if it was possible

http://cars.rte.ie/sausage/JavaScript/common8.js

tomED

BingoBongo wrote: »

Looking at the RTE website it appears just to be a java feed and there style sheet around it, I'm sure they would have come up with something else if it was possible

http://cars.rte.ie/sausage/JavaScript/common8.js

The site you gave an example of doesn't use a feed at all. It's actually physically located on CarZone.ie - if you ping it you'll see.

Eoin

tomED wrote: »

The site you gave an example of doesn't use a feed at all. It's actually physically located on CarZone.ie - if you ping it you'll see.

Well spotted - cars.rte.ie is actually hosted by carzone then?

tomED

Yep it sure is!

nice1franko

It's probably a fairly uncommon thing to do. I don't mean to be unhelpful but I'd say ringing or mailing them'd be your best bet! If you do will you let us know how you get on - I'd be interested to know too.


BTW just looked at your site there. Look at the way the flash loads on your services page http://www.2bscene.ie/services.html

Eoin

nice1franko wrote: »

It's probably a fairly uncommon thing to do. I don't mean to be unhelpful but I'd say ringing or mailing them'd be your best bet! If you do will you let us know how you get on - I'd be interested to know too.

I would have thought this would be a big selling point for carzone - only one place to manage stock, and it's customisable for your own site.

nice1franko wrote: »

BTW just looked at your site there. Look at the way the flash loads on your services page http://www.2bscene.ie/services.html

That's good!

nice1franko

I meant that the task of incorporating carzone into a custom site would probably be a fairly uncommon task for the average developer (personally don't know anyone who's tried it anyway!)

I'd imagine it'd be huge selling point for carzone alright - I'm surprised they haven't hopped on it. I'd be interested to know how it pans out and what options, if any, they have available.

You could set something up to rip the data periodically yourslef and then serve it up anyway you like or... maybe even use something like http://www.ajax-cross-domain.com but that'd be shed loads of hassle.

Eoin

nice1franko wrote: »

I meant that the task of incorporating carzone into a custom site would probably be a fairly uncommon task for the average developer (personally don't know anyone who's tried it anyway!)

I'd imagine it'd be huge selling point for carzone alright - I'm surprised they haven't hopped on it. I'd be interested to know how it pans out and what options, if any, they have available.

You could set something up to rip the data periodically yourslef and then serve it up anyway you like or... maybe even use something like http://www.ajax-cross-domain.com but that'd be shed loads of hassle.

Yeah, I don't like relying on the remote markup, one small change, and you could be in trouble - an RSS model would be brilliant.

Judging by the link I posted earlier, they must just provide a cut-down version of the pages for dealers to link to. Not too pretty, but I suppose the alternatives are either the screen scraping like you mentioned, or duplicating the data on the garage's website.

tomED

nice1franko wrote: »

It's probably a fairly uncommon thing to do. I don't mean to be unhelpful but I'd say ringing or mailing them'd be your best bet! If you do will you let us know how you get on - I'd be interested to know too.

Yeah not very helpful at all man. The idea of the post was to see if anyone else here had done anything before. Obviously rininging or emailing them was always an option - but I would have preferred to hear feedback from people that had used the system before, before talking to a sales guy in CarZone.

I would have expected someone here to have integrated it on one of the sites they have worked on.

nice1franko wrote: »

BTW just looked at your site there. Look at the way the flash loads on your services page http://www.2bscene.ie/services.html

Old story!

========================

On the carzone integration, I unfortunately had to talk to a sales guy first, who didn't know what I was talking about and gave me a price for a site....

He did give me contact details of someone else who was really helpful and knew what I was looking for.

The simple answer is that they dont provide any integration options. They will only template the search results that you can see on the Rays.ie site above.

If they did an XML feed it would be really helpful, unfortunately they don't.

Tom

louie

Carzone doesn't offer anything like that yet due to other issues, but you can always use other options if it is for a customer that you are going to design the website for.

It does require a litle more work but not really impossible?
We have a similar website and are looking at the moment into XML solution for specific accounts or anyone that would like to use it for website integration and it is going to be available Free of charge. I have already design some AJAX based option for some of myy customer and I am looking into a easier solution at the moment, something that users can store and keep it up to date (daily download of XML file).
Let me know if there is anything I can help you with.

tomED

According to the guy I was talking to, he was saying that they only offer the teplated option. Apparently this is because of "issues" they had with other third parties sites in the past. A bit lame I think... but anyway....

I'd love to hear what you've done and if you got permission from them!

louie

I am not related to them what-so-ever.
Our website is totally independent and has no connection to Carzone or any other car related websites in Ireland.

http://www.autoauctions.ie/ (no dealer account) or http://www.autosports.ie/carsale/index.php (dealer account) are example using the old system, but as I said we are working on something more manageable from other users point of view.

Eoin

louie wrote: »

Our website is totally independent and has no connection to Carzone or any other car related websites in Ireland.

That's the problem though - the attraction of carzone isn't that it saves a few weeks development time by developing your own catalogue, but that it's a massive source of leads for garages.