Time of a Real Alternative to Carzone?

Car-dealer

Hello all,

with carzone hiking up prices when ever they feel like it, is it about time we broke the carzone monopoly? Not too long ago it was €30 for an add for as long as it was for sale, then that changed to €30 euro plus €15 per month renewal, and now its €40 a month, all without warning or customer feedback.

Would an alternative website that was much cheaper, say €15 per month, with €5 renewal work? I'd be willing to set one up if it was viable. I saw that some other chap tried setting one up, but his didn't look too popular.

How about something like car-trader.ie : free for the first advertisement, €15 per month private adds, and some half price deal for traders.

Its seems to me that the only way to brake the carzone monopoly will be to get lots and lots of people to switch over. The question is how, and will it work?

-Chris-

If the website is designed well enough, if you put in the work to make it visible enough to people both buying & selling, and if the pricing's right then it'll absolutely work.

bazz26

Well www.cbg.ie has been around for ages too but the format is rubish imo and I tend to avoid it altogether.

Afaik carzone was taken over by the same people that run autotrader.

nice1franko

might work if your app is at least as good as carzone and you spend loads of money on radio, newspaper and magazine adverts.

jaycen

There's plenty of alternatives out there:

cbg
autotrader
donedeal
gumtree etc.

Mailman

I'm not advertising with carzone at the moment. I'm using the free ones.
adverts.ie, gumtree.ie, buyandsell, carsireland.ie
I doubt the car would sell any quicker on carzone as it is at the lower end of the price scale.

Owen

I was involved in a focus group for setting up a real alternative to Carzone, one that had a lot more benefits for the consumer, and one that helped Dealers see what cars were popular on their own sites, and what weren't, so they could reprice. We had a list of features that would make Carzone tremble.

The issue really with taking on Carzone is their market share. They have their hooks into everything, they have their claws into RTE, Motornet, and numerous others. They also do webdesign and hosting for a hell of a lot of Dealers, so convincing them to move isn't a go-er, and on top of that, they're in bed with Manufacturers so that they can send their used car data directly to Carzone without having to manually input them.

superjosh9

I think that CBG is the only other that gets close, but as said, the site is woeful. It often crashes for a start and that will instantly put people off - and I am one of them.

Having said that, CBG is still popular, as is Buy and Sell, so if someone could overhaul their sites so that they are ultra-reliable (like carzone btw) and work in EXACTLY the same way as carzone so that people might even think them to be the same, well that might be a good start.

As a developer myself, I can't understand how this hasn't happened already. The carzone site is by far the easiest to navigate around and it's very simple to use. I'm afraid that the people that design these things just don't really know what is wanted - as they probably don't know anything about cars.

Ad prices have gone absolutely nuts though - the newspapers are a joke too - even worse.

Car-dealer

Ok, so carzone are king, but Kings can be toppled. Its seems to me that it all comes down to quality of the alternative site and then price: and equally as good site for 1/4 the price might work.

Ned78s comments hold true - but dealers and advertisers move where the customers move!

Im going to serioulsy look into whether an alternative site is a goer!

Owen

Car-dealer wrote: »

Im going to seriously look into whether an alternative site is a goer!

Been there and done that, with some of the best developers in the PHP/Mysql business, and who have already several successful sites under their belts. It's really not worth going to, unless you have the acumen to sit down with all manufacturers and offer them :

An incentive to move their own hosted sites
An incentive to make them move their dealers sites
A financial undercut to make it worth their while
The ability to tie into their proprietary systems to read back franchise stock data
An online market share to take on Carzone's sister/clone sites (RTE, etc)

And that's just for starters. Remember, they have a fully working integrated system at the moment that people are happy to pay for, because it's not overly expensive. You would need to develop the exact same system, and pitching a similar system that may have bugs to a company using a system that has none probably won't fly, unless you're offering it for free.

Car-dealer

Good sense thank you - however if every business decided not to start up because others do it better and the barriers to entry are very difficult to overcome, I doubt there would be half the businesses out there now.

I have nothing to lose taking a look at it - and there may be room to offer a free site that might attract sponsorship ect., perhaps the chance to place free adds might work.

Obviously there is loads of work to do and lots of hurdles to overcome, but I do like a challenge. However, on the flip side if its a non-goer I'll leave it alone, but Im sure I'll come up with something new.

Lex Luthor

I would be in favour of an alternative....

last time I advertised with carzone it was a flat fee, no renewal...

in the current slow market, people will move fast enough from carzone if they are being charged a renewal monthly fee. I certainly won't be using them again if this is the case

smash

you wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting into the market, car websites come and go all the time and there's reasons that carzone is on top.

they've been around for years.
the dealers know them.
the public knows them.
they've bought all the google key words.
they supply used cars to a lot of other websites.
they manage most of the websites for the garages in Ireland - have a look http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMG_enIE291&q=powered+by+carzone&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryIE

In my opinion anyone trying to set up another site is just wasting their own time.

Darragh29

steve06 wrote: »

you wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting into the market, car websites come and go all the time and there's reasons that carzone is on top.

they've been around for years.
the dealers know them.
the public knows them.
they've bought all the google key words.
they supply used cars to a lot of other websites.
they manage most of the websites for the garages in Ireland - have a look http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMG_enIE291&q=powered+by+carzone&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryIE

In my opinion anyone trying to set up another site is just wasting their own time.

Where there is room for service or price improvement, there is a place for a new business. I think the sites in Ireland are so poor that it's hard to believe they charge anything for advertising with them.

I do agree with one poster on here though that before launching a new site, you'd have to have a strategy for selling to the trade and linking their stock into your website...

smash

here's why the trade wont go with it....

carzone have their own software, so do cbg and so do some distributors. Garages don't want to update the same stock 3 times. And it's all well and good saying "room for service or price improvement" but sure we don't know what services the offer garages but I'd say it's a lot more than just "put your car on carzone"

mumhaabu

Car-dealer wrote: »

Hello all,

with carzone hiking up prices when ever they feel like it, is it about time we broke the carzone monopoly? Not too long ago it was €30 for an add for as long as it was for sale, then that changed to €30 euro plus €15 per month renewal, and now its €40 a month, all without warning or customer feedback.

Would an alternative website that was much cheaper, say €15 per month, with €5 renewal work? I'd be willing to set one up if it was viable. I saw that some other chap tried setting one up, but his didn't look too popular.

How about something like car-trader.ie : free for the first advertisement, €15 per month private adds, and some half price deal for traders.

Its seems to me that the only way to brake the carzone monopoly will be to get lots and lots of people to switch over. The question is how, and will it work?

That is nothing, If you knew what they have done to motor dealers you'd be shocked, I know of at least three that have pulled out due the increase in advertising costs recently.

Graham_B18C

Car-dealer wrote: »

Hello all,

with carzone hiking up prices when ever they feel like it, is it about time we broke the carzone monopoly? Not too long ago it was €30 for an add for as long as it was for sale, then that changed to €30 euro plus €15 per month renewal, and now its €40 a month, all without warning or customer feedback.

Would an alternative website that was much cheaper, say €15 per month, with €5 renewal work? I'd be willing to set one up if it was viable. I saw that some other chap tried setting one up, but his didn't look too popular.

How about something like car-trader.ie : free for the first advertisement, €15 per month private adds, and some half price deal for traders.

Its seems to me that the only way to brake the carzone monopoly will be to get lots and lots of people to switch over. The question is how, and will it work?

Tis a great idea but if you want it to work and be a genuine competitor of carone, a lot of money would need to be put into it. Go to places that advertise on car sites and tell em that if they advertise on your site then you'll guarantee that your site will be in the first few on a Google search.

Then MAKE it be in the first couple on every Google car search! I'd love if Carzone had some real compation!

keefg

nice1franko wrote: »

you spend loads of money on radio, newspaper and magazine adverts.

Very true.....one of the 1st questions dealers will ask you is "How are you going to promote your site? What is your marketing budget?"

eamon234

I've always considered Carzone to be geared more towards dealers than private sellers great if you want to buy but never for selling I've used most of the sites over the years but the only one I ever sold a car on was Buy and Sell to be honest (sold my last three cars on there) it's not a site I particularly like using but it seems to be the only one I've ever gotten results on.
I do agree with the guy from CBG - if you don't like aspects of the site let them know - let's be honest it's the only real alternative to Carzone and I don't see what's so bad about it - nothing wrong with a free ad limited or not and if the MD is reading Boards they obviously want to listen to their customer base.
Donedeal is a mess and impossible to navigate, Carsireland isn't too bad but needs more development

Moanin

Anybody ever try E-bay to sell a motor?

peasant

While everybody is busy pimping their website, lets not forget about boards own advertising

http://www.adverts.ie/

and that's enough of that ...closed