The Need for EasyAutoSales.com in the Autos Industry
2.19.2008 | Auto News, Marketing
I just read an interesting article on another blog that talks about the recent NADA meeting and the state of advertising in the autos industry. One particular section caught my eye:
So went the conversations on the Moscone Convention Center floor with various industry execs. AutoTrader CEO Chip Perry, for instance, says that the one thing that dealers want to know from him is “why do you raise your rates 20 percent every year?” But, they seem to get the value of a medium that is used “seven times more than newspapers,” he says – even if their spending doesn’t nearly reflect it.
Cheaper solutions, of course, are available for dealers. But they don’t approach the traffic levels of “the auto industry’s search engine,” as Perry likes to think of AutoTrader.
It’s funny… the dealers are obviously asking for help and showing dissatisfaction but due to old business models that can’t bend, nothing changes. It would appear the need for a service such as ours is obvious; the trick is to create real value by getting the same level of traffic as the big sites and doing things better to help the sellers.
I’ve said this before… the cost of distribution has gone down a lot especially with the presence of the web. If dealers used to pay thousands to help get a magazine published with their inventory inside, they certainly don’t need to pay the same amount to get cars listed on the web. Digital storage is virtually free, dedicated hosting is cheap compared to a decade ago… a successful service that is also free is only a blink away.
Whatever the industry may be… if similar events are happening in your neck of the woods where your customers are becoming antsy, your best bet would be to show some flexibility in your business model instead of waiting for other startups to fill that niche. Believe me, they will.
Related posts: