Stupid local car dealerships....

[TheMightyFavog]

Why is it that half of the car dealerships in my area don't have websites? Don't they know that not having websites is bad for buisness?

[LynzM]

1. I ran into that here, too

Or if they do have webpages, they're never updated. You'd think they'd have figured out by now the number of people who do their car-hunting online, and how much a nice, easily navigated and searched site would help their business. Alas, it is not so :( Good luck! What are you looking for car-wise?

[TheMightyFavog]

2. Brand new used car under 4 large

Need to replace the Tempo I totalled

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x899840

I've been told to avoid most mid '90s GM and Ford products like the plague, with the exception of Grand Ams, some Buicks and Oldsmobiles and the sportier Ford products like the Mustang and Probe. I'v also been told to stay the fuck away from Corsicas, hell stay away from anything that has been within half a meter of a Corsica. I've been told that most imports like Hondas and Toyotas run really well, but when they do break down, they'll cost my ass, cock, and balls to fix. Anything else?

[Bertha Venation]

3. Get an Adobe

Very inexpensive, very solid . . . .

[TheMightyFavog]

5. Never heard of an adobe

Who makes them?

[Bertha Venation]

7. Saturday Night Live.

Ever hear of the Yugo? A Yugoslavia-made car, possibly the worst piece of trash ever to come from an assembly line.

When the Yugo was popular SNL did a commercial parody (boy, were they fast) with a car called the Adobe. Its frame, body, seats, interior and wheels were made of clay. Their big selling point was that if you get into a wreck, all you have to do is re-shape the vehicle with your hands -- yes, it was wet clay -- and you're good to go.

;) sorry for the deke.... :loveya:

[TheMightyFavog]

11. I guess you've never heard of a Trabant.

The ultimate POS car. It was an East German car powerd by a two stroke engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant



The German government has been activley been trying to get rid of them because their 2-stroke engines pollute so much, hovever the German people, especailly those from the Former East Germany are in love with these things so much, it's proving to be an impossible task.

[Bertha Venation]

12. it's kinda cute, in a bug-eyed sort of way

reminds me of those little black & white bug-eyed insect dogs. :crazy:

[Kellanved]

13. certainly

But POS is a nice way to describe them.
Common jokes go:

Q: "How many people do you need to build a Trabant?"
A: "Two: One folds, one glues."

Q: "What is a Trabi on a hill?"
A: "World Wonder #8"

"An American ordered a Trabant. Upon delivery he says : " Oh those Germans, always so thorough . Nice to send a miniature first.""

"At a gas station: "I'd like to have two wiper-blades for my Trabant, please." - "Sounds like a fair deal.".

Q: "What do you need to measure a Trabant's acceleration?"
A: "A calendar."

Q: " Five Trabis on a parking Lot ?"
A: "Tupperparty"

Q: "Is it true that the Trabi can reach a top speed of 100 mp/h ?"
A: "Depends on from what height you let it drop."

[jmowreader]

15. More Trabi jokes...

Q: How long does it take to get a Trabant?
A: Five days. The day you order it, three Party Days (the once-every-five-years meeting of the Socialist Unity Party) and the day you pick it up.

* * * * *

True: Someone wrote to the Consumer Editor of the biggest East Berlin newspaper to ask if he could put his spot on the Trabant waiting list in his will. Turns out you could, but only to the first generation--you could will your future Trabi to your children but not your grandchildren.

* * * * *

A citizen goes to the Trabant dealer to reserve a car. He pays his money and the dealer tells him to come back in fifteen years.

"Morning or afternoon?"

"It's fifteen years in the future, what does it matter?"

"The plumber's coming that morning."

[Bertha Venation]

8. Seriously, try Carmax.

I've looked on there recently. They have a LOT of cars.

[BlueJazz]

9. Photoshop or Illustrator ?

sorry..couldn't resist :)

[bobthedrummer]

17. Ya, if they want to attract customers to their lot

they should be on the Internet.

BTW, I sold motor-vehicles for about 8 years in Wisconsin, where I still have a motor-vehicle salesperson's license {yes, you have to know the UCC a bit to sell a vehicle here}-and Michigan, where many dealers are pirates, lol.

Good luck, man!

[gator_in_Ontario]

4. They don't have websites

cause they're too busy making asinine TV commercials.

[TheMightyFavog]

6. Don't get me started... It's "Car Wars" time for two Green Bay dealerships

They always make the dumbest ads. for this promotion. This year the Ford Dealer has done the worst Gropenfuhrer impersonation I have ever seen.

[radwriter0555]

10. LOL they NEED you to walk in their doors, so they can sell you a

car.

[Xithras]

14. Ooh, a question I can answer definitively

FYI, I worked at a startup in the late 90's who's business model revolved solely around getting dealerships online. They failed, and here's why:

Car dealerships despise hiring anybody that doesn't make them money, which is why new car salespeople are usually 100% or 90+% commission. They grudgingly hire receptionists to answer the phones (and typically pay them like garbage), but that's about it. Even the repair shops typically function as separate entities with their own books and are required to be profitable in their own right...the dealership itself rarely carries the costs of running it. Since the vast majority of a cars sale price goes back to the manufacturer, and since the salesman takes a slice of the sales price as his commission, the dealership itself is left with a relatively small percentage of its monthly sales as profits.

So what's this have to do with websites? For a website to be used, it has to have a listing of the cars on their lot. That requires a person to maintain the inventory and update the site. This creates a twofold problem: 1) Dealerships never hire people to do this because it's unprofitable because; 2) the dealerships which HAVE done it have proven that few people buy on the web...they look on the web and then walk in. In their screwy logic, there's no point in putting info on the web if nobody buys on the web.

There's also the pressure and negotiation factors. I had one dealership GM explain it to me this way: Most dealerships post a price in the window and then negotiate up or down with the potential buyer depending on what they want to spend and what options they're looking for. People buying on the web are typically looking for price alone, and dealerships FLAT OUT DO NOT want you shopping on price. He pointed out an Explorer on his lot was priced at $25,000 (IIRC), but that he might drop that as low as $22,000 to close a sale (most of the reduction comes out of the commission). They can't drop the regular price to $22,000 because all of the salespeople would quit, and yet by listing it at $25,000 on the website, someone might skip his dealership for the place up the road selling it for $24,000 without ever realizing that he could offer them an even better deal.

Bottom line, they want to talk to you in the dealership.

[pstokely]

16. avoid dealers that advertise on hate radio

I heard a lot of car dealer ads during Oxyrush