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Dealer.com & AutoTrader

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Mitch Gallant

Mitch Gallant

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Apr 6, 2009
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Mitch
#1
I know not many Canadians visit the forum but as selfish as it is I might be simply looking for some sympathy here. :thumbdn:AutoTrader Canada:321: has purchased the rights to sell Dealer.com in Canada. The product is rebranded Dealer Smart Solutions and they've jacked the prices. Get this... prices vary based on # of inventory. Can you imagine having your website contract fluctuate with the number of cars in stock... ridiculous! There may be a slight argument for Trader to do this because your site inventory gets pushed to there listings but thats WEAK!:cursin:

We are one of a handful of clients in Canada who use DDC and we're getting bent over! AutoTrader is absolutely butchering the relationship DDC has made with us and while I don't mind our Trader reps, they seem to be way behind the 8 ball and so unprepared its ridiculous.

Put yourself in my shoes, what would you do if overnight AutoTrader became your web vendor... :yikes:

PS They haven't taken over our accounts yet as negotiations are ongoing but we've been told the ties between us and DDC need to be severed sooner or later.
 
#2
That only took 8 months to execute. Trader Corporation (Not Autotrader.com) buys Dealer.com


Mitch, you need to make some phone calls and see if you get be excluded from this since you already have a relationship with Dealer.com. With AutoTrader.ca/Trader owning 20% of Dealer, it might be a struggle.

Sorry to hear about this...

On a side note: Any idea on how would we get more Canadians in the forums??
 
#3
We've been making some noise and are doing our best... I'm not content to switch providers but being bent over makes me want to take on some extreme action. There's also rumors from the local dealer association that AutoTrader, being the company they are:cursin:, seem to have incorporated the ownership of the URL into the hosting contracts, taking over full ownership of that domain name... I'm not sure of the possibilities but I wouldn't put it past them.

On a side note, hockey and beer for Canadians is like honey to a bear... I've sent out some emails but I'll put some thought into it and let you know.

On another side note, Trader Corporation - you're brutal!
 
#4
Mitch Gallant said:
We've been making some noise and are doing our best... I'm not content to switch providers but being bent over makes me want to take on some extreme action. There's also rumors from the local dealer association that AutoTrader, being the company they are:cursin:, seem to have incorporated the ownership of the URL into the hosting contracts, taking over full ownership of that domain name... I'm not sure of the possibilities but I wouldn't put it past them.

On a side note, hockey and beer for Canadians is like honey to a bear... I've sent out some emails but I'll put some thought into it and let you know.

On another side note, Trader Corporation - you're brutal!
Click to expand...

The domain thing would not be good. I actually worked at a dealership that forgot to renew their domain and it got bought by a competitor before we found out. Wow! Your talking about a mess. So quick reminder out there.......Double check your domains.....renew them for 10 years or more.

Owners should maintain this not dealer personal.

Just thought I would share that since most dealers don't think about that on a daily basis.
 
#5
CAORYAN - Your right that most dealers don't pay much attention to that on a regular basis... we have a simple excel workbook with each dealers urls on a page and its pretty simple to manage but a good takeaway is to renew domains for a few years and stay on top of your main URL's. Google doesn't like domains expiring within a year because of all the spam sites out there.... NOW BACK TO THE RAGE ON TRADER CORP! :banghead:
 
#6
Mitch, I'm in Canada (KW)... ATCa has the Auto Classified Monopoly... no competition like the south. I wished Kijiji hurry's up with their Dealer Program so we can at least have some competition in their base market. With Yellow Pages buying out Trader earlier this year it's another bad blow...
 
#7
Does not surprise me. Companies are doing everything they can to turn a profit. Have you spoke with any of their Canadian customers on the lead statistics? Might be worth it, might not...it isn't always about cost, or is it? LOL
 
#8
Umer... KiJiJi - you and me both man, and you're right about the monopoly. We we're approached by a group of dealers who plan to file a law suit for the way Trader is doing business and FromPA we've been an autoTrader client up here for years and years. We certainly have some figures to analyze. The CPS is usually well over $750 which obviously is making us money but doesn't hold a candle to the other lead sources and the dummy math puts us up to $1500 if they double our prices....
 
#10
Great to see some Canadians on the board!! Kijiji.ca is now offering dealer programs and they seem to pretty well priced. Our company along with Evolio, E-Dealer, and boost have relationships to get your inventory on line easy. Glad there are some Canadians on here that are up for sharing ideas. It has been a struggle to find relevant Canadian content but I've really enjoyed reading the posts on this blog.

Cheers to beers!
 
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