Joe,
My name is Langley Steinert. I'm the ceo/founder of CarGurus. I wanted to get back to you with some thoughts on your post above. You raise some interesting points
Information or the “lack of information” is troubling for both consumers and dealers. Our goal is, hopefully, to provide the same accurate information to both parties.
In my prior life, I was co-founder/Chairman of TripAdvisor, which is the largest online travel site in the world. At TripAdvisor we similarly worked hard to provide information (user reviews) to consumers. In the end, providing more information to consumers benefited both shoppers and hoteliers in the form of increased sales.
We are hoping to do the same here in the online autos space.
I looked into the listings that you mentioned and have a few observations:
1. Information is freely accessible – Our site has a pricing page for each car manufactured since 1965. On that page you can see exactly how we arrived at the pricing for that car (ie we show all the recent listings that we use to arrive at a price recommendation based on mileage, trim, etc). Our analytics are not a black box. Below is the URL for the 2007 Acura RDX that you had concerns about. If your sales folks are concerned about not having the same information as consumers, I would urge them to check out our site. It’s free.
2007 Acura RDX Price - CarGurus
2. Dealer input – Based on your input, we have decided to institute a dealer input channel so dealers can give us input on listings that they believe we have improperly priced/classified. If we find a listing has improper price guidance, we will change it within 48 hours. We do want to be responsive to dealer concerns.
3. The specific listings you mention – I did go and look at the 2007 Acura RDX listings you mentioned and we had 3 listings from your dealership for that car/year. All three were missing trim information which makes their classification complicated. If we assume the least expensive trim (base trim), all three listings are priced between $600 and $1,500 above the national average for their respective mileage. Without more trim information it is hard for consumers and our analytic engine to properly evaluate a listing. Based on the information we were given, these cars do appear to be priced above the national average. If you can let us know the trim, we would be happy to change the price recommendation.
Again, our goal is to provide a level field of information to both dealers and consumers and to be transparent in doing so. Each month we receive over 3 Million in-market shoppers looking for a car. We hope we can send some of those buyers your way.
Sincerely,
Langley Steinert
CEO/Founder – CarGurus
My name is Langley Steinert. I'm the ceo/founder of CarGurus. I wanted to get back to you with some thoughts on your post above. You raise some interesting points
Information or the “lack of information” is troubling for both consumers and dealers. Our goal is, hopefully, to provide the same accurate information to both parties.
In my prior life, I was co-founder/Chairman of TripAdvisor, which is the largest online travel site in the world. At TripAdvisor we similarly worked hard to provide information (user reviews) to consumers. In the end, providing more information to consumers benefited both shoppers and hoteliers in the form of increased sales.
We are hoping to do the same here in the online autos space.
I looked into the listings that you mentioned and have a few observations:
1. Information is freely accessible – Our site has a pricing page for each car manufactured since 1965. On that page you can see exactly how we arrived at the pricing for that car (ie we show all the recent listings that we use to arrive at a price recommendation based on mileage, trim, etc). Our analytics are not a black box. Below is the URL for the 2007 Acura RDX that you had concerns about. If your sales folks are concerned about not having the same information as consumers, I would urge them to check out our site. It’s free.
2007 Acura RDX Price - CarGurus
2. Dealer input – Based on your input, we have decided to institute a dealer input channel so dealers can give us input on listings that they believe we have improperly priced/classified. If we find a listing has improper price guidance, we will change it within 48 hours. We do want to be responsive to dealer concerns.
3. The specific listings you mention – I did go and look at the 2007 Acura RDX listings you mentioned and we had 3 listings from your dealership for that car/year. All three were missing trim information which makes their classification complicated. If we assume the least expensive trim (base trim), all three listings are priced between $600 and $1,500 above the national average for their respective mileage. Without more trim information it is hard for consumers and our analytic engine to properly evaluate a listing. Based on the information we were given, these cars do appear to be priced above the national average. If you can let us know the trim, we would be happy to change the price recommendation.
Again, our goal is to provide a level field of information to both dealers and consumers and to be transparent in doing so. Each month we receive over 3 Million in-market shoppers looking for a car. We hope we can send some of those buyers your way.
Sincerely,
Langley Steinert
CEO/Founder – CarGurus
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