5:31 am, July 30, 2011
THE Used Car Expert is on the quest for quality dealers and does not see his site as a ‘used car classified’ one.
That’s the view from the firm, but how do they explain that there are more than 100,000 cars for sale on UsedCarExpert.co.uk, and classified adverts being sold to dealers?
‘We want to give car buyers savvy advice – that’s our focus,’ says UsedCarExpert.co.uk’s publisher and Car Dealer Magazine columnist, Matt Tumbridge.
‘We started out with buyers guides. Then we added our own used prices when we found everything else in the market to be unrealistic for consumers. Next came the knowledgebase where we combined reviews with direct questions and answers.
‘And building all this content made us realise you can’t give savvy used car advice without having real-life examples. It doesn’t matter that Alfa Romeo offer a 1.8 petrol GT – they have sold so few that we have to factor availability into answering the reader question, “What sporty car can I buy that is cheap to insure?”’
Likewise, says Tumbridge (pictured right), his writers could tell a reader, ‘don’t buy an Automatic Toyota Aygo, the Citroen C1 is the same car but will be cheaper.’ Except Citroen have sold about a score of auto C1s in total, so that advice is no use to most.
‘And we decided that if we are going to point readers to cars for sale, they should be at dealers we feel comfortable we can recommend, which is why we have a classified section and dealer award scheme.’
UsedCarExpert.co.uk will give any dealer a free basic listing, but if they want UsedCarExpert.co.uk’s recommendation, and the ‘hot’ leads that go with it, they need to be of a certain standard and be prepared to pay for the enquiries.
With so many sites in the car classified space now, does Tumbridge expect many dealers will be bothered about whether they pass his ‘quality test’ or not?
‘The smart ones are. Because our leads are from car buyers who start with no knowledge and get all their advice from us, when we recommend a car, they want to buy it. Plus, switched on dealers recognise that by only paying for a small number of quality enquiries from us – whether it’s calls or web visits, they sell an extra car a month at no risk, and that pays for the rest of their advertising.’
To learn more about advertising or the dealer award scheme go to: UsedCarExpert.co.uk/dealer
