Startup Survey

this seems like a phishing scam
 
benXJ said:
Yea....that would not be a thing. A browser/buyer would not pay. A few of the questions could be worded better.

Learning!

I greatly appreciate the insight and may post another survey in the next few weeks with updated/clarified questions.
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If I can offer any advice early - major car dealers will not embrace paying you a dime.
They all think (and most are right) that they are supreme sales organizations. They want the customer's ear and eye FORST so they can close the deal to them and for the highest dollar possible
 
Ron said:
If I can offer any advice early - major car dealers will not embrace paying you a dime.
They all think (and most are right) that they are supreme sales organizations. They want the customer's ear and eye FORST so they can close the deal to them and for the highest dollar possible
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No dealer ads. No dealers at all. I don't want their money nor interact with them. Hence the question "Would you use a site with no dealers, less scams, and better search functions?"
There are too many dealer sites and aggregators as is now.
 
benXJ said:
No dealer ads. No dealers at all. I don't want their money nor interact with them. Hence the question "Would you use a site with no dealers, less scams, and better search functions?"
There are too many dealer sites and aggregators as is now.
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How do you prevent dealers from advertising on your site ?
 
Well, for most of it, the site will make it known that no dealers are allowed. That will keep the 'honest' people out.

The rest of it will be monitored and scams/spam/dealers will be removed quickly.

Unlike all the other sites that allow scams to be visible for days.
Thanks!
 
benXJ said:
No dealer ads. No dealers at all. I don't want their money nor interact with them. Hence the question "Would you use a site with no dealers, less scams, and better search functions?"
There are too many dealer sites and aggregators as is now.
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Good luck. You have a huge uphill battle.
I am curious if you have any car sales industry experience?

In the US last year 82% of all vehicles sold (new or used) went through a dealership.
So you are battling for share of 18% of the market. And competing against Facebook who is established, well know and free. As well as autotrader, cars.com, carguru, truecar, et al.

Why would I as a seller pay you to sell my car - when facebook has 100,000x more buyers and is free to me?

If you are targeting more car savvy folks (which are the folks who buy from non dealers) you are also by definition targeting more sophisticated buyers who will do more research and expect to pay less for a vehicle.

So you have said you plan to not charge buyers, which means you must charge sellers. You are developing a platform designed to get sellers less money per transaction and has less buyers present than the half dozen alternates already in the market and established.


I hope you have some ground breaking tech. Otherwise you are swimming upstream
 
Sounds like you're trying to make a Craigslist with better search parameters and no dealers, since CL charges for car listings.

Duane
 
I hear you. Yes, it depends on what you want. You want a 2019 F150 4x4 Limtied for $45k? Probably gonna be a dealer thing. However are you looking a 15-20 year old car for a cheap DD/beater/16 year old/backup/hobby? Probably gonna be private party.

But...what if there was a site that had all the same privately owned used cars as FB marketplace and Craigslist does....but without the flood of irrelevant ads, mis-spellings, and super vague titles and descriptions? Without dealers spamming the 'by owner' section with $0 in the price? Without the make/model/mileage/pics? A site that provides a much more robust and accurate search interface and allows for setting up alerts and save searches?

Would you use that?
 
benXJ said:
But...what if there was a site that had all the same privately owned used cars as FB marketplace and Craigslist does....but without the flood of irrelevant ads, mis-spellings, and super vague titles and descriptions? Without dealers spamming the 'by owner' section with $0 in the price? Without the make/model/mileage/pics? A site that provides a much more robust and accurate search interface and allows for setting up alerts and save searches?

Would you use that?
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I still wouldn't...I've never had the problem of not being able to find what I'm looking for...it's whether or not I want to pay the asking price, or whether or not I want to deal with shipping. What I have paid for is a vehicle curator that finds me examples of what I'm looking for across the country and provides some semblance of a cost analysis vehicle price and shipping vs another vehicles higher price that's semi-local, etc etc. And they'll handle the shipping details. Otherwise, when searching I tend to try find the golden 'vague search', where someone posts 'chrome rims'...without realizing they just listed a set of $2500 welds for $500...or the little old lady liquidating her husband's hobby and calls a bronco a blazer. Typically $0 prices mean the seller wants too damn much and it's easy to keep scrolling. Misspellings, I typically won't deal with (unless it's an obvious fat finger), because those folks tend to be stupid/stubborn and know what they got.
 
benXJ said:
I hear you. Yes, it depends on what you want. You want a 2019 F150 4x4 Limtied for $45k? Probably gonna be a dealer thing. However are you looking a 15-20 year old car for a cheap DD/beater/16 year old/backup/hobby? Probably gonna be private party.

But...what if there was a site that had all the same privately owned used cars as FB marketplace and Craigslist does....but without the flood of irrelevant ads, mis-spellings, and super vague titles and descriptions? Without dealers spamming the 'by owner' section with $0 in the price? Without the make/model/mileage/pics? A site that provides a much more robust and accurate search interface and allows for setting up alerts and save searches?

Would you use that?
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I personally don't want to remember oh I want this type of car, go to x site. I want a single site for all car browsing.

How are you going to stop them from putting 1245 in the price, or putting a bad title? Having a person actually review all the listings is going to be beyond expensive.

When I'm looking for a beater also, I don't want to pay (as either a buyer or a seller) to list as I'm already not making as much as a new car.
 
UTfball68 said:
I still wouldn't...I've never had the problem of not being able to find what I'm looking for...it's whether or not I want to pay the asking price, or whether or not I want to deal with shipping. What I have paid for is a vehicle curator that finds me examples of what I'm looking for across the country and provides some semblance of a cost analysis vehicle price and shipping vs another vehicles higher price that's semi-local, etc etc. And they'll handle the shipping details. Otherwise, when searching I tend to try find the golden 'vague search', where someone posts 'chrome rims'...without realizing they just listed a set of $2500 welds for $500...or the little old lady liquidating her husband's hobby and calls a bronco a blazer. Typically $0 prices mean the seller wants too damn much and it's easy to keep scrolling. Misspellings, I typically won't deal with (unless it's an obvious fat finger), because those folks tend to be stupid/stubborn and know what they got.
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Oh I get it.
So these curators and aggregators you've paid for and used....what happens if the seller of exactly what you want misspells or otherwise inaccurately describes the item? You won't see it.
I'm working towards making it better for the seller and buyer. Seller can't misspell or mis-catagorize due to my tech, and you'll find exactly what you want. Quicker. For many time=money. And wasted time and frustration really bothers some.
The $0 price might be someone trying to be cute or ignorant....you'll miss it.
As an example....now you have to search F-150, F150, F 150 to get it all. Or the thousands of Grand Cherokees that are listed as Cherokees.
You forget there are far more stupid people in the world than not. And sometimes they want to sell a car.
 
DSM Turbos said:
I personally don't want to remember oh I want this type of car, go to x site. I want a single site for all car browsing.

How are you going to stop them from putting 1245 in the price, or putting a bad title? Having a person actually review all the listings is going to be beyond expensive.

When I'm looking for a beater also, I don't want to pay (as either a buyer or a seller) to list as I'm already not making as much as a new car.
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Well currently there is no 'single source'. There are 10+ dealer sites and a few sucky private party sites. I can't help you there.
The price is an issue we are working on
The title and description issues have been taken care of.
You won't pay as a buyer.
Tens of millions of cars are listed on Clist every year.....for $5 a pop. There are people that will pay.

I appreciate the insight! It is gold to me.
 
benXJ said:
Oh I get it.
So these curators and aggregators you've paid for and used....what happens if the seller of exactly what you want misspells or otherwise inaccurately describes the item? You won't see it.
I'm working towards making it better for the seller and buyer. Seller can't misspell or mis-catagorize due to my tech, and you'll find exactly what you want. Quicker. For many time=money. And wasted time and frustration really bothers some.
The $0 price might be someone trying to be cute or ignorant....you'll miss it.
As an example....now you have to search F-150, F150, F 150 to get it all. Or the thousands of Grand Cherokees that are listed as Cherokees.
You forget there are far more stupid people in the world than not. And sometimes they want to sell a car.
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You missed @UTfball68 's point.
He WANTS cases where somebody misspells something, or doesn't know what they have. He wants the Grand Cherokees listed as a Cherokee.
Because that is where he can swoop in and get it cheaper, because there is no competition among buyers. The pool of people finding it is much smaller. He is swimming in a pool of ONLY the really savvy people, not every Dick and Jane.

The site you are talking about is convenient for everybody but in doing so, leaves no room to find deals bc its too big and everybody has equal access.
 
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Autotempest searches a crap ton of car search sites and lists the results on one page, and the few sites it does list results from (auto trader for example) it provides a link and automatically provides your search criteria. When I bought my truck I was looking from something pretty specific and that's the site I used.

Duane
 
RatLabGuy said:
You missed @UTfball68 's point.
He WANTS cases where somebody misspells something, or doesn't know what they have. He wants the Grand Cherokees listed as a Cherokee.
Because that is where he can swoop in and get it cheaper, because there is no competition among buyers. The pool of people finding it is much smaller. He is swimming in a pool of ONLY the really savvy people, not every Dick and Jane.

The site you are talking about is convenient for everybody but in doing so, leaves no room to find deals bc its too big and everybody has equal access.
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He said he paid for aggregators....that will not work if the item is mis-spelled. So he may miss something!
and looking for the deals/misspellings and wrong descriptions...now I may be wrong....but he is in the minority when looking at the entire USA used car market.

Auto tempest and search tempest return dead Clist links and don't offer the same level of search criteria that the individual sites do. Still no single source.
They are super clunky and infuriating to use too.
 
benXJ said:
Well currently there is no 'single source'. There are 10+ dealer sites and a few sucky private party sites. I can't help you there.
The price is an issue we are working on
The title and description issues have been taken care of.
You won't pay as a buyer.
Tens of millions of cars are listed on Clist every year.....for $5 a pop. There are people that will pay.

I appreciate the insight! It is gold to me.
Click to expand...

Auto trader still works pretty damn good. For newer stuff. Anything at dealers is normally there and fb owns most anything else.

I haven’t looked at Craigslist in years. Not many want to pay.
 
While I can find things on Marketplace, their organization sucks. It seems it is completely random, and not repeatable. I am sure that is for some particular reason. I also hate all the crap that isnt local that pops up in the "local" section.

I would love to find a site, similar to search tempest for CL, that could search the FB algorithms and display marketplace in an organized manner.

I feel like I am decent at searching, when I am looking for a particular thing, it is when I just want to browse, and everytime you refresh it is a completely different list. Atleast craigslist seemed to have it together there.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
While I can find things on Marketplace, their organization sucks. It seems it is completely random, and not repeatable. I am sure that is for some particular reason. I also hate all the crap that isnt local that pops up in the "local" section.

I would love to find a site, similar to search tempest for CL, that could search the FB algorithms and display marketplace in an organized manner.

I feel like I am decent at searching, when I am looking for a particular thing, it is when I just want to browse, and everytime you refresh it is a completely different list. Atleast craigslist seemed to have it together there.
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Yea...the FB algorithm updates and refreshes each time you 'refresh' or close the site and is not perfect....due to FB themselves and all the user error and scams.

Craigslist is just based on the zip code that was added and the date/time is was posted. Pretty simple.

And again, searchtempest is at the mercy of the 'keywords' or however the seller/searcher spells it or lists it...far from perfect.....something I aim to fix.
 
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