Gallery Website

A good location has always been the first prerequisite of a small used car dealer. But a prime location can be an expensive overhead. The second item that is important to the success of the small used car lot has been advertising. But as any car dealer can tell you, advertising can be a major expense and with almost no way of determining its value.

The Internet is a relatively new advertising medium for many small used car dealers. The Internet provides a forum whereby you can distribute a lot of information and you can be accessible 365/24/7 to many that would not otherwise be familiar with your business. Even if your car lot is on some "out-of-the-way" side street or in some small town on the outskirts of a metro area, you can look like you are on "Main St" to the website visitor. The cost is a fraction of traditional methods of advertising and it can be many times more effective.

Features and Benefits

First it is a simple, clean format, but otherwise direct and to the point. The home page of your website is a picture gallery with a brief description of each vehicle that is available for sale.
NOTE: The reason in the past for a good "location, location, location" was because the dealer wanted visual exposure to potential buyers that drove past their lot. This is our reasoning for a simplistic gallery home page...visual contact.
Countless studies have shown that unless you get the attention of the website visitor within a few seconds, they will abandon the visit and will be gone. The pictures are compressed to allow for faster viewing, and yet provide adequate detail to give the viewer an accurate image.

Further research has indicated that the visitor will respond and be more likely to review graphics/images than they would be to read descriptions and narrative detail. A click on a select vehicle would then provide an enlarged picture along with vehicle details that you have included on that particular vehicle. Nothing else is needed... we want them to call or otherwise make contact after viewing a vehicle of interest.

THAT'S IT!..their next step is to either call your sales office, or if it is after hours or if there is some other reason, they may complete a "feedback" form as their initial means of contact. Regardless, you now have a qualified prospect.

Feedback Form

We perfer to use feedback forms rather than email responses for receiving contact. Interested parties will take a few moments to complete a form to gain information. We have discovered that there are unscrupulous characters that have sophisticated software that can scour websites and gather email addresses and then sell or use those email addresses for spam or at least unsolicited advertising. Those same characters are not likely to take the time to complete forms...just a suggestion. Perhaps we should note here that, unlike some of the big name auto websites, we never sell nor distribute any customer information, including email addresses.

Who is in control of your website?

You are!.... now there is no reason for anyone not to have current information. (more details later). That means that your website could include bilingual narratives and descriptions, if your situation dicates and/or if you simply want to incorporate a different buyer market.

Additonal Picture Gallerys

The 'normal' gallery home page will show approximately 25 picture/images. There is nothing magic about that number - it could just as well be 30 or 20 or whatever seems to fit your operation. Or you may chose to have additional webpage picture gallerys. There is no practical limit to the number of pages that a website may contain.

New form of advertising

The difference now in your advertising program is that you can significantly reduce the narrative and detail in printed advertising and simply include your website address - I am sure by now that you are very aware of how companies of all sizes incorporate their website addresses in radio, TV, printed materials, or any other advertising media that is associated with any type of product advertising...car dealers are no different.

Here are but a few examples of where you would include your website address:

Business cards
Promotional advertising products
Signs - vehicles, buildings, billboards
Newspaper (major, local, shoppers, etc)
Direct Mail
TV/Radio

Additonal Products & Services

For many the gallery home page is enough, but for others dealers that have business products and services beyond used cars, then it is a simple matter to extend the website with additional pages that can define and present your other products and services, such as Maintenance, Repair, Detail, Parts, Financing, etc.

Business Practices

Here are but a few of the topics that may be included in your website:

Trade in practice
Financing and/or "Buy Here/Pay Here"
Repair & Maintenance
Warranty and Return Policy
Insurance

These are but suggestions and are in no way intended to be required or all inclusive. Each dealer will define and describe their services.

Member of AutoZZ eMall Network

But even with this new economical marketing media, it can ineffective if the consumer is not aware of your website. So - we did not stop with just a gallery website that is practical and economical for small dealers. We built a network base that allows us to point to a single website location that provides links to our active website members.

We designed website AutoZZ.com to be the master index for all of the small car lots, then we link to our member websites. Each dealer/member becomes a part of an auto eMall, but will still have the benefits associated with having your own website.

Visitors to AutoZZ are directed to graphic maps of states and counties and then to the active members website (domain) name. Participating dealers will be highlighted and will catch the eye of the visitor. All of this will have taken place within a few seconds and with minimal clicks and thus retain the interest of the qualified visitor. More About AutoZZ & Website Costs

More About AutoZZ & Costs |