CarCity .ie - feedback please

CarCity

Hi,

We launched a new site (carcity .ie) over the last few days. Registration/ listing is free for dealers/ private sellers.

Any comments/ feedback welcome.

We are trying to focus on the cars and make it really functional for searches and listings

There will be more functionality built in over time (like widgets and extra RSS feeds). We haven't put up every single model yet till we build up more listings on the main models.

We are thinking of advertising on adverts.ie, do people look these up much?

Thanks

(Mods please note, this is a genuine attempt to get some feedback, no sigs, no links, have broken up the name so it won't even show in Search Engines for the term, no tags, and no bumping -promise!)

L-M

Ok, feedback.
General
1. I don't like the way the Makes aren't listed alphabetically.
2. The Mitsubishi picture (I haven't ever seen that car before, and it's quiet ugly lol).
Viewing adds
3. When i clicked on an add, the origional pictures come up too small. And then when i clicked on it, it opened in a new window, and too big. One size, rightly size should suffice, and allow for quicker searching.
4. The owners category should be limited to just numbers, ie. not allowing people to right in 2 lady which one add has.
5. I don;t know about the idea of having the owners name there, don't see much point.
6. The email that gets sent out when you register isn't the nicest.
Selling
7. What if my car is pre 1990
8. For mileage can you put in the option for choosing KM/Miles.
9. I can choose that i both Private and a dealer.
10. Also i can choose that my car is manual and automatic (drop down menu's should sort this out.
Searching
11. when i "searched" i could only choose toyota's model.
12. There is an option to choose specific mileage, why?
13. For Location, put down a hint to hold ctrl to select different counties. Some people won't know this.
14. I don't know why there is a search for a User. I don't want people to be able to search for me. In my opionion that should be limited to dealers.



I'll try it out more over the next few days. Seems go though, and i think there is a great market for this type of website, as long as you do it right, and when you do, keep it right. And listen to the public for opinions!

I wish you all the best in your future sucess.

pipsqueak

Nicely laid out site, i like!

L-M

trapsy wrote: »

Any time I try to promote a site my post is removed. I am confused.

Sleepy mods and a huge need for another site like this.:D

And if they remove it after i did an appraisal of the site i'll go mad haha.

drunkmonkey

I presume your old enough to remember the original carzone:), Copy it and you'll be a millionaire, don't try and re-invent the wheel. Autotrader took over cazone and completley fupped it. GO back to basics and you'll be on a winner....
Not to sure about the name though, sounds like a car supermarket, like merlin or one of those...

You have a mammoth Job infront of you, you need 50,000 + photos (I can provide 3), a good few sales guys, photo team etc....Best of luck with it, hope it goes well and you can give use something like carzone used to....

peasant

Limerick-man wrote: »

Sleepy mods .

I saw that :pac:

Thoie

Just a few more comments on the searching.

Created is
Created is after
Created is before

That's a pretty clunky way of searching, and it's not entirely clear that we're talking about the date the ad was created.

The simple search doesn't explain that it's searching the title posted - look at the difference between searching VW and volkswagen. It's also not clear that it's searching the title for all words there - try VW yaris, no results.

You're allowing the titles to be too long (eg 2003 VW Passat, 1.9 TDI 130 BHP, €xx,250, County Clare, Contact 087 63xxxxx, Compact Disc Player, Power Door Locks, Power Mirrors, Power Windows, Rear Window Defroster, Driver Air Bag, Air Conditioning, Passenger Air Bag, Power Steering, Side Air Bag, Anti-Lock Brakes, AM/FM Stereo Tape.)

What I'd like to see in the title is that it's a 2003 VW Passat, 1.9 TDI, if I'm interested I can go read the description for the rest, but when there's 500 cars up there I don't want to have to trawl through that.

Actually, looking at the search options again, without being harsh, I think you need to rethink it completely. The price search is unwieldy as well (do I type 0-10, 0-10000, 0-10k, 0-10,000 ?), I can't pick an engine size, and if I go back to make a small change I have to retype/repick everything again. My typical search would be "Show me all cars that are 1.4-1.6 litres, in a certain price range, no older than 5 years, with mileage less than 50k". I might want to narrow it down to a specific make/model and decide between petrol or diesel as well.

CarCity

CarCity wrote: »

Limerick-man wrote: »

Ok, feedback.
General
1. I don't like the way the Makes aren't listed alphabetically.
2. The Mitsubishi picture (I haven't ever seen that car before, and it's quiet ugly lol).
Viewing adds
3. When i clicked on an add, the origional pictures come up too small. And then when i clicked on it, it opened in a new window, and too big. One size, rightly size should suffice, and allow for quicker searching.
4. The owners category should be limited to just numbers, ie. not allowing people to right in 2 lady which one add has.
5. I don;t know about the idea of having the owners name there, don't see much point.
6. The email that gets sent out when you register isn't the nicest.
Selling
7. What if my car is pre 1990
8. For mileage can you put in the option for choosing KM/Miles.
9. I can choose that i both Private and a dealer.
10. Also i can choose that my car is manual and automatic (drop down menu's should sort this out.
Searching
11. when i "searched" i could only choose toyota's model.
12. There is an option to choose specific mileage, why?
13. For Location, put down a hint to hold ctrl to select different counties. Some people won't know this.
14. I don't know why there is a search for a User. I don't want people to be able to search for me. In my opionion that should be limited to dealers.



I'll try it out more over the next few days. Seems go though, and i think there is a great market for this type of website, as long as you do it right, and when you do, keep it right. And listen to the public for opinions!

I wish you all the best in your future sucess.

1. We decided to list the top 4 brands on the top then the rest alphabeticaly. Might be better off just having them all organised by abc
2. Fair enough. Will change!
3. Yes, thats certainly a problem, might take a while to sort out as this is a core change but will put on the list of things to do.
4. This change will be put through. Good suggestion.
5. Agreed. Will change.
6. Agreed as well. It was just a functional thing to get us to launch. I'll organise that a paragraph with some help is put on it. We didn't want to annoy anyone with fancy html, just wanted to give password and get them going!
7-10. All excellent points. Again will change.
11. Issue here is that the user needs to scroll down page a little to change the category to the car brand needed. Then the models will auto update. I will get the category put up the top though as the flow doesn't make sense.
12. We will change this to a range!
13. Yep!
14. Agreed on this, there are a few settings across the site we need to change in relation to what is shown for a private seller. Initally the settings were put to same as those for a dealer (as we summised that dealers will be happy enough to show more detail). Clearly for a P/S there is less detail needed.

Thanks for you comments and good wishes. Some changes I know can be put through over next couple days, a couple others I think are more work but we will put through definately. And thanks a mill for taking time to review and write something up.

CarCity

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I presume your old enough to remember the original carzone:), Copy it and you'll be a millionaire, don't try and re-invent the wheel. Autotrader took over cazone and completley fupped it. GO back to basics and you'll be on a winner....
Not to sure about the name though, sounds like a car supermarket, like merlin or one of those...

You have a mammoth Job infront of you, you need 50,000 + photos (I can provide 3), a good few sales guys, photo team etc....Best of luck with it, hope it goes well and you can give use something like carzone used to....

Yes I am that old!!! The name well I guess it just came to us.... Yes difficult job certainly under no illusions! In for long haul though so all going well....! In relation to "give us something like carzone used to" then open to feedback on the thread or contact [at] car city.ie ( car city.ie is obviously one word - no link mods!)

markos79

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I presume your old enough to remember the original carzone:), Copy it and you'll be a millionaire, don't try and re-invent the wheel. Autotrader took over cazone and completley fupped it. GO back to basics and you'll be on a winner....
Not to sure about the name though, sounds like a car supermarket, like merlin or one of those...

You have a mammoth Job infront of you, you need 50,000 + photos (I can provide 3), a good few sales guys, photo team etc....Best of luck with it, hope it goes well and you can give use something like carzone used to....

+1

CarCity

Thoie wrote: »

Just a few more comments on the searching.

Created is
Created is after
Created is before

That's a pretty clunky way of searching, and it's not entirely clear that we're talking about the date the ad was created.

The simple search doesn't explain that it's searching the title posted - look at the difference between searching VW and volkswagen. It's also not clear that it's searching the title for all words there - try VW yaris, no results.

You're allowing the titles to be too long (eg 2003 VW Passat, 1.9 TDI 130 BHP, €xx,250, County Clare, Contact 087 63xxxxx, Compact Disc Player, Power Door Locks, Power Mirrors, Power Windows, Rear Window Defroster, Driver Air Bag, Air Conditioning, Passenger Air Bag, Power Steering, Side Air Bag, Anti-Lock Brakes, AM/FM Stereo Tape.)

What I'd like to see in the title is that it's a 2003 VW Passat, 1.9 TDI, if I'm interested I can go read the description for the rest, but when there's 500 cars up there I don't want to have to trawl through that.

Actually, looking at the search options again, without being harsh, I think you need to rethink it completely. The price search is unwieldy as well (do I type 0-10, 0-10000, 0-10k, 0-10,000 ?), I can't pick an engine size, and if I go back to make a small change I have to retype/repick everything again. My typical search would be "Show me all cars that are 1.4-1.6 litres, in a certain price range, no older than 5 years, with mileage less than 50k". I might want to narrow it down to a specific make/model and decide between petrol or diesel as well.

Excellent feedback thank you. You're right the search form is unwieldly. I think the solution is to provide a 'checkbox' or 'selection' of engine size/mileage options.

Agreed that the titles are too long, we had a discussion around this and it needs to change. The reason it was done initially was due to some of the listing fields which affect other parts of the site. .. long story but basically it will change (you've certainly reinforced it to us now!). Thanks for your point re the 'created...' fields you mentioned at start of your post, it is not user friendly or clear that they relate to the ad creation point. Is now on list of things to do! Simple search as well . . .point noted. Don't worry about being harsh...all fair points!!

We have a log of things to change. . everything on the last few posts has gone on. Cheers.

CarCity

trapsy wrote: »

Any time I try to promote a site my post is removed. I am confused.

This is not a promotion, just looking for a few pointers off members here. I've no links, no sales pitch etc. I'm a mod on another forum myself so understand the rules. Ok so I may get a few clicks into the site from here but really it's a very small amount in the overall scheme of things and we are promoting the site in other ways. Purely looking for a little feedback thats all, and thanks to all who have given that feedback.

Lex Luthor

No option for Alfa Romeo

CarCity

Lex Luthor wrote: »

No option for Alfa Romeo

Lex, thanks. We were focusing on the most popular brands so there would not be too many empty categories (as we only launched during week), but I think we'll just put up alfa, volvo and couple others we were missing anyway. Got a couple mails to say the same.
Cheers.

L-M

peasant wrote: »

I saw that :pac:

:P

But carcity, it'll take time to get everything right, but i think ye're on the right track. Fair play.

unkel

Limerick-man wrote: »

it'll take time to get everything right, but i think ye're on the right track. Fair play.

And that's the sole reason we're keeping this thread on for the moment. We want proper sites with proper search engines!

ninty9er

I like the homepage, but you could have copyright issues around those photos and using footers like "Vorsprung durch Technik" or "Zoom Zoom".

Also, Toyota is one of Ireland's best loved selling car modes makes.

There's only 1 R in Alfa Romeo.

CarCity

unkel wrote: »

And that's the sole reason we're keeping this thread on for the moment. We want proper sites with proper search engines!

Cheers Mods, as I said in original post I'm not looking for promotion at all. I hope I've been careful in that. Just a few pointers to the site. Again I will say I won't bump the thread if no relevant replies. And certainly won't post links etc (would also ask posters not to post links so as not to abuse courtesy of boards.ie).

It's nice to get useful replies. We hired a small focus group prior to launch which got a lot sorted out but as usual it's when you go to market that you hear more.

Ok time for bed, it's been a long week :P. List drawn up for the developers on Monday..ta ! Anything else sure let us know

CarCity

ninty9er wrote: »

I like the homepage, but you could have copyright issues around those photos and using footers like "Vorsprung durch Technik" or "Zoom Zoom".

Also, Toyota is one of Ireland's best loved selling car modes makes.

There's only 1 R in Alfa Romeo.

Cheers, Re the R, silly typo - thanks for pointing out. Our advice was that the footers are ok as we being seen to 'promote' the brands and are not being unflattering. If the companies have an issue we are happy to change.

Re the pics: again we took advice but that advice was that it was ok to use these. We could not use actual logos, but we believe that to use pics which are not 'unflattering' was ok as we are not favouring any car maker over the other. If the car companies are not happy we will use a different system. Good point though, thanks for raising.

Ok to be fair to the mods, I won't reply again unless we have say another 5-6 posts, and I will address those points in one post.

L-M

Just found there that you have to click the picture to get into the add. All small things.

Thoie

Hmm, as a private seller, I'm not sure that I'd want my full name appearing in connection with my user name, purely from the fact that people could tell I'm female from that info, which they can't tell from a username. I don't wish to get into a discussion on paranoia, but I'd rather people not know until they call.

If you're going to have an NCT field, I'd force that to be filled in, with a check that the renewal date isn't more than 4 years in advance (that's right, isn't it - 4 years the first time around, every 2 years after that?). You could probably work out a pretty simple calculation to stop me saying that my 1990 car isn't due an NCT until 2012.

From previous experience with car search sites, as a user I'd prefer if people were forced to put in a price and mileage. There's nothing more irritating from my POV than doing a search for cars costing less than 20k, then having the first few pages of price N/A but discovering when you click into them that they're really 40k. Similarly with mileage - make the seller enter a specific mileage, or else select <500, <1k, <5k, <10k, <20k, <50k. And do an automatic conversion between miles and kilometres, so that people advertising say what they're entering, and then you convert to a single format for searches.

Um, do you want to hire me to criticise your site?

L-M

Thoie wrote: »

From previous experience with car search sites, as a user I'd prefer if people were forced to put in a price and mileage. There's nothing more irritating from my POV than doing a search for cars costing less than 20k, then having the first few pages of price N/A but discovering when you click into them that they're really 40k. QUOTE]

THe thing about that is people like to attract people over the car first to price. I know it's annoying not having a price, but people just like to have people ring first, to discuss a price rather than them seeing a price, and not ringing.

Thoie

Limerick-man wrote: »

THe thing about that is people like to attract people over the car first to price. I know it's annoying not having a price, but people just like to have people ring first, to discuss a price rather than them seeing a price, and not ringing.

True, it's a buyer versus seller thing, and you'll really only be able to best please one of them. Most sites like this would consider the seller as the customer (as you may be able to get commission out of them/paid adverts/whatever). I'm just being selfish and looking at it from a buyer's standpoint (as I plan on changing car in the next 6 months).

However maybe a price bracket might work for both sets? For example, if I know my budget is say 15k, I'll look at cars that might be anywhere from 10-20, as I might shift a little upwards for the best car in the world ever. I'm not going to suddenly say "Ah, but that 2008 Audi A8 for 70 odd is lovely, to hell with my 15k I'll buy that".

So even if the A8 is advertised as N/A, I'll just ignore it anyway - I'm not even going to bother talking to them.

L-M

Thoie wrote: »

So even if the A8 is advertised as N/A, I'll just ignore it anyway - I'm not even going to bother talking to them.

Ah ya put there will be other A8's there priced and you will know how much they are worth. The price bracket thing could work for searches, but if i'm selling my car for €14,999 i don't want people ringing me offering me €10k

trellheim

give it a few weeks and you might. restricting the audience a bit much imho

copacetic

Limerick-man wrote: »

THe thing about that is people like to attract people over the car first to price. I know it's annoying not having a price, but people just like to have people ring first, to discuss a price rather than them seeing a price, and not ringing.

have heard this before, but I'd never dream of ringing up about an unpriced car. If your price is so high that people won't ring, then lower it, not leave it out!! I always think 'chancers' when I see that, waiting for you to call to try and work out how much you know before giving you 'the price' which may or may not be the price they offered to the last person who rang..

Lex Luthor

CarCity wrote: »

Lex, thanks. We were focusing on the most popular brands so there would not be too many empty categories (as we only launched during week), but I think we'll just put up alfa, volvo and couple others we were missing anyway. Got a couple mails to say the same.
Cheers.

Nice one...best you cover all marques and do them in alphabetical.

So how do you go about getting your website name out there in the public domain and people using it?

Everyone knows carzone, how, I dunno, probably just years of being there. Do you take out full page ads, TV ads, etc.?

CarCity

Limerick-man wrote: »

Just found there that you have to click the picture to get into the add. All small things.

Thanks but if you hover over the text it should work!

CarCity

Thoie wrote: »

Hmm, as a private seller, I'm not sure that I'd want my full name appearing in connection with my user name, purely from the fact that people could tell I'm female from that info, which they can't tell from a username. I don't wish to get into a discussion on paranoia, but I'd rather people not know until they call.

If you're going to have an NCT field, I'd force that to be filled in, with a check that the renewal date isn't more than 4 years in advance (that's right, isn't it - 4 years the first time around, every 2 years after that?). You could probably work out a pretty simple calculation to stop me saying that my 1990 car isn't due an NCT until 2012.

From previous experience with car search sites, as a user I'd prefer if people were forced to put in a price and mileage. There's nothing more irritating from my POV than doing a search for cars costing less than 20k, then having the first few pages of price N/A but discovering when you click into them that they're really 40k. Similarly with mileage - make the seller enter a specific mileage, or else select <500, <1k, <5k, <10k, <20k, <50k. And do an automatic conversion between miles and kilometres, so that people advertising say what they're entering, and then you convert to a single format for searches.

Um, do you want to hire me to criticise your site?

All taken on board many thanks. . . . The user fields stuff mentioned has already been changed a bit and will be changed more

CarCity

Limerick-man wrote: »

Thoie wrote: »

From previous experience with car search sites, as a user I'd prefer if people were forced to put in a price and mileage. There's nothing more irritating from my POV than doing a search for cars costing less than 20k, then having the first few pages of price N/A but discovering when you click into them that they're really 40k. QUOTE]

THe thing about that is people like to attract people over the car first to price. I know it's annoying not having a price, but people just like to have people ring first, to discuss a price rather than them seeing a price, and not ringing.

We will definately look at the price issue. . .you are correct its a little simple at the mo

Don't really want to abuse courtesy of boards by going on and on. . . .happy to go into further detail on a forum I just tagged on the site carcity.ie/ forum

CarCity

Lex Luthor wrote: »

Nice one...best you cover all marques and do them in alphabetical.

So how do you go about getting your website name out there in the public domain and people using it?

Everyone knows carzone, how, I dunno, probably just years of being there. Do you take out full page ads, TV ads, etc.?

hmmm we'll see some targetted stuff at the moment. . . bit of print and web advertising coming up over next few months

CarCity

I haven't come back to everyone on everything as again I really am being mindful of not going on too much. Every comment has been read and noted on a log of things to do. Thanks SO much for taking time to review.

Some of the changes suggested have already been put through

happy to discuss in more detail on carcity.ie/ forum (one word obviously)

Eoin

I don't like the search results page - having two different hover effects for one advert is confusing. When I click on text that isn't an advert, the background colour turns dark grey and no longer hovers, which is strange behaviour.

The home page is going to be quite big when you have more marques there.

This is what I want to see when I am searching:
http://www.driving.ie/usedcars/

I am sure it can be tarted up to look a bit nicer.

rgunning

Wasn't able to register, kept saying my username was already taken. But I didn't specify a user name and just entered my e-mail.

CarCity

rgunning wrote: »

Wasn't able to register, kept saying my username was already taken. But I didn't specify a user name and just entered my e-mail.

fixed!

pm me if any probs

Thoie

Here's an odd thing I just noticed. I clicked on Nissan on the front page (1 car showing). Then I clicked the search button at the top of the screen (which looks like it belongs to the site, not the page). Then in the list of models it's only showing me Nissans, and not giving me an option to select makes.

If I remove the 30 from the URL it's only showing me Toyotas (http://www.carcity.ie/search/create_form/), same if I go there from the main front page. It appears that I never get to select the make during the search. Also, the search is called "Simple Search", with nothing to say there's an advanced search anywhere - in which case I'd remove the "simple".