Carzone and the north!

Tod10720

Hi Guys

Once a happy carzone customer, and now nothing but disappointment's! I've always advertised a good amount of stock on Cz, not as a dealer, but private ads, always happy with the service. However of late i've noticed a tendancy for Cz to promote people going up north, and only this morning noticed an ad banner for an unmentioned northern dealer, tempting my potential customers to go find better value up North! Seeing as good dealers and private sellers like myself pay good money to advertise our southern stock, seeing ads like that to me is a disgrace?! Just wanted to see peoples opinions on this, and ideas of somewhere else to go, looked at a couple of other sites, cbg and the likes, can anyone else advise where else to go?

6th

Are there better deals up north?

Why should people buy in the south?

Who should Cz be looking after, the buyer or the seller?

Atomic Pineapple

if theres better deals to be had in the north then why should a customer not be allowed to know this? simple solution is for dealers here to bring cars prices into line with the north

Tod10720

Cz should be looking after the seller as thats their customer! Dealers in the south are paying good money to advertise their stock on Cz, and shouldnt have to be competing with dealers up north, its an irish site that has been corrupted by the new money grabbing owners. Dealers are going out of business by the dozen due to the recesssion be it from customers going up north , or simply by the government failing to offer tax breaks and VRT reduction, the only think cz are doing is pissing off their current advertisers, they have 1097 dealers advertising at the minute, i can see that dropping very soon if they keep it up the way their going.

Anan1

Tod10720 wrote: »

I've always advertised a good amount of stock on Cz, not as a dealer, but private ads,

Why?

Tod10720

i only ever have about 2 cars in stock, more of a hobbie really, never had enough cars to justify the continuous monthly charge

Anan1

Tod10720 wrote: »

can anyone else advise where else to go?

You could try the SIMI - they're well known for not giving a fvck about the customer.

lifer_sean

Sabotage wrote: »

Who should Cz be looking after, the buyer or the seller?

The seller of course. The seller pays Carzone, the buyer doesn't. No advertisers = no Carzone.

To the OP, I'm more miffed by Carzone's "SIMI-only" button and their absolute destroying of their search capability (now almost useless), and their savage advertising price increases, than the NI adverts. I thought that Cz were not taking adverts from NI dealers any more ? I know some are using Eire dealers as a "front" to get around this.

el tel

So the OPs a trader but selling as private sales? Having a 'stock' can only mean one thing - trader.

Tod10720

Yeah, i've seen a few northern dealers on the site 'posing' as southern dealers, with a fake address with no specific street name, just a town! ie donnybrook, dublin! this mornings banner ad surprised me though, cuz i only recently read an article pretty much entitled 'carzone bans northern dealers' , so much for banning though, reckon if the price is right for them, they justify killing southern dealers.

Tod10720

'Stock' means any number of cars, be it 1 to 150,000, never used any other word to describe it, but thanks clearing up my use of english

Tod10720

Tod10720 wrote: »

Yeah, i've seen a few northern dealers on the site 'posing' as southern dealers, with a fake address with no specific street name, just a town! ie donnybrook, dublin! this mornings banner ad surprised me though, cuz i only recently read an article pretty much entitled 'carzone bans northern dealers' , so much for banning though, reckon if the price is right for them, they justify killing southern dealers.

Sure you are not a dealer and you are selling cars to people who might otherwise go to a dealer so whats the difference between you and a person selling from the north?

Tod10720

Adilynn Crooked Piecemeal wrote: »

Sure you are not a dealer and you are selling cars to people who might otherwise go to a dealer

eh? dont really understand this comment

But

I'm not selling in sterling, not taking advantage of VRT up north, im the exact same as any other person selling down south, keep my prices competitive, but i don't particularly want to be competing with northern prices

Tod10720

Tod10720 wrote: »

eh? dont really understand this comment

But

I'm not selling in sterling, not taking advantage of VRT up north, im the exact same as any other person selling down south, keep my prices competitive, but i don't particularly want to be competing with northern prices

You are saying the north is killing dealer sales here but if you sell a cars privately then you are also preventing dealer sales.

So in other words you want to people to pay an inflated price and carzone are messing up your plan despite the fact most people check the UK and NI sites anyway and know well who has a fair price and who is trying to rip people off.

Thats the kind of mentality that has turned people against dealers in this country.

Anan1

Tod10720 wrote: »

I'm not selling in sterling, not taking advantage of VRT up north, im the exact same as any other person selling down south, keep my prices competitive, but i don't particularly want to be competing with northern prices

If you can't compete with the price of imports then you're not competitive, it's that simple.

Top Dog

Tod10720 wrote: »

Cz should be looking after the seller as thats their customer! Dealers in the south are paying good money to advertise their stock on Cz, and shouldnt have to be competing with dealers up north.

Do you think the dealers up north are getting their adverts for free?

Carzone exist to make money, not make friends. Its simply a sign of the times that there is better value to be had when looking further afield.

lifer_sean

Adilynn Crooked Piecemeal wrote: »

Sure you are not a dealer and you are selling cars to people who might otherwise go to a dealer so whats the difference between you and a person selling from the north?

If Tod10720 has everything above board, is paying his VAT and income tax properly, and is providing backup service for the cars he is selling, then he is quite entitled to do what he is doing, no problem.

He is paying Carzone, so they should be looking after his interests first. It's not their job to look after the consumer.

A dealer can place one-off adverts on Carzone (without paying the exorbitant monthly fee) and declare themselves as a dealer. That's not a problem. If the person is pretending to be a private seller and misleading the consumer, then that's a problem.

Selling anything more than 3-4 cars a year makes a person a dealer, not a private seller. There are tax and legal implications for this.

To original topic, if there was another viable alternative to Carzone with the same hit rate, then all advertisers would vote with their feet and Carzone wouldn't last. Yes their service is crap now, but they are surviving on the strength of their brand.

Big Nasty

Any person is free to search on any site, but the stronger sites will still prevail, be they Irish or not. Considering that Irish dealers are finding it tough at the moment you would think that they would be happy with a company that are providing their service to Irish dealers only. I.e: they will be competing with Irish dealers and private sellers only. The trouble is that Carzone have the vast majority of the market at the moment. There are other good alternatives out there that are charging a fraction of the price but admittedly do not have a similar market share to Carzone. In this day and age dealers are looking at their overheads and what return they get for their money. They are afraid to leave Carzone because it gives them a good return, even though they may get 50% of the return from a company that may only charge 25% of the price. Maybe this will turn around in time!

Tod10720

Unfortunately its difficult to avoid the taxman these days, and all my cars are sold legit and with a full service back up. Its true because of the market i sell to, im not overly affected by customers travelling up north ( ie my cars are very low price bracket anyway), but i can only imagine how affected new car dealers are with the price diff between here and the north. But dealers cant afford to be knocking off 10k on a new car in order to compete, that just leaves too little a profit margin. Its true that Cz have the brand awareness, and the private seller isnt going to realise the problems of cz, and hense they still provide results. But i still will look elsewhere to test the online advertising market, to see how others compare. At the moment i'm not considering building up stock, but i if they're are dealers reading this thread, ive looked at alternatives. Carsireland comes in at in and around 50 euro for stock per month, and cbg(which i do think may have a better brand awarness i would have thought) is coming in at 80 / month. i would have thought at these prices an alternative is out there.

Mc Love

I'd say they are right to do this!

Car dealers are a bunch of fools! Went into one today and you would think they were in a boom! Not one rep came over and asked if we were ok!!

lifer_sean

sparkysrovers wrote: »

I'd say they are right to do this!

Car dealers are a bunch of fools! Went into one today and you would think they were in a boom! Not one rep came over and asked if we were ok!!

Small bit of a generalisation, perhaps ????

By the rules of evolution dealers who behave like this will fall by the wayside ... end of problem.

Don't know how this is relevant to the original topic though. Even if car dealers are all fools it doesn't mean it's right for Carzone to ignore it's paying customers.