TRUE CAR and ZAG Cyber Bandits, Parasites or Good for the Car Business?

Jim Ziegler asks...

I am hearing a lot of discussion about True Car and ZAG.  I continually scratch my head and wonder if  desperate dealers are doing the marketing limbo "How Low Can You Go?" 

Are we so bad at what we do that we have to line up and pay vendors to lose money? AND, who is giving these people access to your data that is used against you? 

 

Who owns these companies and what might be their ulterior motive?  Sometimes I ask questions to which I already know the answer. 

 

Am I wrong?


What do you think... JIM

 

 

Jim Ziegler's Guidance and Recommended Action Plan:

Ten Areas We Need to Concentrate on to Bring This Monster to It's Knees...

  1. Government investigation of ALL Data Aggregators taking consumer information from dealers' DMS. Sadly enough, dealers who do business with TrueCar are exposed to  liability charges. Cut off all access to unecessary data, no matter who takes it from the dealers DMS and make it illegal to "resell identifiable consumer data" and "transactional data".
  2. Educate Your Fellow Dealers; If anyone takes financial transactional data, they expose the dealer that allowed it to violations, especially if it is passed on to other vendors or shared.
  3. Educate Consumers to what they're doing with their information...
    a. You buy a car from a dealer, do you really want your personal information, and maybe even your financial information, passed along and sold and shared by "God knows who?"
    b. These People Charge the Dealer $300 which the dealers have to build into the deal
    c. Your Privacy and the Security of your Information could theoretically compromise your identity if you do business a company that takes data from the dealership.
  4. Educate Investors and potential investors they could possibly be mislead if anyone is telling them this is a safe investment because of all of the dealers pushing back, associations pushing back, and government regulators in many states coming after TrueCar's business model as NOT compliant, in some cases they're saying it is Not Legal.
  5. AMEX, USAA and all of their affiliates do not want the bad consumer relations this push back is creating with their members and customers.
  6. Cancel your dealership's Affilation with TrueCar. Tell people with TrueCar certificates that YOU don't honor TrueCar and you feel the company is NOT reputable. Educate consumers as to perceived data exposure if they buy from a TrueCar dealer. Make sure that each consumer knows that using TrueCar actually increases their vehicle cost by $300 to $400.
  7. Make the dealers selling at huge losses take all of those deals. Big problem right now is too many Nissan Dealers and others are taking huge losers to get the factory money. The TrueCar reverse-auction business model will continually push those numbers down until the factory money is non-existent. Consumers need to hear from many dealers, "We don't do TrueCar"
  8. Keep calling your National and State Dealer Associations demanding they get involved and stay involved... No excuses.
  9. Get the Manufacturers into the game. If GM, Ford, Toyota, and other majors change the rules about how we advertise and do business to protect the dealers, we can cut off their ability to set pricing. So keep it up at every dealer meeting. Call your Dealer Council Members and protest to your factory reps. Tell the manufacturers, if they want showroom and facility improvements, we need the ability to make fair profits.
  10. Tell everyone you know. Educate other dealers and industry people. Watch the Painter interviews... I believe this is the first time a vendor has publicly announced they intend to bring down the dealers and hijack our business, taking our profits and starving us out with our own data. Painter has said manufacturers and dealers should go bankrupt and he, in his God-like way "will control distribution..."
    When the TrueCar-Yahoo Deal kicks in we need to stand firm and "Just Say No" we don't honor TrueCar deals.

Read this article as a reference: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20110831%2FFIN... 

AND, if you doubt the mission... read this...  http://www.zag.com/websiteASSETS/whitepapers/ZAG-WhitePaper3.pdf

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Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 7, 2011 at 6:29pm

uh-oh...I hear a train a'comin'...  DEALER DATA WARS:  REVOLUTIONS DO NOT WAIT!

Comment by Jim Kristoff on December 7, 2011 at 6:28pm

@Eric.....no doubt.....

Comment by Jim Kristoff on December 7, 2011 at 6:28pm

Here is Rob Fontano's link to that TrueCar data sheet of information that they pull from YOUR DMS.

http://robfontano.com/2011/12/zag-true-car-dms-data-polling-form-pdf/

Comment by Jim Kristoff on December 7, 2011 at 6:23pm

Here is what Zag/TrueCar pulls from YOUR DMS!!!

___________________________________________

DMi ZAG Vehicle Sales File Format
Format Options: Data should be in either a TXT or CSV file.
File Type: The file must be a flat text file in a comma-delimited format. It must contain one record per line and have no
header, footer or any information other than the data to be loaded.
Record Selection Criteria: The file should only include records for vehicle sales that have been completed, meaning that the
sale has been completed and closed out. Files should contain only records for sales that have been closed during the most
recent extract period.
Delimiter: The primary field delimiter is a comma. If there is a space, comma or double-quote contained in the data within a
field, then that field must be double-quoted, and double quotes within data must be escaped with another double-quote. For
example:
Example:
Original CUSTOMER_NAME: John"s Auto Shop
Expected CUSTOMER_NAME: "John""s Auto Shop"
Individual lines must be delimited by a line feed.
Unavailable Fields: If any field is unavailable there must be a placeholder (empty value) put where that field would exist.
Date Fields: All Date fields should be in MM/DD/YYYY format
File Naming Convention: Files should be named vehicle_sales.txt. File names are case-sensitive.
This table describes the fields to be included in the vehicle sales file and the order in which these fields should appear in the
file. There are 39 total fields.
Table 1 - Single file format
Field # Field Name Definition Example
1 Deal Number Unique number assigned to each vehicle sales transaction.
2 Deal Status Indicates whether the deal is finalized or unwound. Finalized
3 Sales Date
Date that the sale was finalized and became a bookable
deal. 01/12/2006
4 VIN Vehicle identification number of vehicle listed on a deal.
5 New/Used Stock type of the vehicle New
6 Stock Number
Stock number of the vehicle. Serves as a unique identifier
of the vehicle in inventory.
7 Year Year of vehicle listed on a deal
8 Make Make of vehicle listed on a deal
9 Model Model of vehicle listed on a deal
10 Model Type Vehicle's trim or model package
11 Body
Vehicle's body style. Depending on vehicle, may include
bed style, cab style, side style, door count, or just general
body style information
12 Model Number Vehicle's model number
13 Color Exterior color of vehicle listed on a deal Black
14 Sales Price Cash price of the sale vehicle, i.e. Selling Price. 400.01
15 Sales Cost Dealer cost of the sale vehicle. 1174.25
16 Invoice Cost Dealership purchase price of the vehicle. 36804.29
17 MSRP Manufacturer's suggested retail price. 19500.00
18 Buyer First Name First name of customer listed on the sale
19 Buyer Last Name Last name of customer listed on the sale
20 Buyer Street Address Buyer's address
21 Buyer City Buyer's city
22 Buyer State Buyer's state or province
23 Buyer Zip Buyer's zip code
24 Buyer Home Phone Buyer's home phone number (
25 Buyer Work Phone Buyer's work phone number
26 Email 1 Buyer's email address
27 Co-buyer Last Name Last name of 2nd customer listed on the sale
28 Co-Buyer First Name First name of 2nd customer listed on the sale
29 Co-buyer Street Address Co-Buyer's address
30 Co-buyer City Co-Buyer's city
31 Co-buyer State Co-Buyer's state or province
32 Co-buyer Zip Co-Buyer's zip code
33 Co-buyer Work Phone Co-Buyer's home phone number
34 Co-buyer Work Phone Co-Buyer's work phone number
35 Email 2 Co-Buyer's email address
36 Trade Make Make of first trade vehicle listed on a deal GMC
37 Trade Model Model of first trade vehicle listed on a deal Envoy
38 Trade Model Type T

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 7, 2011 at 5:49pm

And none of that changes what Painter said about his vision for a showroom without salespeople. Or this little discussion from Kiplingers where Jesse Toprak of TrueCar pretty much lays out holdback, etc. in advice on how to get the "best" deal http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/car/archive/iso-the-real-dealer-co....  

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 7, 2011 at 5:44pm

Yeah, well, they could have saved everyone the trouble and have come here and cleared this up early on.  Clearly, they know about the blog, since they've communicated in public and at least once in the blogs about this--they just never cleared anything up.  Regardless, what does their data agreement say with a dealer again?  And what other sales data do they get to do that great pricing?  Simple answers to direct questions by THEM would help.  Otherwise, and I could be wrong, to me it's just spin...

Comment by James A. Ziegler on December 7, 2011 at 5:39pm

TrueCars official public position is that they DO NOT DataMine Dealers DMS.  They only take what information identifies the sales... Is that true? Is this blog unfair? Please comment.

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 7, 2011 at 5:36pm

From TRUECAR:  "The auto  industry is the only business in which the term invoice doesn't actually define cost," says Jesse Toprak, of TrueCar, an automotive-data company. For example, the invoice price does not reflect the holdback, a discount the dealer gets from the manufacturer that the dealer uses to help pay the cost of financing its cars. Dealers may also get cash from the manufacturer to move certain models. The thinking is that dealers know the best way to close a sale, and they can use any or all of the cash to help get the deal done. But, says Toprak, "if you know the incentive exists, you'll likely get 100% of it."

http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/car/archive/iso-the-real-dealer-co...

It's so nice that folks write about the cost of the vehicle with such authority and forget the fact that the lights, water, advertising, sign, service, sales, etc. need a profit in order to EXIST!

Comment by James A. Ziegler on December 7, 2011 at 5:19pm

NADA

I received an email correspondence today from William C. Price who is the Director, Legal Affairs for the  National Automobile Dealers Association.

Mr. Price's letter was in response to the more than 100 emails I sent to state, municipal, and national, international dealer association executives.

The NADA had mass emailed all of the association executives a warning NOT to become involved because of adherence to Federal Anti-trust Laws.

I hold the NADA in the highest regard, and; I was already aware the associations could NOT become involved or even express an opinion. My main purpose was more to educate everyone as to what the situation is.

I am fairly certain that rumors regarding NADA doing business with TrueCar are unfounded. 

Comment by Keith Shetterly on December 7, 2011 at 4:55pm

Click the picture!

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