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 Michael Deville on November 28, 2011 at 11:55am

We talk about gross, it's not about, gross, it's about opportunity and survival. The same customer that you lost money complain about service.  Try this, go to restaurant and before you get served tell the server that you will be leaving 2 cents regardless of their service or help. You get bad service and you dont know why? ha ha ha. Better yet tell them you want 10% for them to help you, lmao.  If you made no money and paid 300, what kind of reverse tip is that. Take that 300 and get some PPC's hello," feed your own dog"

Comment by Keith Shetterly on November 28, 2011 at 11:52am

@ Chad - NOW somebody missing the point will get it, I hope.  If you use vAuto, AutoExchange, or the new RedBumper, etc. . . . why don't you just invite all your shoppers to the tower and show them how you market price your used vehicles?  You can sell around that, right?  http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/truecar-inc-announces-clear...

Comment by Chad Collier on November 28, 2011 at 11:49am

What is your opinion of Costco Auto program? Is it a better process vs TrueCar? Do you like that the customer comes to the dealership to get the Costco auto program price?

 

Comment by Jim Kristoff on November 28, 2011 at 11:48am

@Jerry.....

 

Nice response to the "Painter" article in Auto News...

Comment by Keith Shetterly on November 28, 2011 at 11:48am

@ Natalie, that's available on www.truecupcake.com, where they have taken the pricing information from all the doughnut shops across America to tell you the price you should pay!  Some have said this model is going to kill doughnut shops, but consumers have a right to this pricing information.

Comment by Jim Kristoff on November 28, 2011 at 11:47am

But.....it IS a lively and and well seen blog.....

 

GREAT topic Jim!!

 

Comment by Chad Collier on November 28, 2011 at 11:47am

What do you think about ClearBook by TrueCar?

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/truecar-inc-announces-clear...

Comment by Jim Kristoff on November 28, 2011 at 11:46am
Comment by James A. Ziegler 7 minutes ago

WOW! has anyone noticed this BLOG has gone Viral in our industry?  1600 views, that's 1600 unique visitors no ones IP Address is counted twice... a lot of interest here.  Getting about 8 views a minute right now.

 

NOT true.....the "counter" will count every time you refresh or come back onto this blog.....they are not unique visitors.....

 

Comment by James A. Ziegler on November 28, 2011 at 11:46am

Natalie, please don't start answering to "Cup Cake".  :)

Comment by James Carroll on November 28, 2011 at 11:46am

ABSOLUTELY!   If dealers don’t embrace True Car, True Car won’t survive!   How do you think the manufactures will like the CSI numbers without sales staff?

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