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...
- 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".
- 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.
- 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. - 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.
- AMEX, USAA and all of their affiliates do not want the bad consumer relations this push back is creating with their members and customers.
- 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.
- 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"
- Keep calling your National and State Dealer Associations demanding they get involved and stay involved... No excuses.
- 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.
- 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
Comment
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Comment by Michael Timmons on February 3, 2012 at 4:33pm
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Keith, I certainly wasn't bragging, my family and I have been leasing the home in Ft. Lauderdale since 2007 when I joined AutoNation. Also, as we all know if someone wanted to find out where either of us live, they can. I have spent the last 25+ years in this auto business and am very passionate about it. My comment was sincere about you enjoying the convention.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 3, 2012 at 4:17pm -
Michael, it was a joke. I would not DO such a thing, Not yet, anyway. I also would never put my home address on the Internet on a highly indexing searchable site. Even if I was perhaps bragging on my water-side Miami SouthBeach location that perhaps thousands of loser TC deals paid for.
Anyway, to revisit the point: Not only is it not what you say, but what you do, it's also not what you have, but what you DO WITH IT. This seems to be more of the same.
I think, if I make a t-shirt, I'd put a Google Earth pic on it of your Location Location Location so folks can decide if they want to keep paying TrueCar for skinny deals to keep you there. Success is a great thing and we should all push for that prize. Congratulations on getting folks to support you in that effort.
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Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on February 3, 2012 at 4:08pm
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Memorabilia always tops shortly after the subject dies.....
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Number and sign them Keith.....sure to be a hot item on Ebay soon.
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Keith I always enjoy myself and although I personally wouldn't wear the T-shirt I would love it if you sent me one. My address is 437 Bontona Ave. Ft. Lauderdale Florida 33301.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 3, 2012 at 3:56pm
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@ Michael: It's not what people say, it's what they do.
Lead provider award hijacked from Zag into the new name. Check.
Absent from the NADA floor. Check.
And I will enjoy the convention. I plan to wear my T-shirt that says "Where's TrueCar? - see www.****edbythedealer.com". I'll send you one.
Enjoy your "not" convention.
Keith
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@Keith I am sure you would agree that there is already a large enough audience for all things TRUECar. With the award from DrivingSales and the early questions regarding TRUECar at the JD Power round table it should make for my most interesting NADA. Enjoy the convention.
Mike
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Comment by James A. Ziegler on February 3, 2012 at 3:49pm
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The Driving Sales award was NOT for TrueCar , it was for ZAG, TrueCar requested the name change BUT dealers voted for ZAG and most of those dealers reviews were compiled for ZAG only before any of the TrueCar controversy began November 27th. TrueCar does NOT have this vote... it was for ZAG before Painter ruined the company.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 3, 2012 at 3:29pm
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Hmmmm. This from a company too scared to have a booth on the floor of NADA this year.
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Link to Michael's post:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/zag-zag-sales-strategy-now-known-a...
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