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 Jay Prassel on January 17, 2012 at 10:25am
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TrueCar in the news:
http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2012/01/truecar-yields-to-critics-a...
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Comment by James A. Ziegler on January 17, 2012 at 8:56am
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Great insight, thanks Michael...
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Comment by Michael Deville on January 16, 2012 at 11:40pm
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If you are on truecar get off, the customer will come to you anyway. No need to pay, when the customer will try to price match to the local dealer first. Show all the truecar scam sites and complaints and the customer will be glad to pay more for the fairness and informed information that you offered.
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Don't say NO to truecar deals, say YES we can help you. The dealer that they left already pissed them off.They'll pay more because reality has set in, and they know that the TRUECAR price and service was bull. Look at it as a price match plus market value and or accessories. A TRUECAR customer is a freebee, they are ready to buy, and will pay a fair price. Look at it as a opportunity that you don't have to pay.
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Comment by David T. Gould on January 16, 2012 at 6:55pm
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As long as we are into transparency, I thought it appropriate for others to be informed. There have been a number of VERY vocal DealerElite and ADM members missing from this conversation. Initially, I thought that was because they were afraid to take a position and / or were willing to let you, and other supporters here, take the dive. I am getting enlightened daily with these posts as they turn over the "rocks" that expose the data bandits and send their cronies scurrying.
I am afraid True Transparency will be leaving some friends in the dust. My suggestion to them, take a proactive approach and do the right thing for dealers. The "data gravy train" is coming to an abrupt halt. Don't get caught on it when names get named. (Oh, and friends, you know who you are, be sure to thank Mr. Painter for screwing up the free, unabated, unregulated, uninhibited access to automotive dealer's data nationwide.) No signature "Good Selling" here, dtg
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Phil Zellinger is playing for the other team
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"Philip Zelinger, CEO of dealer marketing firm Ad Agency Online, of Boca Raton, Fla., and a former dealer, said dealers need technology products from vendors to be competitive. Those products need data to work, and the DMS is the best source of the data, he said.
He agrees that vendors should have limited access and restricted use of DMS data. But Zelinger is concerned that draconian actions to secure data could potentially prevent dealers from using vendor services at all.
"This dialogue could create a backlash on the dealers and the perception of the opportunities for the use of DMS data for appropriate internal uses and could create firewalls that filter out third-party vendors," Zelinger said."
Note to self and others... what looked good yesterday looks foul today now that we get some transparency. Dealers did not "need" third party parasites (parasites add no value but take away value) to survive. Have you had the power go out in your store any time recently with the storms? Did you stop selling cars? Of course not... we still have the resources to appraise trades and write deals legally with no computers at all. I am not suggesting that is a practical solution, but it is one that could be applied to every vendor asking or requiring access to your DMS. Could I run my business without this vendor's intervention?
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20120116/RETAIL07/301169998#ixzz1jf...
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Yeah, I am relieved because I had just received assurances from a friend this past week NO data would be shared with TrueCar from a number of companies.
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Comment by Heather Graham on January 16, 2012 at 11:47am
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That is great to hear - about Homenet!
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Apology to HomeNet:
I am informed by reliable source that the HomeNet agreement with TrueCar was terminated some time ago. JIM
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