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 Paulson on November 29, 2011 at 3:14pm
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OK...For my part in the quest to rid the planet of TrueCar...To help everyone pass this information on, I would be happy to summarize this discussion in a short Powerpoint that users can rebrand and use to present with. I can provide a Google Docs link for people to download it from. Would that help?
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Comment by James Carroll on November 29, 2011 at 3:13pm
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@Larry Oh Novacain is highly overrated.
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Comment by Mike Betts on November 29, 2011 at 3:12pm
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Just an observation. Most dealers accept "no nothing deals" does Zag make a dealer accept more no nothing deals or are the Zag buyers the same people? My guess its a little of both,your accepting a few more no nothing deals but the same people who grind out every last penny are the main ones using this method of shopping/buying . As a salesman who has benefited from Zag/Trucar i am able to make a profit while selling ext warranty,tire dent and other accessory items. I am also able to say ,i can do that price but its on this specific car which allows me to move aged inventory. I get the argument but here is the issue . You can either let Zag work you or you can work Zag. My guess its here to stay,so be creative and find a way to make money and profit from it. Just an oppinion of a Sally who is sucking it up! Best wishes,Me
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Comment by Stanley Esposito on November 29, 2011 at 3:12pm
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@Jim
I saw that earlier today. No more making it up on the trade. Truecar basically admits it wants to do away with the salesman. Do the stores that pay truecar agree?
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Comment by Larry Muirhead on November 29, 2011 at 3:09pm
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@ CJ and Stan..
I see alot of dead blind squirrles out there!
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Imagine walking into your Dentists office, demanding service to the point of the Doctor losing money. How fast would they see you out the same door you walked in?
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Comment by James A. Ziegler on November 29, 2011 at 3:01pm
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Truecar's "Clearbook" is designed to close the loopholes to make doubly sure you can't make a profit by holding on the trades... You're right Keith, it is more than a business, these people are on a mission...
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Comment by Stan Sher on November 29, 2011 at 3:00pm
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@CJ as the saying goes, "even a blind squirrel can find a nut". Once in a while, we get lucky and hit a home run as you did with that deal. But as you stated most of them were nothing deals and that is the problem.
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Comment by Keith Shetterly on November 29, 2011 at 2:58pm -
@ CJ, what do you think if your trade hold disappears in that equation? What if your customer can actually know their trade just as well as their new car "price" from Zag? Effectively, would you let your trading customer into the tower to see your market pricing on your inventory tool (AAX or whatever)? Well, guess what's NEXT: TrueCar's "ClearBook": http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/truecar-inc-announces-clear... "Over the last 18 months TrueCar has been able to successfully and comprehensively collect, analyze and visually present objective transaction data on new cars allowing buyers and sellers to finally know what everyone else actually paid. ClearBook will now utilize this proven process and format to collect, analyze and present used car listing data in the same manner. By aggregating used car listings in a specific area and providing clear, indisputable pricing analysis based on actual market data, ClearBook will facilitate faster sales for dealers and set more realistic expectations for buyers and sellers" and ""The problem with used vehicle pricing guides has always been subjectivity around asking price, how it is driven and its relationship to actual market demand. 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' doesn't even begin to measure the variances in used car pricing," said Scott Painter, CEO and Founder of TrueCar, Inc. "Aggregating and presenting actual used car listing data is the first step in measuring the market and eliminating this subjectivity and that capability simply hasn't existed until now."
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@Devin...So Devin, not satisfied with the amount of TrueCar outrage, in a late night hit and run, pops out from behind the corner with his gas can in hand, and really gets the fire going. He ducks back behind the corner as the bullets fly. Now the next morning comes and the TrueCar powers that be handcuff him to the sewer pipe in the basement to keep him from making the situation any worse....Or so I imagine how his day is going....
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