Buying New or Used?

For every new car or truck that's sold in a given year in the U.S., 2.5 used vehicles are sold. Indeed, the used car market—some 44 million used vehicles change hands each year—is far larger than the 17 million new car market.

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"Used cars provide the opportunity for someone to purchase a car of their choice for less money, or to step up to a better model," said Vogelheim. The reason is simple: The original owner has already absorbed the largest depreciation hit, so you don't have to. Jack Gillis agreed: "Our findings are that a used car can cost 50 percent less overall to run compared to a new car."

Read more at MSN....

M&M Motorsports in Glidden, Iowa

You can now browse M&M Motorsports online inventory of used cars, trucks, suvs, campers, trailers and more at www.mollemotorsports.com. Conveiniently located on US Hwy 30, M&M Motorsports is a short drive from Carroll, Denison, Harlen and Jefferson. Visit them today or call David at 712-659-9600.









M&M Motorsports HWY 30 Glidden, IA.

South Jersey Used Cars

Looking for nice used car in south Jersey? Check out www.southjerseyusedcars.com
Cars, trucks, SUVs.

Goddard Used Auto Sales in Pekin, IL

New website for Goddard Used Auto Sales can be found at www.goddardusedautosales.com. Goddard Auto Sales sells affordable used cars, trucks and SUVs. They also Buy, Sell and Trade quality used vehicles. Visit them at 301 Koch Street in Pekin, Illinois. Pekin is located in central Illinois approximately 12 miles from Peoria.

Goddard Used Auto Sales Pekin, IL

Crown City Motors Pasadena, CA

Providing used cars, trucks and SUVs in Pasadena. Crown City Motors.

Used Tractor Parts website

Easily find used tractor parts, combine parts and ag equipment for sale by auction. Head to Used Tractor Part Supply.

Blog update

We lost some photo files to our blog. And, since it has been awhile since our last post (Aug 08 - yikes!), it looks like a good time revamp it.

We will be sorting through to add the missing photos and adjust the layout.

Cars for sale by owner in Sacramento, CA

The '99 Park and Sell' is the hassle-free way to sell your car, boat, RV, ATV, motorcycle, or watercraft. The lot opens at 5:00 PM on Friday evening and is open through the weekend until 5:00 PM Sunday evening. You may drop off your vehicle during operating hours between 5:00 PM and 9:00 PM on Friday evening or on Saturday between 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM. Vehicles can remain on the lot for the entire weekend, but must be picked up no later than 6:00 PM each Sunday evening. Read more at 99ParkandSell.com

Used cars in Houston

Uncle Johnny's Good Cars of Houston, Texas. Uncle Johnny's is one of Houston's oldest independent auto dealers. Established in 1957, Uncle Johnny's has been serving buyers with quality used cars, trucks and SUVs. They are a BUY HERE, PAY HERE dealer offering in-house financing. Click here to visit this Houston used car dealer.

Used cars in Anchorage | Red, White and Blue Auto

Used cars in Anchorage, Alaska - Red White Blue Auto Sales

1999 Olds Intrique - Call meanest mom on the planet.

Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet.''

After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone _ by placing an ad in the local newspaper.

The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.''

Hambleton has heard from people besides interested buyers since recently placing the ad in the Des Moines Register newspaper.

The 48-year-old from Fort Dodge said she has fielded more than 70 telephone calls from emergency room technicians, nurses, school counsellors and even a Georgia man who wanted to congratulate her.

"The ad cost a fortune but you know what? I'm telling people what happened here,'' Hambleton said.

"I'm not just gonna put the car for resale when there's nothing wrong with it, except the driver made a dumb decision.''

"It's overwhelming the number of calls I've gotten from people saying: `Thank you, it's nice to see a responsible parent.' So far there are no calls from anyone saying: `You're really strict. You're real overboard, lady.'''

The only critic is her son, who Hambleton said is "very, very unhappy'' with the ad and claims the alcohol was left by a passenger.

Hambleton believes her son but has decided mercy isn't the best policy in this case. She said she set two rules when she bought the car at Thanksgiving: no booze and always keep it locked.

The car has been sold but Hambleton said she will continue the ad for another week – just for the feedback.

Ford - Drive One!

Four hundred-plus employees, thousands of hours of blood, sweat and tears as well as dealer insights are fueling Ford’s quest to win customers on the strength of its vehicle quality, fuel economy, safety advances and smart technology.

“The best part of Ford’s story is unfolding in the studios, labs, factories and dealerships, and we’re opening the door a bit, so people can see inside,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s group vice president of Marketing and Communications. “Customers are smart. When they meet our team and see what they’re working on, people will finally understand where the excellence in our products is coming from. That’s what this campaign is all about.”

This week alone, Ford hopes to reach 70 million Americans with the best thinking and hard work of engineers, scientists, designers and technical experts and dealers throughout the country, who have been working together since November to start telling Ford’s story.

Their collective effort is called “Drive one,” which chronicles in digital, TV and print media how Ford employees have closed the gap with Asian competitors on quality, advanced vehicle safety, made vehicles more fuel efficient and led the industry in developing in-car connectivity. It also invites people to drive a Ford and see for themselves how the company’s vehicles stack up versus the competition.

Read more...

Market research is 100 percent clear: Customers do not care about fancy Website effects unrelated to their car-buying decision. You win customers with pricing, inventory, honesty, and service. You can win them with a Website that is easy to use and answers all their questions. Flashing lights, animation, and all the other “bells and whistles” you often see on dealership Websites, at best, do nothing and at worst they distract your potential customers and make your Website take too long to load—so put your efforts where they will bring you real profits. Dealermark 02/08/08

Factory51 has built the CarLotLauncher around the ideal that not everyone has the latest computer or high-speed internet.
The CarLotLauncher takes advantage of what we call Zero-Click. Inventory displayed when a visitor arrives. Just as you would find in online shopping. Quick, easy and straight forward navigation.
See all out our "bells and whistles" at Factory51 Design and our demo at CarLotLauncher.com

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Auto Dealer Websites for $990 flat fee

Making the leap to the web shouldn't be difficult or expensive. Searching the web for a auto dealer website can leave you gasping for air. With some monthly fees over $600 it's a steep price, especially for a smaller used auto dealer. Of course the larger price tag is usually reserved for new car dealer and their corporate ad fund, it still leaves the used car dealer with few affordable options. Factory51 Design has taken a bold step and eliminated a monthly fee and gone with a flat rate plan of $990. To allow dealers further control (and savings), Factory51 has clients sign-up directly with their hosting provider to let them choose web hosting plans - as low as $5.95 per month with a free domain name.
Factory51 Design's CarLotLauncher provides a simple templated design that features a Zero Click approach that presents the dealer inventory once visitors arrive. Vehicle feature pages allow up to 6 photos per vehicle and the ability to embed YouTube video. Additional feature include a page builder for one of the largest FREE resources on the internet - Craigslist. With a few simple clicks and a copy/paste you have a formated description that promotes users to visit the dealer website and view their complete inventory. To add further exposure you can even export vehicle data and upload the file to Google Base.
For further information about the CarLotLauncher visit the Factory51 Design website or view their CarLotLauncher demo.

Pete's Auto Sales now online

Established in 1958, Pete's Auto Sales and Repair of Port Reading, New Jersey, has brought their used car inventory to the web. Spanning 49 years and three generations, Pete's Auto Sales and Repair is still going strong. Offering not only quality used cars, trucks and SUVs, they also have a full service repair shop as well as towing. The repair shop offers New Jersey state inspections, and certified emission repair, as well as common services such as brakes, tires, batteries, tune-ups and oil changes.
With financing available to qualified buyers and warranties on most vehicles, Pete's Auto Sales IS one-stop shopping! In the market for a used car in New Jersey? Stop by or browse online at http://www.PetesAutoNJ.com
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Pete's Auto Sales, used car dealer website, designed by Factory51 Design, and fueled by CarLotLauncher.

New look to Factory51 Design

We put the finishing touches on our new website design this past weekend. You can view it here... http://www.factory51.com. We also updated some of the vehicles on our demo used car site to show off some of the new updates.


Our existing client base will receive all the new features at the end of the year in a mass upgrade.

New clients will have some of the features now, like up to 6 photos per used vehicle listing, search engine optimized pages; titles, tags, descriptions are now fine-tuned with content relevant data - all images no have optimized alt tags and image names. We then use a meta-tag analyzer to check for 100% relevancy. Sure, some search engines don't put as much weight on meta-tag Keywords, Description, but some do and that's the point... optimization across the board. Just because Google is the most used search engine doesn't mean others like Yahoo! and MSN Live don't get used.

CarLotLauncher - Used Car Dealer Websites

This past week we wrapped up another new feature to our CarLotLauncher Used Car Dealer Website Builder. Originally, we only supported a single photo for displaying used cars - now you can display up to six photos per vehicle. And we kept they system totally flexible also. Let's say you just received a new used car in, but don't have the time to shoot 6 photos. Enter the basics in... Year, Make, Model, mileage and price. Upload a single photo and maybe a little blurb "Just arrived." and be finished. Come back later when you have time and really sell the car. Remember, treat every listing on your website as it's own Full Page ad. This not only captures the buyer attention, but also can increase your search engine listings.

CarlotLauncher

Why sell on eBay Motors?

EBay Motors is confident that dealer inventory will sell faster, allowing substantial savings on advertising, promotion, maintenance, and storage costs. "Using eBay Motors dramatically expands the pool of potential buyers," says Simon Rothman, vice president of eBay Motors. "As any sales manager knows, increasing your audience increases your chances of finding the one person in a nationwide marketplace for whom your car is the perfect dream car." And there is no shortage of willing bidders. Nearly 10 million unique visitors search for vehicles listed on eBay Motors each month, where listed vehicles receive an average of eight unique bids. The top-selling vehicles on eBay Motors are currently Honda Accord, Ford Mustang, BMW 3-series and Ford F-Series pickups.

EBay Motors

Used car domain names

When choosing a domain name remember that .COM is the most familiar and recognized domain extension hands down. The .COM is almost expected. With domains being gobbled up left and right, now is the time to secure your business domain name. Remember that choosing a domain is not only about name recognition, but also convenience. Even though abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com is memorable it's not very easy to type!
Best practice is to secure your full business name and 1 or 2 shorter combinations or abbreviations. Forward the your longer domain names to your used car website.

Choosing a Domain Name Registar. While you can't go wrong with the GoDaddy.com pricing of $8.95 per name it's checkout processes is enough to give anyone a headache. All the tedious upselling just to buy a domain made me transfer all my domains to www.directnic.com . Simple, easy to use no frills. For a few bucks extra a year it's worth it.

Used car websites by Factory51 Design.

Display your salespeople online

Photogenic or not, displaying your photo on your used car website is good practice. Research shows that displaying the photo of the salesperson to contact provides the personal touch that web browsers crave. This is very much similar to the various print catalog's you might receive. Whether it's the classic salesgirl with a headset or the photo of the owner with his "message from the owner" letter, these "people" photos provide that personal contact and connection to people, like when you actually visit a store or business.
Provide the same principal with your used car website. So, where to display it? Well, research also shows that a personal photo on the homepage provides validity of the website with the visitor. Another good practice is displaying your photo near the "contact us" form. This further drives the potential buyer that there is someone waiting for their message and who they are dealing with. Upon visiting your carlot, buyers will have a face to look for.

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Quick tips for Used Car Websites.