Improve online selling and buying of vehicles in US

For some years now, we all have witnessed how the biggest websites for classified ads have been evolving on the Internet. Some for good, others not so much.

While the functionality and design have improved from a stiff and rigid content to more dynamic and soft appearance, other very important features from user perspective have progressively degraded. We believe, the main aspects of the classified websites, which have suffered the most are:

- Simplicity & Usability

- Fast load time

- Reasonable prices

- Too many websites out there

Quite straightforward at first glance, it is striking to discover how difficult it is to find a decent classifieds website that follows those principles. Being confused and dazed users ourselves (or at least at first), we thought we can do it better. Way better. We got an idea and put it into motion. Finally, the inspiration from this idea has led us to create CarVDB.com – a powerful, neat and user friendly platform, free for anyone to use.

Now, in order to continue our work we need your support. Discover our mission and the great features our website has to offer and we hope to see you at CarVDB.com soon.

We built the website around three main cornerstones:

- Users. Developed around the idea that everything should serve a purpose, our purpose was to create something that benefits the users. The users being two major groups - occasional people looking to sell or buy a vehicle or dealerships that need an advertisement platform, all the website features were developed with consideration of how to serve everyone to their best interest without harming anyone’s experience.

- The simple the better . Simplicity, being our second main drive, we did not give up either on functionality or quality. We included everything that one would expect from such website and we believe we did pretty good job.

- Universal platform. There are a few websites offering classifieds for different kind of vehicles, most of them limited to just one or two types, i.e. automobiles, motorcycles, RVs, boats, etc. We wanted to go a step further. Why not having one place on the Internet, where everyone will know they can buy or sell any kind of vehicle or motorized equipment they want - cars, motorcycles, RVs, buses, trucks, trailers, boats, construction, mining, industrial, farm equipment and spare parts for them.

Simplicity & Usability

Problems for buyers: Once upon a time, websites were showing only the content that had to be shown. A car was being sold - there was the technical information about the car, some pictures, description from the seller and a location.

Now we have all the above plus loan tips, payment calculations, insurance suggestions, user reviews, manufacturer news, editor opinion, vehicle research, sponsored links and not forget the minimum of five banners in full color/image from Google taking about 1/3 of the screen space. All this on the same page. Who needs this?

CarVDB.com solution: We thought, why not keep it simple and easy for the users to learn about the vehicle being sold, while the additional features are placed into another section of the website? Not everyone needs to find a loan or wants to read about other people opinion. Have the committed buyers easily scroll through multiple offerings without being overwhelmed with unnecessary information until they find the right vehicle. Then let the ones eager to find a loan to do it from the dedicated loans section. As simple as that.

Problems for sellers: Have you recently tried to sell a vehicle yourselves? How much time did it take to find the right sequence of mouse clicks to do it? Nowadays, in order to sell anything people are compelled to be masters in browser navigation, scroll through a dozen of pages, provide unnecessary personal information and spend hours behind the computer until their advertisement is finally online.

CarVDB.com solution: Selling a vehicle does not have to be that difficult. Just entering the vehicle data, uploading pictures and providing the contact data should be sufficient, all done in 3 simple steps. Anything more than that is unnecessary burden that we are determined to spare our users of.

Problems for Dealerships: Managing online advertisements (adding/removing/editing), drawing statistics, estimating cost and cost effectiveness in general take time. This is time that an employee at the dealership has to spend. Since time is associated with cost, the more time someone spends doing those tasks the greater the cost both for the dealership and the customers, which ultimately pay the price. It turns out the biggest websites does not consider this important fact and invest little to no efforts into making the life (and cost) of dealerships easier.

CarVDB.com solution: We have analyzed all the different aspects and time it takes for dealerships to advertise online and concluded we can offer increased performance for much lower cost. With outstanding inventory management, easy to maintain Dealer Homepage and fully automated statistics and finance management sections, the efforts dealerships have to spend administrating their online advertising campaigns have drastically reduced.

Fast load time

The problem: Load time is somewhat related to the previous issue. In the era of super fast computers and smart phones, waiting for 8-9 seconds for a page to completely load is a pure waste of time. One would think that the biggest classifieds websites, with thousands of users, had thought about this. It turns out, the majority of them had not. Even worse, they had chosen to neglect this important functionality, over the purpose of having more doubtfully important content and as much advertisement as possible.

There are reasons for this of course, like the desire to have a better ranking in search engines and maximize profits but we believe those goals can be achieved without forcing users to wait a disturbingly long amount of time.

CarVDB.com solution: One word - minimalism. By choosing not to add excess amount of information and keeping the banners with advertisements to a minimum we have managed to achieve great load time. Our homepage loads on average 56% faster than other similar websites, while a page with advertized vehicle loads on average of 118% faster. One of the other tested websites (and probably the most popular in the States) proved to be exactly 10.5 times slower. Amazing.

Reasonable prices

The problem:$25 to place an automobile ad for 4 weeks and $50 to place a boat ad for 2 weeks, those being the cheapest options available? When did online services become that expensive? What happens if the car or boat does not sell within the advertisement duration, another $25 or $50 for ad renewal? We do not even want to mention situations where individuals get phone calls by website representatives persuading them to “upgrade” their ad by paying additional $150-$200 for a better placement. We have been there and we didn’t like it.

On the other side, there are the dealerships, which pay much higher monthly fees for advertisement. With amounts that easily top up $3000, the financial load imposed on them is very high. Here is the thing, dealerships are businesses that have to profit. Hence all their costs are eventually transferred as costs for buyers. In the end everyone ends up paying a higher price for service that at its best does not cost even half of what is being charged.

CarVDB.com solution: Embracing the idea that some of the best things out there are free or cost very little, we created a classifieds website free of charge. Our users have the possibility to place ads for free and prolong them as much as necessary at no cost. The individuals, eager to promote or add special options to their ad, can do so at very little cost – the lowest price is $1 and the highest price that one can pay is just $3.

We have considered the needs of the dealerships too. It is free for everyone to start up with us. The trial period is set to two years, during which all website options are available for free. This means that during the entire two year period, dealerships can test and evaluate whether our services fit their needs. We cannot guarantee everyone will be completely satisfied but we will definitely make sure not to let anyone down.

Too many websites out there

The problem:In the latest years, it has become extremely easy to create a website. As a result, the Internet was exponentially flooded with tens of hundreds of websites offering similar services and content. Everyone has noticed this and so did we. After some research we found two very important facts. First, any relatively good classifieds websites are quite limited to certain niche. For example, advertising only cars, or RVs or boats. Hence, people are forced to browse through several websites until they find the one to fit their needs. Then, comes the registration process, getting used to the site design and structure and so on. Next time they need to look for or sell different type of vehicle, the process has to be repeated again for another website. Second, any classifieds website offering broader possibilities for advertisement, fails to provide detailed and customizable search options and filters. The advertisement is there buy possible buyers have to spend hours looking trough hundreds of matching search results in order to find what they need. We thought there should be another way. A better way.

CarVDB.com solution: We thought there should be another way. A better way. Thus, we created one website, where everyone would know they can find or sell any kind of vehicle, with minimum efforts required. Sellers have the option to provide all details available for their vehicles, customized per vehicle category. Buyers are given the possibility for very detailed search based on the same customized options, making their lives much easier by eliminating vehicles not matching their specific requirements. The best thing is that next time, one want to buy or sell different type of vehicle, there will be no need to look again for the right place but just go back to CarVDB.com

Conclusion

We started CarVDB.com with the idea to create a website that will serve the needs of its users. Everything is based on that – the concept, the design and features. User experience being of prime importance, we refrained ourselves from the bad practice of placing excessive amount of advertisements or sponsored links. In addition, the website is free of charge for anyone to use it. In order to allow us to cover for operational costs, small amounts (between $1 and $3) are being charged for premium classifieds, while the choice whether to purchase those remain solely within the users themselves. Few Google advertisements have also been placed to help us keep up with the website maintenance costs, while our plans are to completely remove those in the future.

You now have the opportunity to help improve everyone’s experience when it comes to buying or selling vehicles on the Internet. Donate any amount to support us delivering the best service we can, like our Facebook page or simply use the website next time you need to buy or sell a vehicle and we will continue to run this website forever free and forever in the best interest of our users.

It’s the CarVDB.com PROMISE!