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CarMarquet has a rich set of features, giving you control over many aspects of your business-to-customer interface as well as functions to help you manage your stock and, ultimately, your business.
One of the main requirements for car dealers in the 21st century is advertising on the AutoTrader web site. AutoTrader provide an easy to use interface on their DealerEdit software, and also provide basic 'stock-list' type web sites.
For dealers who want more from their web site however, AutoTrader are not really geared up - their emphasis is on the wider AutoTrader audience with hundreds of thousands of car adverts. Dealer web sites are very much a secondary consideration for them.
Many web design companies offer slick and artistic web site designs, but with high maintenance requirements and low levels of functionality.
CarMarquet has a wider scope: it gives you a complete, standalone, low maintenance system, which is integrated with AutoTrader so that you no longer have to use DealerEdit as well as maintaining your own site.
As well as passing data directly to AutoTrader via their data feed system, CarMarquet will also produce reports to help you optimally price position your adverts on AutoTrader.
CarMarquet is completely Internet based, so there is no software to install on your PC and no data that you need to back up. Everything resides on a server in a purpose-built data centre and is managed for you as part of your monthly payment.
When new features are added to CarMarquet, they are there for you instantly; there is no need for you to load CDs and upgrade software.
Since the system is not on your office PC you do not need to be in the office to use it - anywhere that you have an internet connection and a web browser, you can use CarMarquet to add or remove cars, or change prices and details.
Now you can wait in for the gas man and get your work done!
CarMarquet has been designed with collaboration from car dealers to be easy to use. You select the car make from a list, and are presented with all models from that manufacturer to choose from. Having chosen the make and model (e.g. "Alfa-Romeo", "146") you can then input the variant in a way that helps you to sell ("Turismo JTD 1910cc 5-Door Diesel Hatchback").
You pick the features on a car from a list, which automatically customises itself to give you the features you most commonly advertise on cars. Further, you can add or remove features at will, and set the system to highlight specific features so that they stand out (for example 'Automatic Transmission', 'Parking Sensors' & 'Satellite Navigation').
You can add as many pictures as you want (six is the sensible maximum - beyond this your display looks too "busy"). The first four pictures are included in the data uploaded to AutoTrader, and you can specify the order that the pictures should be displayed.
And while a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes a few words help as well, and you can put in a sales pitch ("only one owner, no pets or children - near factory condition"). If your imagination struggles with this (or you simply have insufficient time) you can let the system do it for you on a make/model basis ("The smooth, sleek curves on this car are just perfect, giving the car less drag, and more style! The Inline 6-cylinder powerplant gives this car superb speed, with a top speed of 171 mph. It also gives the DB7 great acceleration and power, going from 0 to 60 mph in just 5.4 seconds! "). These automatic sales pitches are available for most cars manufactured/sold new in the UK from 1998 onwards.
When you add a car to your system, you want people to be able to find it. If you have, for example, a Mercedes-Benz C200 Classic Auto 5 Door Estate you could expect to put it on your system as a Mercedes-Benz. If your customer is looking for an estate car, do they have to look at all your Alfa-Romeo, Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Citroen, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Lexus, Mazda etc before they have a chance of seeing the C200?
With CarMarquet, you would add this car once and allow your customer to see it as a Mercedes-Benz, or an estate, or an automatic, or a five door, or a diesel or a car with air-conditionind and power steering - you can choose how many ways you want to display your cars!
This gives your customer better visibility of your stock, enabling them to easily find the car they want amongst your stock. It also has the effect of making your range appear larger to the customer, simply because they can see it better. If you do not have a car that matches their requirements, they can register to be automatically informed by email when a matching car comes into stock - there is no effort on the part of the dealer. If you happen to get a car that matches the customer requirements, they get an email - or, if you prefer, the system can email you with the customer details and the matching car so that you can phone them and try to push the sale through.
Most car dealers start out with a single showroom/location, and many stay that way quite happily. For those that wish to grow CarMarquet provides all you need.
Multiple sites are a breeze - you simply add another sales site in your administation menu, and you can then say which location any car is at. CarMarquet will allow you to display cars by location, and can even put showroom specific phone numbers into your AutoTrader adverts for you.
For walk-in customers, you also have the ability to create 'estate agent' type displays of the stock at your 'other' showroom(s).
How many times has a customer asked (of a used car) "Do you have a brochure?". This is a common scenario, and the customer does not understand why a used car dealer with hundreds of makes/models going through every year cannot provided printed information like the new car dealer with only 5 or six models in a year.
CarMarquet takes the data and pictures you have entered for your web site, and reformats them for printing on your colour printer. These can be in portrait or landscape layout, and can be customised for your business.
You can even choose to print these out beforehand, and leave them on the windscreen or dashboard so that people can see the details of the car. In many parts of the country this is also a condition of the local council car dealer licensing.
These car details sheets will also show the location (showroom) that the car is held at for multi-site dealerships.
While everyone wants a nice car, they also need to be able to afford it. Customers who are stretching their budget for a car may find that they have mis-calculated and overstretched by not allowing for interest charges, so the deal falls through.
This is annoying for the dealer and embarassing for the customer, so CarMarquet has an integrated finance calculator (approved by Trading Standards as "an excellent guide to members of the public").
This is linked to each car so that the customer can click on the finance calulator while viewing a car, and it will automatically fill in the car price. They can then enter any deposit (or a trade-in value they are looking for) and the interest rate offered by their preferred lender. This would then show them what their repayments would be, and how much interest is charged, over 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 months. This facility can be customised to show your own lending rate as default, or could be shown as a "how much can you afford? It will take you this long to repay" type calculator (subject to further review by Trading Standards).
A major consideration when buying a car is the cost of insurance. For some gender/age group combinations this can be horrendous for some insurance groups.
CarMarquet allows you to input a comparison guide for different ages, genders and residential areas to guide the customer towards suitable insurance groups when choosing a car.
Insurance is more the responsibility of the customer than the dealer, but everyone has a duty of care to their customer and there will not be a lot of repeat business generated by selling someone a car they cannot afford to run.
Providing a guide like this can make it easier for a salesman to show their customer what an appropriate range of cars is for them, and CarMarquet will allow selection of just the cars in stock that are under the insurance group that is sensible for that customer.