DMS 5 – Dealer Management System

It’s finally here. Our very own Dealer Management System that integrates seamlessly to all Symphony Car Dealer 5 websites.

Easily setup your customer and supplier database without needing a degree in technology. You can even import your customer and supplier data from certain providers using our import tool. Also setup your standard costs to allocate against vehicles and finance company details.

Once you have entered some basic information you are ready to enter your purchase dates / prices and create purchase invoices on the fly. Easily create sales invoices to customers or suppliers, register part exchanges on invoices and invoice your preferred finance companies; we have you covered.

Need to upload documents per transaction? The functionality is included.

DMS 5 is revolutionary by way of its price. It’s completely free of charge

For more information give us a call today on 01902 203333 or view the Dealer Management System features

Has BREXIT affected the used car sales industry?

It would appear over the last 8 months that BREXIT has really affected the used car sales industry throughout the whole of the UK. Even car dealers previously bustling with passing trade customers on busy roads have noticed not only the drop in footfall but the sheer change in consumer spending.

Car dealers that stock cars around the 8 to 10 thousand pounds mark have noticed a sharp decline in sales of cars in this price range and much lower value cars at around the three to four thousand pound mark are shifting far more regularly.

More importantly we as a business have seen a large amount of dealers simply forced to cease trading due to this massive climate change quite possibly brought about by the scaremongering of a No Deal BREXIT. Consumers are holding on to their hard earned cash and probably will so for another twelve months before the dust settles and all relevant ties cut with the EU. As many as fifty dealers so far this year just didn’t make it and have had to close the doors which does include dealers who operate their business from home and along side another job.

How can you as a Car Dealer tighten your belt?

Put simply, change your website provider to one who can pass on savings directly into your pocket. Many car dealers know “who is who” in this industry and quite frequently there are new companies popping up claiming that you can do everything from their portal which unfortunately, is  inaccurate.

Since 2011, Car Dealer 5 have been developing a central portal for our dealers that is not just down right good value, but is extremely flexible and simple to use. It can take a feed twice daily from Autotrader so you don’t even have to log in or you can feed out to Autotrader FOUR times a day from Car Dealer 5. All other companies are fed daily and Ebay Motors Pro / Gumtree feeds can be pushed manually by our dealers to their relevant accounts throughout the day as many times as they like.

Due to our integrated, yet flexible system and our extremely low overheads, we can pass on huge savings to our dealers and give them not only a product that is groundbreaking for the price, but a personal service that is as efficient as you can get.

Car Dealer 5 currently service just under seven hundred car dealers in the UK and have the ability to scale up without having to worry about extra staffing costs.

So why choose Car Dealer 5?

Great question! Now if you asked the same question four years ago the answer would have been simply to cut costs. However now, with our new Elite packages featuring SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) module and Stock Updates module built in as standard, the switch to us is not only going to save you money, it can now improve how you reach your customers and more importantly get more customers to your online showroom through improved SEO out of the box.

Not only do these features come as standard and more importantly start working as soon as your site is live, the support you will receive cannot be beaten by any of our competitors and our reviews reflect this.

Ok then how much can my business save?

Well, that depends on who your current media company is. Let’s take a closer look at some like for like packages with other media companies.

The following feedback has come directly from our customers who were previously a customer of these other media companies or are still customers of these media companies.

Autotrader

With a suspected figure of over two and a half thousand used car dealers Autotrader are no doubt a popular choice for dealers who want ease of use to get their stock from the Dealer Portal platform straight across to their website swiftly with very little wait times.

Dealers who want finance integration to their site are however seemingly set with stringent rules and guidelines of what can be done not only on their adverts on Autotrader but on their website too.

The price point is approximately the same as the Car Dealer 5 Elite package without the benefits of the standard Stock Updates and SEO  modules, Image editing facilities, design flexibility and most importantly for these dealers the finance options that Car Dealer 5 can bring to the table at the flick of a switch.

Switch now to save up to £900 + VAT per annum

Starkwood Media Group

With a suspected figure of around four to five hundred dealers, Starkwood Media Group websites are great looking sites that also offer finance integrations.

With people on the road all over the country from their base and a small team of staff, Starkwood Media Group are a recognised brand name that a lot of car dealers are aware of.

Switch now to save from around £1000 + VAT per annum

Spidersnet

Spidersnet again are a media company brand that most dealers will have heard of. With salespeople on the road and a larger team of staff, Spidersnet sites that compare to a Car Dealer 5 Elite package are also great looking websites.

Switch now to save from £350 + VAT to £1300 + VAT per annum

Click Dealer

Click Dealer not only specialise in used and franchise dealer websites, but they have an excellent DMS which was just awarded Winner status at the Dealer Power awards in Portsmouth, September 2019. With around 1400 dealers using their system throughout the UK, Click Dealer are very well established.

The website quality and designs are extremely good while customer service is also very highly praised. However, with well in excess of 75 staff members due to many new products constantly being released may affect your pocket.

Switch now to save from £600 + VAT per annum

Autoweb

Autoweb Design cater for used and franchise dealer websites throughout the UK and have approximately five to six hundred dealers on board. The used car dealer website designs are of a Similar nature to a Car Dealer 5 Responsive and Super package.

Switch now to save from £350 + VAT to £900 + VAT per annum

_____________________________________________________________________

To summarise, by switching to a Car Dealer 5 package you will ultimately save  money and time so you can run your business as efficiently as possible. Choose Car Dealer 5, we won’t let you down.

* All information in this post was supplied by previous customers of the above media companies or is posted on the media company website.

Autotrader Feed Stock Rotator Module

Car Dealer 5 can now offer a rotational feed module when sending your adverts to Autotrader’s Dealer Portal. This means you can set  parameters such as:

Your contracted amount of vehicles

How often you want to rotate stock (12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours etc)

Which vehicles you want to exclude from the feed

Which vehicles you want permanently in the feed.

This will ensure your adverts get the exposure you require over at Autotrader with no extra input from yourself saving you time.

This option is only available on our Elite platform.

Torque Style

Torque Style by Car Dealer 5

Torque Style by Car Dealer 5

Introducing a brand new theme to the Car Dealer 5 collection – Torque Style..

Torque Style boasts not only a sleek design which can be tweaked on-the-fly, but solid navigation, a great looking stockist page with various options and an even more impressive stock detail page.

This website works straight out of the box and is highly configurable – setup time can be complete minutes with logo and stock slider/hero implementation. The Car Dealer 5 Search Engine Optimisation module is included as standard to all new Elite packages with friendly URLs and text-rich information on each car manufacturer which great helps your search engine position.

Colours can be changed in seconds and finance integration with Ivendi, Codeweavers and Evolution Funding can be activated also at the flick of a switch.

At only £1050 + VAT per year or our new monthly payment option for £100 + VAT per month, any Car Dealer 5 Elite package is affordable.

Black Widow Theme

Now available to our customers is the all-new theme “Black Widow”

This stunning new car dealer website design is completely different to what we usually offer and brings us inline with our more expensive competitors.

Costing £1050 + VAT per year this website is comparable to spending less than £90 + VAT per month – Can your current media provider supply the same?

Car Dealer 5’s New Themes – WordPress Alternative

Car Dealer 5 have now started to release the brand new in-house designs created over the last six months. All the live car dealer website designs have now been hand coded and are available to see on our homepage. Give them a click to see a live dealer using the theme.

With over 20 new designs, Car Dealer 5 have car dealer website themes to suit any dealer and the most expensive is a country mile cheaper than the competitions offerings. These themes are a fantastic alternative to a WordPress theme whilst looking the part and functioning easily being powered by the Car Dealer 5 system. Using a Car Dealer 5 theme not only speeds up data entry by the use of VRM, but allows you to send your stock to all of the major 3rd party advertisers automatically and even several free sites that expose your stock for you. A WordPress driven website cannot do this.

All the Car Dealer 5 themes can be customised with many options including full finance integration built in, displaying or hiding certain options, colours can be changed on the fly to suit your branding and all banner and slider images are available from our stock image selection – predefined perfectly for the theme you are using.. In short, you can’t go wrong and your car dealer website is not only going to look professional but it will be polished, , SEO friendly, GDPR compliant, fast and effective for your customers navigate and get in touch.

To see how Car Dealer 5 can show off your business and save you money, give us a call today on 01902 20 3333 and David will talk you through everything.

Are you GDPR ready?

As you may well know, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is on its way and you need to be prepared.

To keep it simple, its all about your customers and potential customers giving you consent to store their details and contact them about future marketing. What this means for your website is that you need to be clear about your privacy statement and how you will not only store your customers data, but how you will use it and when you will destroy / remove it and how you can change or remove it at the customers request.

You are considered to be the Data Controller. Car Dealer 5 Ltd is the Data Processor and your customers are the Data Subjects..

First of all you need to give your Data Subjects a method to give you (the Data Controller) consent. Car Dealer 5 can take care of that for you by adding the necessary tick boxes to secure online forms, standard privacy statements and the ability to store this consent for you for future reference. You will be able to see who the customer is, what date and time they gave you consent, where they gave you consent from and even the IP address / browser they used when they did it. This will be available to you while you are a customer of Car Dealer 5 Ltd.

May 25th is the date you need to be ready and all of our brand new websites will be GDPR ready to show your willingness to conform to this new regulation.

Is your current website GDPR ready? Are you?

New Image Upload System

Car Dealer 5 how now released a brand new image upload system. Those of you with a slower connection can now be rest assured that your images will upload properly no matter how many you send at one time.

The system is fully responsive and will allow you to drag and drop images into the image area as well as choose your files and upload them in the order you choose.

It’s been a long time coming but will improve the overall experience of administrating your stock with your Car Dealer 5 account.

Motonovo Finance

Car Dealer 5 work with companies like Codewevers, Ivendi, Evolution Funding and Black Horse Finance to supply finance figures direct onto your car dealer website using finance widgets. One of the companies that supply the finance figures for the vehicles is Motonovo Finance.

Take Ivendi.com for example – a cutting-edge company who are able to be the middleman between Motonovo Finance and your website. Using complex data calls on the fly, the finance figures are automatically created and displayed on your website in the correct format using special widgets which can include your financial disclosure information too (a strict regulation of the FCA) giving your customers not only confidence in your website and service, but an informed choice of how much each vehicle will cost per month wether it be PCP, HP or LP etc. The variables and terms you agree with your finance company are set at Ivendi which makes sure the correct figures and finance options are presented each and every time for all vehicles.

The customer is usually able to change the payment term and the deposit amount in order to adjust the monthly repayment figure to suit their own personal budget.

Car Dealer 5 can also offer slick finance tools that enable the user to change the term and amount graphically hence swiftly and easily giving them a positive and slick experience.

Motonovo are one of leading names in the auto finance industry and have representatives in all areas of the country. Should you require a visit from an account manager you can find one in your local area here

Elite Packages

Car Dealer 5 now offer Elite packages. Each Elite website is fully responsive and is eligible for any finance integration solution from Ivendi, Codeweavers or Evolution Finance. We will fully integrate your solution to your website and apply the correct rates against your stock so your customers are in the know immediately regarding monthly options for each vehicle.

The Elite package also has many features included which are available as optional extras for the packages at lower budgets. Check out these free features below and see there respective costs should you choose them if you aren’t on the Elite platform.

FREE VRM Activation worth £50 + VAT
120 FREE VRM Credits

Finance integration to Ivendi, Codeweavers and Evolution Funding
Search Engine Optimisation Module built-in*
Search by budget  * Only available to Elite
Image straps * Only available to Elite
Image overlay worth £120 + VAT
Facebook Timeline worth £60 + VAT
Facebook Showroom worth £120 + VAT
Submenus * Only available to Elite
Much much more..

Your partner logos are all added to the website for you including FCA statements, Company details and customer payment options.

Our Elite package has the functionality of our competitors, at a fraction of the cost. Our closest competitor charges a full £910 + VAT per year more for their basic version and £1350 + VAT per year more for their enhanced version.

At £1050 + VAT per year, Car Dealer 5 challenge you to find better value..

OR pay using our monthly Direct Debit plan for £100 + VAT per month * (new Nov 2018)