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CarWoo is shutting down

carwoo.com

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Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#81

Post by ryanhuff »

IgorPartola wrote: post #62
prostoalex wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like TrueCar and Costco don't exist.

Well, first, TrueCar doesn't exist: http://www.truecar.com/ . Second, what does Costco do for you in terms of getting a better price? In either case I don't believe they deal with pre-owned cars, which is really the best bang for your buck IMHO. But yes, my main point is that we should not just submit to the will of the car dealers and take their "best price everz" as gospel. Things like CarWoo and TrueCar need to ex…

Costco (supposedly) has pre-negotiated, no haggle pricing. I used them in the past, and the experience was great (except for the trade-in). Also, there are still car brokers that you can hire to do your bidding.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#82

Post by matthewbadeau »

tptacek wrote: post #77
vinhboy wrote: post #24

The TrueCar homepage ( http://www.truecar.com/ ) looks like one of those generic 404/squatter page.

I'm super confused by this (you're one of a few people to say it), because that page doesn't look spammy to me at all. A little corporate, maybe. The list of car links on the front page is workable as a UX.

I think it's just the basic design. Here are a few examples using motherboard as a root word:

http://mother.com/

http://mother.net/

http://motherboard.com/

http://www.motherboards.com/

I think it has to do with a single color header, half the page with plain blue links and the other half with a stock-looking photo.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#83

Post by rblatz »

That's unfortunate, car sales are really in need of disruption, and it sucks to see a talented motivated group like that go under.

If any of the people from Carwoo are interested in a developer job in the online car sales field (used not new), send me a message. Especially if you are a developer, we are always hiring talented developers.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#84

Post by IgorPartola »

ryanhuff wrote: post #81
IgorPartola wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, first, TrueCar doesn't exist: http://www.truecar.com/ . Second, what does Costco do for you in terms of getting a better price? In either case I don't believe they deal with pre-owned cars, which is really the best bang for your buck IMHO. But yes, my main point is that we should not just submit to the will of the car dealers and take their "best price everz" as gospel. Things like CarWoo and TrueCar need to ex…

Costco (supposedly) has pre-negotiated, no haggle pricing. I used them in the past, and the experience was great (except for the trade-in). Also, there are still car brokers that you can hire to do your bidding.

Car brokers you can hire? This is interesting. Thanks!

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#86

Post by gregpilling »

ovulator wrote: post #70
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a fond memory of going with my roommate when he was buying a new car. He had a decent amount to give as a down payment. Armed with the knowledge of how much the dealer pays, he basically walked in, said he'd buy a certain car for a certain amount and not more and handed them his down payment check. The salesman took the offer to his manager. He returned with a counter offer. My roommate didn't budge. After thr…

"Armed with the knowledge of how much the dealer pays" That is key, most of us don't have that.

Knowing the dealer invoice price does not tell you how much the dealer makes on the car. Most of the dealers that my company sells to make their money from bonuses for moving units.

More on how dealers make money is here http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/where-does-the-car-dealer-...

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#87

Post by nradov »

sokoloff wrote: post #74
adventured wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. All dealerships should be converted to car delivery and ordering centers (with one of each model for test driving). The middle man cost should be wiped out, and the business should move to an order > build > x days to deliver approach. Save buyers $3,500 on a $30,000 car, let them further and easier customize, and they will wait for delivery. Simply put, replace build car > sell car, with sell car > build car.…

I predict that in that world, the buy it today, drive it home tonight makes would capture market share. Honda already does a great job of building just one or two configs (very limited option space, other than color) and sells a lot of cars that way. In an "Amazon Prime" world, few people want to wait 21 days for their new car is my hunch.

I expect we'll see a mix of both. Dealers will continue to stock the most common configurations, and offer them at a discount. Slightly less common configurations will be stocked at manufacturer regional distribution centers available for delivery in 1 - 2 days. And really rare configurations will have to be custom ordered, with the customer paying full sticker price and waiting much longer. As long as the manufacturer has excess plant capacity in the continental USA and a lean production process it ought to be possible to do custom final assembly and shipping in My father sold new cars ~30 years ago and custom orders were actually more common back then. Many dealers and volume manufacturers actively discourage custom orders now, even when customers would be willing to pay more to get exactly what they want. I think this is because of badly aligned incentives and will probably change.

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#88

Post by tptacek »

matthewbadeau wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm super confused by this (you're one of a few people to say it), because that page doesn't look spammy to me at all. A little corporate, maybe. The list of car links on the front page is workable as a UX.

I think it's just the basic design. Here are a few examples using motherboard as a root word: http://mother.com/ http://mother.net/ http://motherboard.com/ http://www.motherboards.com/ I think it has to do with a single color header, half the page with plain blue links and the other half with a stock-looking photo.

Those pages all do look super spammy to me. The Truecar one doesn't, at all. Weird!

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#89

Post by GarrettBeck »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #76
ovulator wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Armed with the knowledge of how much the dealer pays" That is key, most of us don't have that.

I don't have a URL to give you but I know several sites have this info available. It is not a secret. You just need to locate it. So most people could have it.

http://www.fool.com/car/car08.htm

Re: CarWoo is shutting down

#90

Post by jayzee »

tommy_mcclung wrote: post #65
Killah911 wrote: post #33

Would really like to find out why they're shutting down. I ran a virtual car dealership for a while and then started a similar site to carwoo, before carwoo. It was absolutely crazy. Six months into it, both my cofounder and I decided it was best to shut it down (amid concerns that his employer might just end up getting all or a significant chunk of our work). The auto industry is a very weird one. Entrenched in thei…

I'm going to work on writing this up. Lots of reasons and it deserves a detailed post-mortem.

I was a big fan of CarWoo! I got my mazda3 at a great price thanks to you guys. Best of luck man!
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