DriverSide is on the Side of Car Owners
For years, consumers have had online resources available to help with buying and selling cars, but not until DriverSide has there been a resource dedicated to helping consumers with owning cars.In fact, even the decisions around buying and selling cars are very different today. Consumers want to be able to track the depreciation curves on their cars and receive alerts about when to start looking for a new car or truck.
At DriverSide, we recognize that during today’s tough economic times, consumers are looking for help in bringing down the total cost of ownership and making the experience of owning a car easier. We save our users money by stripping out traditional fees like those associated with listing cars for sale or asking a professional mechanic for advice. We help consumers avoid overpaying for servicing their cars and provide resources and tools for reducing the depreciation of their vehicles.
As a result, our traffic is growing strongly and we are now the #1 resource for anyone who owns a car. We build trust and confidence by engendering a dialog between car owners, and those who want to talk to them.
DriverSide?
The average consumer spends three months researching the right car to buy…… and five to seven years owning it.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were an online resource that didn’t limit their help to buying and selling cars?
DriverSide is here to help.
Why DriverSide?
Let’s face it, owning a car is harder than it should be.Whether you love cars or not, you have a relationship with your car.
We help with that relationship.
… and when it’s time for that relationship to end, we’re pretty sure folks will want to buy and sell through us too.
DriverSide Provides Value for Consumers
- Convenience: Not only finding the right car, but finding the right mechanic to maintain it, budgeting right amount to spend on upkeep, and choosing the right accessories to personalize it
- Safety: Having the peace of mind that comes from knowing if and when there are safety recalls or maintenance issues that could be putting you or your loved ones at risk and being able to get those resolved right away.
- Awareness: Always being prepared for whatever the road of life brings, whether that’s a traffic ticket, parking ticket, or simply picking the right hands-free headset.
- Financial Responsibility: Whether your leasing or making payments, we can help decide when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, when to walk away, and when to run.
DriverSide Provides Value for Automotive Partners
- Talking to Owners: We help OEMs understand their buyers’ wants, needs, expectations and experiences at a deeper level because we maintain a longer and more involved relationship with vehicle owners.
- Reaching Out at All Levels: We exist across both macro and micro markets, and can consistently analyze trends and target messages at national, regional, and local levels.
- Keeping the Relationship Going: When it comes to knowing when to target “in market” consumers, wouldn’t it be helpful to know when they plan to be in market? Only the DriverSide perspective delivers on this important premise.
DriverSide Provides Value for Business
- Cracking the Code: In more than ten years, there has yet to be a single, dominant player that has risen to lead the automotive space. Could that be because there are missing pieces that have yet to be set in place?
- Why Leave it On the Table? The average consumer doesn’t just buy a car; they buy the products and services that go into owning a car. In many cases, both as measured in terms of both time and money, these far exceed the initial investment in acquiring the car itself.
Consumers use the Web for all stages of car ownership
- Researching New Cars
- 70% of all car buyers use the Internet during their purchase process (eMarketer, 2006)
- Internet is the most important source of information for 35% of first-time auto buyers between 18-30 years old (R.L. Polk, 2007)
- Locating Used Cars
- 23% of used vehicle buyers used an Internet service to find the vehicle (2007)
- 2007 marks first year where Internet is most used source to locate cars to buy; $80B in transaction value
- Doing Service and Repairs
- 75% of consumers researching parts and services use the Web more today than two years ago (Compete/Google, 2007)
- 92% of purchase decisions by consumers researching service information online influenced by the web (Compete/Google, 2007)
- Sharing Knowledge
- 72% used-car automotive users use user generated content either pre or post purchase (JD Power, 2007)
The DriverSide Difference
Which online site knows:- All the vehicles in a user’s household?
- Comprehensive user demographics? (Coming Soon)
- How these vehicles are used and how they are maintained?
- When a user is likely to be in-market for a new car or truck?
- What they will be trading in and the current market value of their trade?
Rather than limiting ourselves to helping people buy and sell cars, DriverSide offers a true web 2.0 environment rich in car ownership advice, services, and analytics that empowers car owners to make important decisions about when to buy and sell, where to service, and how much to pay for parts and services.
There is a mini “portal” for every make and model and a “My Garage” where users can keep track of their cars’ service histories, current value, and have their questions answered by DriverSide make/model experts. One could say, it’s like Quicken for your car. The “My Garage” feature also allows users to type in information on the cars they own, have owned, or would want to own.
Because DriverSide does not limit our reach to in-market car owners, we are able to develop robust ownership profiles on our users that tell us what cars they have in their household, where and how these are maintained, whether the cars are leased or owned, and how they are used in real-world situations. Whereas other sites buy traffic over and over – we don’t lose track of our users. By maintaining a relationship wither our users, we deliver more accurate and detailed information and have unique insights into when our users will be in-market, as well as what other vehicles are in their households.
Our users are more willing to share information about their vehicles and themselves because DriverSide offers compelling recommendations tailored to fit their needs. Our advertisers benefit because we are able to leverage this information to recommend vehicles, products, and services to our users based on how our users actually interact with the vehicles in their household.
The Holy Grail for vehicle manufacturers has been in knowing when a consumer is considered in-market for a new car or truck. The other sites can tell you that a person has self-designated themselves as in-market because they are reading reviews and doing research on various new makes and models. We feel we have better information based on the relationships we already have with consumers.