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SIMI Addresses Market Failings? New Used Car Website – beepbeep.ie

I noticed in the past few days that the SIMI have published a beta version of their new used car website at www.beepbeep.ie. The tagline reads 'The Used Car Website You Can Trust' and the overall message throughout the site is one of 'Quality Assured Used Cars' only.

beepbeep.ie-banner
Posted by Shane Teskey on 28 December 2009 in Used Cars

Expanding Niche

The number of websites offering sellers (private and dealer) advertising services is growing continually. Only last week BuyAndSell.ie launched a new cars portal, and sites like donedeal.ie and gumtree.ie are chock full of advertisements, and the classified ads segment seems to be expanding daily with new entrants like BenDunne.com ready to slash prices to grab market share. So will beepbeep.ie be able to survive in such a competitive space?

Industry frustrated with ‘rogue sellers’

Reading through the site I found this quotation from the warranty information page interesting:

SIMI Quote

SIMI Quote

Here’s the plain text extract of (my) highlighted text in that image:

As an industry, we have become increasingly frustrated (as we know you have) with the lack of a quality assured used car website for Ireland[...] No more wondering what consumer protection you have as you pick your way though the private and rogue sellers that can appear on other sites.

I’m not sure that it’s fair to put private sellers in the same bracket as ‘rogue sellers’. Granted, when looking for a used car you have very little protection under the law when buying privately but that’s not to say (if you follow certain guidelines) you can’t pick up a great car at a great price.

Increasingly Sophisticated Buyers Armed with Sophisticated Tools

Buyers are much more experienced these days with a growing number insisting on a full Motorcheck report before committing to a purchase. The number of people taking advantage of our full technical inspection continues to grow, and our experience tells us the vast majority of private sellers are completely legitimate.

While it’s great to see the industry doing more to protect the consumer I can’t help but wonder will the new site have what it takes to make an impact with Irish buyers?

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9 comments so far

Reply
Ray Hall
December 28, 2009 at 5:14 pm #

I have looked through this site and yes it is visually very well constructed and quite functional.

Its problem is going to be how will anybody find it? Google ads will work for a while but cost a fortune. TV advertising will work only as long as the advert is on the TV, the same is true of Radio. It’s not available to the public to advertise on. With the number of Car websites available at a much lower cost to the Dealer, will this be a viable alternative to Carzone ( I don’t think so)? Will it be as well optimized as Cars Ireland and Cars for sale Ireland ( not likely )? Will the content in it be found in Google searches ( definitely not )?

Overall, in my opinion it will do little other than take more cash from the hard pushed Car Dealers and under perform just as their other previous attempts failed to make an impact.
However I wish them all the best.

Reply
Shane Teskey
December 28, 2009 at 5:55 pm #

Thanks for the comment Ray. As you point out visibility to search engines is important and requires significant expertise and patience.

Standard advertising will probably prevail here in the sort term. I expect that you will see ‘beepbeep.ie’ posters in SIMI members showrooms and the usual promotional links from their websites. It will be interesting to see if the site begins to feature for ‘used cars’ on http://bit.ly/7RtBND (not currently on the first 10 pages).

Reply
Ray Hall
December 29, 2009 at 4:40 am #

Hi Shane, Standard advertising will work in the short term, but a site needs time to grow. I know its not finished but it has validation error problems on every page and that certainly wont help it to grow.

Please read the BEEP BEEP DIFFERENCE
QUOTE : “Each and every vehicle on this website is guaranteed to come from an Irish dealer who is a member of the SIMI (Society of Irish Motor Industry). No more wondering what consumer protection you have as you pick your way though the private and rogue sellers that can appear on other sites”

Does this mean all the other dealers in the country are Rouge dealers?

Reply
Suzanne Sheridan
January 8, 2010 at 5:52 pm #

While there are hundreds of used car websites on the market, www.beepbeep.ie is the only website in Ireland that attaches a vehicle history check and warranty information against every single car advertised. In order to be a member of SIMI, high standards must be met therefore, only those who adhere to these strict standards and have signed up to the SIMI’s Code of Ethics will be allowed to advertise on the site. So, if a customer does have any issue with any member garage, the SIMI offers a free complaints service.

Reply
Shane Teskey
January 10, 2010 at 11:52 am #

Hi Suzanne, Thanks for your contribution.
Congratulations on getting the site up and running. Anything that helps the consumer in buying a used car has to be a good thing!

I’ve been through a number of the listings on site but can’t seem to find where the vehicle history check is attached. Could you point me in the right direction?

Did you know that www.fordselect.ie has been providing car history checks for all their vehicles for over nine months now?

Reply
John
January 26, 2010 at 4:41 pm #

I was interested to read Suzanne’s blog that in order for dealers to be a member of SIMI they must adhere to strict and high standards. I searched for a dealer in Dublin and the very first one advertised on their site sounded familiar – sure enough when I googled them it transpires that they have been caught selling clocked cars on more than one occasion in the past including one quite recently which was the subject of an RTE documentary.

If that garage is still a member of SIMI does that mean they condone clocking and if so are all their members allowed to carry on this practice?

It sure does put doubt in my mind about beepbeep.ie and it’s members and their so called high standards.

Shane Teskey
January 28, 2010 at 12:43 am #

Thanks for the comment John.

While I don’t know what action the SIMI is able to take when an accusation of car clocking is made against one of their members, I do know that they take the offence very seriously.

As a case in point, Motorcheck and SIMI are currently developing a link whereby our respective mileage databases could be shared in an effort to stamp out this illicit practice.

Reply
alan callery
January 17, 2010 at 11:43 pm #

i have to agree with Ray the new beepbeep website is pretty poor. does anyone know how much the dealers have to pay to be on it?

Reply
Shane Teskey
January 28, 2010 at 1:27 am #

Hi Alan,

I haven’t come across any definitive pricing. It’ll probably be around the 150 euro a month mark I’d imagine. Worth a punt?

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