Contextual Inquiry and Interaction Diagramming
Over several months we've been documenting and fixing issues with the Hemmings.com website and identifying our priorities for future development. A lot of questions and ideas have focused on leveraging editorial content to engage customers and grow audience. Throughout this process, however, the relative weaknesses our core classifieds system were continually evident and pressing. Our online classifieds system is the most important digital asset Hemmings has and is arguably the cornerstone of future business. For these reasons we decided to do a comprehensive analysis and revision of this system before addressing any other goals of the digital business.
The first step in our research process was to conduct contextual ethnographic interviews with the people who interact with the system. We created this primary research to try and understand the actual interactions at Hemmings.com before we make any modifications or improvements. It's recognized that our previous attempt to revise this system suffered from a lack of this type of understanding. The insights generated by these interviews are the foundation of our design process.
Our interviews were 1-3 hours long and covered Hemmings staff, a classic car dealer, and a usability test subject. The diagram below is a visual representation of the information derived from these interviews. It's not meant to be comprehensive, it's meant to illustrate the interplay between various participants in the system. The interactions marked with red symbols are problems that should be addressed.
Begin Transcript
885 line itemsJump to Segment:
Lynn: Classifieds Coordinator
Collins: Dealer Coordinator
David: Usability Test Autotraderclassics.com (Insights Only)
David: User Usability Post-Interview (Part I & II)
Mike: Dealer Interview
1: Lynn: Classifieds Coordinator Top
1-5 - "I need to read it back to you to make sure I've got this right. We're putting this under the truck and commercial vehicle section and it will read - 78 International Scout, 78,000 original miles, turbo diesel, 4x4, 4sp, new tires, no rust, extra parts, $5,000 obo and your phone number reads [ phone ] and we do put the state on there for free so they know where they are calling. So with a subscriber rate that's $11".
1-6 - "Do you want to partake in our pay for 2 months and get a 3rd month free or just run it a month?"
1-7 - "Is that what you would like to do? OK, I can do that. That will be a total of $22, saving $11 for that 3 months. Any questions? All right, have a great weekend. Mmm, hmmm. Bye-bye."
1-9 - [ Lynn types away on the classifieds system, filling out stuff she skipped over during phone call ]
1-10 - We don't want to take up their time - I could say 'wait a minute, let me do this' but I like it to be quick and efficient so they feel good.
1-11 - Lynn explains the call queue system. When a call comes in it gets dispatched to 1 of 6 an available salespersons. If nobody is available the call goes to message but that is unusual. You can either hang on and wait for the next available or leave a message and someone will call you back.
1-13 - Not very often. Lots of times, we call them a dropped call, someone doesn't want to wait or leave a message so they call us back.
1-15 - I'm filling in the hemmings fields here, year, make, model, category. These are the most important because that's how it's set up in the vehicle section of the magazine.
1-16 - An Earlier car, like a 1979, would appear before this one in the magazine, that's how they are laid out.
1-17 - Of course, anything that goes in our publication will go up on our website and run free. And its based on our input, where we put it, in this case it is based on make, year model. Parts are somewhat different,
1-19 - He goes for the 2 for 3 special. People like this deal, they really love it. Free is good. They rend to advertise more when we run this deal.
1-20 - So I'm making payment, it gives me a little spot - once I click the discount, based on 3 months, it will show me the total. I have his credit card on file, he told me on the phone that he recently placed some ads the other day - if he hadn't for some time I would verify it.
1-22 - He would receive this Mastercard statement at this address. If it was typed wrong it would kick it out. There is lots of safety in the system.
1-29 - What we do is we have a daily file - we always do the day before, from 7pm one day to 7pm the next
1-30 - [ lynn pulls up an admin page on the site where she can specify dates, start and end for the file ]
1-32 - [ Lynn shows me how she throws this file into excel to look for obvious bad problems. She fixes anything that does not look right. ]
1-33 - There is a dollar amount on the spreadsheet that she records and sends to the accounting department for auditing purposes
1-35 - We set up name and address, etc. We put them in the correct category. We set it up with a style for the magazine if it's in print - if it's online only we let it go through. I believe someone checks those before they go live to make sure they are on the up & up.
1-38 - Once I import these into our current system it gives me the number of the ad, that's how I would get the image for the photo. Sometimes they forget it so we have to send them an email to get them to send it to use. I save the pictures into a file for the girl who will put the ad together to use.
1-43 - Spelling is one thing, we've almost gotten to the point where we know what they mean. What I'll do is set mine up here (webAds) rather than the live screen.
1-46 - He's gone over our wordcount. They're only aloud 35 words but sometimes they just copy and paste it in there and the system lets them. It bypasses the counter on the form. So i have to email him to downsize.
1-47 - I need to email him to ask him if we should include his phone number. A lot of people assume we will include it, but I can't guess their intentions.
1-48 - People will often include little notes- like to make sure we put it under mustang parts. They selected it anyway but its good that the note is there.
1-49 - They put several prices in there, the price for the item parts for sale. I have to figure out what is what, and if I can't I have to email them and get them to clarify it. People sell multiple parts and put one of the items prices in the price field- it can be deceiving.
1-50 - If someone looked at that they would assume that all of that is one price. Usually if there's more than one item we don't put a price in the price field.
1-52 - You never assume because some of the things as they come across, you have to take them individually you know.
1-53 - [Steve] how can the online side be improved so it makes this process less painful? For instance we could give an error if they've pasted too many words in that field.
1-54 - For us? I think they gte confused and that's one of the - certainly on photo ads because if they run over we have to downsize their photo.
1-55 - Another thing is when you're placing the ad, I think it's so busy they don't tend to read everything. They're thinking about getting that text in there and we say these drop down values [year make model] will go into the ad but they put them in there anyways. So then it shows up in the text twice. Not a huge deal but it happens a lot.
1-56 - The most important part is the contact information. People think they can only put one item in there because it's something you fill down below with the instructions. Often times, 8 of 10 that come through without the phone number but they want it in there and we just don't know so we have to contact them to see if that's what they want. Maybe they assume its going to pop in but we can't guess. We email for phone numbers a lot.
1-57 - We express it and once they learn once they know what to do. You know what might be nice is saying "would you like phone number(s)" and another box that says "do you want your email shown" and they could say "yeah, that's what I want".
1-58 - If they for example, if they do a lot of repetitious spaces trying to format something, those spaces count as words. So they may short themselves quite a bit. If I see something really bad like that I try to correct in some way, and be fair.
1-59 - They're happy because they talk to people here which is a big, big deal. Boy, they love that.
1-60 - It's funny when people call - people expect that I will be an answering service. They are really surprised that real people answer the phone. I really enjoy it and I love talking on the phone. I can feel out other people and I know right off the bat are they just all-business, are they this, are they that, so, you know. End result is that they're happy with what they got and they want to do it again.
1-61 - [Steve] Anything else with the web placement process? Looks like you go through and tidy everything up.
1-62 - You have your choice, can take it from here [WebImport] and import it into your greenscreen or you can fix it here. What's nice is if I need to go and take an ad, then I can go back to cleaning my ads up in between calls - if you bring them all in without tidying them all up and get a call you'll end up losing everything. I like to fix them here so that I then have minimal amount of work to do in the greenscreen system.
1-63 - We set up the hemmings sort and the web information. There are also coversheets you need to set up for any photo ad. Which we set up right here [points at screen]
1-65 - Yeah, it does. I don't know why but I think when they do a combo also, they're allowed 3 for the online for the basic rate, I think that they sometimes they may have the tendency to skip the first one.
1-66 - [Steve] We could prevent them from going forward unless they supply the photo .... but then we're scared we would lose the ad because they are frustrated with the photo process.
1-67 - Right. A lot of them say our site is confusing but some say it isn't. I guess it's just a tossup. I mean I can do it, but I'm used to it. Maybe I'd be lost myself. We always encourage them if you don't want to upload them there is a skip button. Feel free you are going to get an automated email confirming that you just placed the ad, I give them my email, you know - once you get yours, email me your photos, I'll put them in your online ad and get them ready for printing. That way they don't have to worry or scratch their head about the photos - because they are always really concerned about that.
1-68 - [Steve] You only interact with the website to go download those files. And you work in here [Filemaker Classifieds system].
1-69 - Every once in a while I'll get someone who says "I don't have a computer but I want it online" and I'll go do it on the site for them.
1-72 - "yep, you got 3 there? OK, hit that upload button and it may take a few minutes but they will all go up. When that does go live they will be there for you. Not a problem - otherwise you know how to get a hold of us. Alright, Alex. You're welcome, bye bye."
1-73 - I found his phone number, and did a find so we pulled his archive and he ran an online ad, of course we can't look up an online ad so we had to have him re-place the add. That's the convenience, he had the text and his old confirmation. He was worried about the photos but I told him if he was having any trouble to skip the images and once you submit it , you'll get an email, email them back to us and we'll help them get them in.
1-74 - [ We discuss troubles people have with images ] You know if they have a problem we can put them up. We don't mind. I try to tell them "browse, put it up, do the second and third one". It seems like maybe they try to upload the first one and that screws them up.
1-75 - We have the large ads that come through the web, they're big and they're actually processed by another group of people because they are multi-photo. We just go in there and set things up based on how many photos. Some people have just one. We set this up for graphics. It's all proofed, I just need to do this stage.
1-77 - It is - I do a lot of stuff at once, waiting for people to email me back phone numbers, making sure ads are all fixed. [ Lynn goes through ad after ad where she needs to email the user to ask about their phone number preference ]
1-79 - Yeah, it is. 9 out of 10 calls they will give us a phone number to put in. It's just items. We do a lot of work
1-81 - it doesn't say to put the contact information in, but the text with the drop downs up top make it seem like that happens automatically. Maybe they get out of sorts.
1-82 - Also I know that the billing information and credit card info would be great all on one page instead of the multistep. Often people don't understand when they put billing information, they may be placing it for someone and they get confused. I think their focus would be there and we wouldn't get as many mistakes.
1-83 - I've been placing a combo ad for a gentleman who doesn't have email for about 2 years now. But there is one spot where I always screw up on the billing information - you put your first and second name in one row, but I put my first name and last name and sometimes it catches me.
1-85 - When people call in at their wit's end that's where I step in and do it for them. When I hear that they spent 2 hours trying to put their ads that guy is upset. I do it, but I don't know if that's better but we do it.
1-86 - [ I talk about how we need the call people to send me an email whenever they notice people having a problem with the site. Start a diary process ]
1-87 - That's the thing, steve - cars are complicated. They have makes and models - you can't say - if I was on the other end I would have problems too. Cars aren't cut and dried and sometimes these ads are complicated. We just want to make sure things are right for people.
2: Collins: Dealer Coordinator Top
2-1 - Lets start from the very beginning as far as - there are two processes that we use to bring dealers onboard to the website. We encourage current print advertisers to support their print advertising with the website - it's not just a dealer, we don't require any dealer licensing or verification - it can be someone, a bulk-customer who wants to sell multiple cars for sale - we have pricing in the magazine for those folks that is unpublished on our rate card and we then have encouraged them to support that with the website.
2-2 - So new potential customers come from print, they come from outbound calling to lists, and they come inbound through the transom.
2-5 - [Steve] So you are the single point of contact between these dealers and the website and the magazine?
2-6 - Correct. Particularly everything that happens in these pages which we call our dealer showroom. People who have private collections can run in here too. These were never in Hemmings before the current publisher issued special rates for multiple cars. See this ad has 20 cars on a page, which could cost $70 per car but we have issued specific display rates for these pages where multiple cars can go on sale.
2-7 - Also, too they can run our standard ads - these are all the same price for normal advertisers and dealers - they pay the same rate. So the dealer showroom has its own set of rates for people with dealer status.
2-9 - There is a distinction between the print reader and the online reader. The print reader tends to be more of a collector., more astute, looking at (and this is a broad generalization) prefers to have people looking in the magazine. Calls the dealers get from the print readers tend to be investment questions and an educated car consumer. People on the website really, IMO, are based on eye-appeal and they simply want to satisfy a yearning for a particular car but they are not necessarily looking for a true investment.
2-10 - It can certainly lean that way - we have a lot of dealers who shop themselves in both the book and the website for cars to sell. Hemmings serves such an audience of high end investment dealers as well as Joe Blow who wants to find something fun to drive for the summer,
2-11 - These pages also allow dealers to brand their business - here is one promoting their opening. These are all cars available to immediate purchase to consumers. A lot of dealers want to run ads with the rest of the cars in the back - I want to target the particular corvette buyer. So they run in the back instead of up-front (In the dealer section)
2-12 - A lot of our customers tell us they love looking through these pages because I feel like I am at a swap meet. I'm walking through looking at all kinds of stuff - browsing and shopping through here. The dealer section is fun for people to look at many kinds of car, but more targeted browsing happens in the back.
2-13 - The car dealer business is dependent on seasonality - in this particular market people are advertising to sell cars. They are really targeting to sell a car and not to advertise that they have a great big shiny showroom - so these (up-front) pages have diminished somewhat in the past 2 years.
2-14 - Now in addition to this print, these customers are on our website where they can have multiple pictures of all of our inventory. This dealer (Volo) has these dealer ads just for branding purposes. All of their cars are on our website with multiple photos. The type of cars they carry and some of their specialty cars are here in print but their main thrust is through the website where they have every single car. So they support eachother as far as that's concerned.
2-15 - These dealer pages are now searchable by year/make/model, so they now come up on our website as a pdf. These ads go into the general database and help establish credibility for the dealer.
2-16 - We have a liaison between the dealer and the customer, Mary Brott. A customer can call in and say that he feels a car has been misrepresented and that advertiser and say that he feels that it was misrepresented. Hemmings can try to bring the two parties together to an amiable agreement. If one or the other does not respond we can't help that issue but we can deny advertising rights. Very few of my dealers have any problems.
2-18 - In the car arena, IMO, we have people who have advertised for us for 10 or 15 years and people know them. They do the best to represent themselves and align themselves with us "You can see my ad in hemmings" It really lends a lot of credibility to customers.
2-19 - Our online listings are highly sensitive to correctness for make and model. When they add their models the list - we review with editorial to add models but we don't allow anyone to go in and type in miscellaneously a model. And actually our system kicks it out - we are a standalone company that does that.
2-20 - It's been a good thing and a bad thing in a lot of ways. People consider our upload process to be cumbersome but it's also very exacting. It's an education. People realize when they have it wrong. Convertible is not a model, it's a body style. People appreciated it but it also can be hard.
2-21 - The list goes on and on, the dropdown choice for models goes on and on and that's something people have commented on. even if someone advertises something one time and we don't have a header in the book it gets added.
2-22 - In my opinion we are not a strict car-for-sale site, we are a destination and that's what I tell people when I get comparisons to other sites. Here's the difference between us and other sites.
2-24 - Especially when I do outbound calling - and I ask them if they have ongoing or multiple cars for sale in which case I encourage them to come to print. A lot of people looking to get into business they have their own website - from there I begin to tell them what the hemmings site can bring to their business - phone calls, emails, indexing, rankings, that sort of thing. Because we are reasonable in price, and the benefits of being on our site and dealer representation.
2-25 - We take our 600k visitors per month and the potential is there for them to go right to their site. And the key for me is to talk to them about what they are selling. The type of cars they are selling. Then I can talk to them about what venue fits better for them. If they gave 10 older mercedes - hemmings and the book. Dealers that call here - they're still concerned with pricing. There are a tremendous amount of free sites out there
2-26 [ Discusses autotraderclassics content/classifieds deal - says her customers have not mentioned it. She steers conversations toward quality, not quality ]
2-27 - I ask them "who is your target customer?". A lot of questions, and then I can position them with the right type of advertisement. The customer that I work with is a salesman, also. For the most part I tell them what I know is moving - I talk to people all over the country and get a sense for what is going on.
2-28 - [ re: other sites ] Most of the time I do hear criticisms about those businesses. I have personal relationships with the dealers via email and calls at least every 3 months. They do not feel like they have this relationship with reps from other businesses. "It's great to know you are there" - Hemmings is based on this. That solidifies a lot of confidence.
2-29 - [Steve] Hemmings is real people in Vermont. Hemmings has credibility because they are picky and they care about the hobby.
2-31 - A few things about our correctness, our accuracy and response to issues, I hear a lot of that. Unfortunately what I hear about our website they don't like, we can go into.
2-32 - The flip of the coin - our website is cumbersome to load. Dealers don't understand why we don't take a streamed feed like other sites. Our system is very picky, for instance we kick out a Chevrolet Escalade - we don't let errors in.
2-33 - We charge a $50 service fee if we upload it for them. Dealers today, time is their greatest commodity. The fee is worth it for them
2-36 - We can allow them to add a new listing via csv but when they do photos - When you get to photos those are browsed from desktop one at a time. One customer said - "I have got carpal tunnel from uploading my cars to your websites." That is the #1 biggest problem for our dealers, that would make the process so easy for everyone.
2-38 - Mike [Dealer] wasn't getting the response he wanted from print. So we sold him on the online. He has what we call a datacaster that manages his website - we require the datacaster he uses to manage his website to fill out our file format and submit inventory for us to check and try to upload the file. He used autorevo, one I haven't heard of before - I worked with the datacaster and it came in here and there were corrections to make.
2-39 - It was too slow for him - he turned around and said "I'm going to put these things up myself". The time element of turnaround with the datacaster is what made him do that.
2-40 - That's the main implementation issues we have. We are a news business, it's our job to get their listings out there. Customers are not very sophisticated and they get very anxious about lack of bites on the cars. We track page views and emails, but if they sell the car it's really about what kind of salesman they are and how they are representing the car.
2-41 - I have people call in and ask about dealers, and we have Mary Brott who can verify things, so we can say "no complaints", a lot of people call and they don't necessarily want a reference but they want to know if we support this company. So it's a bit of a hub for the customer. I love my job because I'm not just a sales person, I care about how successful they are and give suggestions.
2-42 - [ talks about how we back up printing errors that were our fault, mispriced ad, people can call us to research and we back it - sometimes when it isn't our fault.]
2-43 - That's a lot of what this is about, credibility. If anything about the program that would launch it forward would be to fix the car loading process on the website.
2-47 - This is such, if anything, I encourage them to put pricing in the ads. For some reason, in a seller's head they believe it will prompt a phone call if they do not use a price. I am a firm believer in putting pricing in, but people feel that this will create phone calls. If you want to stand behind the cars' worth, put the price in there.
2-48 - [Steve] people from out survey pointed this out as a major issue. It's almost a show of disrespect. Is there any way we could generate data that proves or disproves the price inclusion argument. Many other sites require it for consumers adding a car.
2-51 - [ We create a plan for researching the problem further - collins will talk with her contacts ]
2-52 - The biggest issue is the cumbersome process. We might want to look into some more bundling. But the small ads are not bundled for these guys. There are > 11k cars on the site and >5k are dealers. We don't want to make them mad at us.
2-54 - It's confusing to people when cars are not available for immediate sale. Those ads promote an upcoming sale. We need to clearly mark these as auction.
2-55 - [ We discuss adding a dealer's logo to the classifieds results to quickly identify these are dealers' ads ]
2-56 - [Steve] what if we allowed ads to run until sold? How would dealers feel about this - any effect?
2-59 - I don't think the differentiation would be that noticeable - everyone is going and looking for a car. If it doesn't cost us anything extra.
2-62 - [Steve] I think a video should come with the ad. If someone wants to go through the trouble of creating and uploading a video to our site - have at it.
2-63 - Well, most of my customers tell me that video - primarily for engine noise - but when you selling a car and you walk around and a shadow falls wrong on it - worried that imperfections in the videos may cause problems.
2-64 - One guy does videos, not like commercials, but he just gets in the car and drives it. Shows him putting along, you can hear the engine - rather than go over every inch of the car he shows how much fun the car is. These are great.
2-66 - [Steve] "We noticed there are not enough pictures in your ad. Ads with at least 10 pictures are x% more likely to sell the car. Thanks, Lisa." This projects that we are real car people in Vermont who care whether or not you sell your car.
2-67 - Agrees. Even if it was just an automated reply. [ Talks about discover card's customer service ].
2-68 - [ We discuss the idea of sending advertisers monthly emails about the status of their ads. Using that opportunity to communicate with them and as the mechanism to discontinue "till sold" ads. ]
2-69 - [ Collins discusses how a warmer customer-service approach should be baked into every conversation with a customer ] "We're not just order takers." The better any of us are, the better we all are. We could use a mix of automation and scripts to develop warmer interactions.
2-70 - I used to manage events for hemmings. One thing I noticed all the time was that people would come up to our table at Carlisle or Hershey or wherever and people would say "I need to renew my membership". They didn't say "subscription". Other sites have tried to copy this membership feeling. We have community.
2-72 - We could create a membership card and send it out with subscriptions. That card could mean nothing more than we approve you as part of our community and it would mean people could call here and check on folks. [ Mary Brott keeps track of conflict ]
2-77 - [ We discuss the idea of accredited hemmings dealer package ] It could hang in you office like OSHA certificate. We do those cards already for car shows.
2-78 - That would be something that would enhance. Some of these guys are so cool, though, that they don't even need hemmings. That's some of our larger dealers, but deep down they do needs us. The bulk of people who work with us - we're very fairly priced but our site is cumbersome for novices.
2-79 - We do offer an upload service for $50 to help them with the site for people who don't have time.
2-85 - This is a print issue, he has run a Ford in the magazine - now this, in addition to his listing, this little separate ad will go up on there as a truck - he wanted it in the truck section - but if he didn't specify. He said it's a funny little ad - he's curious to know why the photo is the way it is.
2-86 - The photo aspect is off, the truck is taller than wide. It doesn't say truck clearly so it's in the car section. I'll have to investigate that for them.
2-88 - Yes, he would have a complimentary ad in the next issue. We would not do a refund on something like this. Unless his insertion order is messed up, we may give a half-credit. I have to investigate further - he's a consistent advertiser and he's run on our website for a long time. He will run again, so if we give him a comp that should be right with him.
2-89 - Do you know Jean in advertising? This is her call. I would talk with her about something like this and make a recommendation. This is relationship building, we are pretty synced up. It all depends on the individual customer.
2-90 - They have more consumers who raise a big stink over little stuff. The dealers have a better understanding of how things go on and I hear it constantly how other pubs make mistakes and we don't - they know it was an honest mistake and what we do is fair.
2-93 - I have a couple of spec ads next door right now. People who are hoping to run print in the next issue. Once the issue is closed, which is usually a 2 week period for me, I actually have a commitment to outbound calls to make. People will ask to have ads developed.
2-94 - A lot of times people want to base it on something they've seen in the magazine they like. This is usually a brand new relationship. "Do you have a format in mind, how many cars are you going to run?" etc.
2-95 - We develop a low res proof, we go back and forth with the dealer. This work is not paid, it's part of the package.
2-96 - We have some reciprocity with ads with competitors, particularly Autabuy. Sometimes customers will want to run the same ads in multiple magazines for consistency. I have a customer who is a Packard dealer who will run pdf's we design for him in other magazines, like the packard magazine. This does not happen that often, but for longterm advertisers, we sometimes do it.
2-97 - We are discussing watermarking our stuff. There have been times when we've built a spec ad and someone has taken it and run it in another pub. We are discussing creating policy around it.
2-98 - Activity is going on for print right after an issue closes. The site activity starts when someone comes to the dealer page and uses a request form to apply to be a dealer. If someone comes as a visitor to our site, there are many ways to get to dealer listings - but inevitably dealers go to the member login and get very confused.
2-99 - The dealer login and member logins are separate. We generate a dealer login when they sign up.
2-100 - [ We discuss inadequacy of current captcha system, instances where she herself has been unable to do it ]
2-101 - If you can't read this - how do you proceed? Keep guessing. "Get a new challenge". What does that mean to someone who is 60?
2-103 - We do something similar when a customer emails via a dealer page and Mary approves the emails - if they happen on the weekend then it may be 3 days later.
2-104 - It's mainly outbound calls at this point. I maybe get 1 or 2 of these per week. I don't know if part of this - the contact information is buried down here. Someone will fill this out and I will call them and tell them that I've received the request - make personal contact and ask them about their cars and their business.
2-105 - I've had people fish through our rates through this. So I call anyone who comes in this way. Most people call anyways, they want to talk to us a little bit about it first.
2-106 - With a response, this is what I do. I've got scripts to send their email address. I have 4 pages of sample scripts. Combination print and online, online only, print only, blah, Best regards, blah blah. Just web, no print. These have statistics in them, links to go to the website, all the details of the program. I just cut and paste and attach the appropriate files for rates.
2-108 - [Steve] So let me repeat - There are lots of ways for potential dealers to come - phone, online, email, inbound/outbound whatever - you evaluate how to deal with them. Then there is a process of verification by Mary. The way you do verification responses
2-109 - The majority of this goes by email. The verification can be verbal but after that it's email.
2-110 - In addition to that is this lovely little blank agreement I send out to them (nice pdf for them to fill out). This reiterates the rates, they gives us credit card info, sign the order, then it's faxed back to me or scanned.
2-112 - Now, I have done email blasts with random emails I've collected - that's a scripted email that goes out to prospects. I go to other sites and done calls based on who I see there. I'm working on a list right now that is classic car dealers by state, I'm making inquiries there, too. There is also word-of-mouth.
2-113 - We've had a small spike in business in the past few months. I'm attributing it to outbound phone calls I'm making. We have a quota of calls we have to make each week and I think it is a good thing. It's really effective. I like it, too. Even if they are a cold call, we may be able to do business with them.
2-114 - Hemmings has instant name recognition. There is certainly no problem there. Very rare is there someone who is not familiar in the type of customer base I'm trying to contact.
2-115 - We have 165 dealers. We were hovering around 153 and we've had a spike as of late. External events and calendar trends affect that. This time of year [spring] is a popular time of year. It's cyclical.
2-116 - Ebay has changed their rate structure - it nearly double the rate for individual cars so that has had some effect. Anything ebay does affects us.
2-117 - Ebay has no way, if you have a problem, like I have customers who have car photos ripped off from ebay and saying "this is my car" and making a scam. Ebay would do nothing for them.
2-119 - Again that feeling that people at hemmings have 'got your back'. That doesn't necessarily make us money, but if we can use that to streamline our procedures we can emphasize that we can differentiate ourselves.
2-120 - So they have filled it out and sent it back. This piece of paper initiates them into the newscad system. Kelly sets up the dealer in this system with a credit card and initial insertions are set up and off they go.
2-121 - From here they can interact with us through different processes. This is an email - "Welcome to HMN dealer showroom..." and has all of the instructions and id + password so they can load stuff online. Also, we give them instructions for a file feed submission.
2-122 - [Steve] So - We create a user, it goes into newscad and the website, we send them welcome instructions for upload or csv.
2-123 -Kelly sends both of them. I can look at their website to see if they are managed by a datacaster - if someone becomes a hmn managed account (file is uploaded here by Nancy Sterns).
2-124 - Weekly, on Mondays, she communicates to the 5 dealers we manage listings for and she requests that they need to send in changes, including addition of new cars, photos, price changes, everything. It's as if she was in their office managing their listings on our site. That is something we don't have too many people who want us to manage it.
2-125 - Most people are going toward this csv upload. This is, from a company called autorevo, I sent them instructions, they developed a file - some model corrections were needed, then the company decided they didn't want to spend extra $50. This was decided 3 or 4 days after their card was charged and I went ahead and loaded their listings for them as a courtesy. This went miles for them. Something that's not time consuming that I can to secure business and that they appreciate - I'll support just so far but when I know it will make a difference with a good customer I do it.
2-126 - This is my list of 11 datacaster vendors. Companies that feed more than 1 account to us. I send customers this list when customers ask me. Carthink out of Florida out of florida is my favorite to work with. We share leads, "These guys just came on board, they have inventory that fits, you should give them a call." They have 24 hour turnaround with our format because they've got it down.
2-127 - Some of these companies develop custom feeds. If you need names and phone numbers to call them and ask what their problems are, it's a good idea.
2-128 - Everyone in the dealer showroom I send a blast to about the upcoming issue. I have those emails set up in a blind copy draft form. They are always reminded each month about print - not all of them are in print but I send the reminder anyway.
2-129 - The time lag, and this is where you might talk to kelly - I'll show you what's in our ftp site with these files. These are companies in CA. This is the most recent here. Kelly grabs these on Thursday and uploads these on Thursdays. [ shows me pipe delim text file]. She converts these to our csv format in excel.
2-130 - Here is their little simple file - this is our csv file. YMM is required, stock number, here are the 25 image fields. So, you know. 4 runner, c class - some of this stuff has to be transformed. Streetrod is not a model - that will get thrown out. A coupe is not a model, it's a body style. The filter will kick out these listings and give you a drop down menu to correct it. Which is good, it's educational.
2-131 - That's also why we don't take this as a direct stream. And that's the biggest. Technically the datacaster bypasses the dealer by going and grabbing this from the dealer's site. The dealer thinks it happens just by magic. There's a lot of people working in the background to make it happen.
2-132 - You should call and ask what's the most difficult thing about the hemmings file development.
2-134 - Once every three months we do a personal call. In the summer we have a lot of new activity with out new publication. Our restoration guide - a one time publication. It will feature 3 categories of cars with a restoration guide and a lot of advertising space. 130k are planned. If you advertise you get copies of your own to distribute. It's like our "getting started with the hobby" book - which was extremely successful.
2-135 - It's friendly and the text is well-written. The glossary was a huge hit. So these guys are kept up to date with all of the changes we are making and new opportunities, their ad activity, just so that the only phonecalls they get from me aren't me getting them to renew their business.
2-136 - There are people who are wedded to us, there are people who are wedded to other websites and have sort of a loyal following on those sites. I've been trying to think - how or what can we do to claim their business also. One question I want to start asking people is "I understand that you are a dealer and love old cars, what if something happens with this site, what's your backup plan to promote your cars. I want that to be us. " and I send them information. That's worked.
2-138 - One thing I think we can do is allow search by car category. We need to allow search for import, street rod, etc. It's not very good right now. On some other sites, you can. Dealers would like to go into specialty categories.
2-139 - [Steve] We can do a lot of that categorization automatically. Certain cars are imports, certain cars are muscle. A lot of that information is already available without the customer intervening.
2-140 - Dealers would like that. They'd also like, somewhere, Make these banners live links that take people right to their listings.
2-141 - We need to redo this landing page. This page should not be about recruiting dealers, it should be a dealer directory. How to become a dealer, dealer inventory, dealer login. This is a login dedicated to dealers, and it takes them to the admin for their listings. [stumbles a bit trying to log in]
2-142 - [looking at how to browse cars] I definitely think. This is cumbersome. The front page should be easier to use.
2-143 - If we had a tool that helped them load those photos. That would help. Maybe the datacasters have a good idea.
2-145 - [Steve] What I'd like - any kind of figures like that - classify the dealers as "small", "whale". Any kind of facts that help me visualize who the dealers are would help me.
2-147 - I wonder what will happen if we require price. [ we talk about whether this will work for dealers ].
2-148 - The way that pricing works with cars is unique. The buyer and seller come to the table with a price and the end result matches neither.
2-151 - They maybe think it gives the car a perceived value if you don't include the price. In today's market - No. Time is the biggest commodity. People don't have time to fiddle around or wants to.
2-152 - I've said to people, your prices are too high. Today's market is 85% of it was a few years ago. I'm blunt and they appreciate it. We are a passion and a hobby.
2-153 - A lot of my customers - they like having some sort of structure. We have wisdom we can share.
3: David: Usability Test Autotraderclassics.com (Insights Only) Top
3-3 - Geo searches are easily too narrowing when combined with other criteria and easily lead to situations with zero results. Would be good if as you narrow you could see the effect on results.
3-6 - ATC lets you select "sedan" "coupe" etc for body style but not all cars are correctly tagged so selection omits cars it should not. If metadata is incomplete then it becomes invalid narrowing criteria.
3-7 - David immediately tries to use "favorites" function but balks once it asks him to log in. Decides to just remember cars instead. Adding to favorites during classified search is a really good function, but forcing a log-in may be too much effort for perceived utility.
3-8 - "Those 2 don't have pictures, I'm not going to even consider those". Pictures are the most important feature of a classified ad.
3-9 - "Auction, that's lame. It means it's more of just an ad than a car I can buy. This site becomes a lot less helpful when I see it's auction. I thought this was for sale by owner but that's not the case and I can't see where it makes that distinction. The Auction is on saturday, I'm a fortune 500 CEO and I'm too busy for that." Auctions should be clearly marked and exclude-able.
3-10 - Autotraderclassics allows quick omission of cars w/o prices or pictures. This is a very good idea.
3-11 - "You shouldn't have replicas in the mercedes section but I guess you can't really check that". We need to discuss how replicas are handled throughout classifieds system.
3-12 - "The fact that it's sold by a dealer is kind of a downer". David didn't notice dealer logo on listing before he clicked through.
3-13 - "The whole reason I look at sites like this is to do business with an individual." People want to deal with individuals, not businesses. "Dealers are just horrible people, horrible human beings". :)
3-14 - "It turns me off that a car that's being sold for $13k is being photographed with flat tires and dirty" [ Switch to another car ]"The fact that this one is cleaned up, looks nicer, has tons of pictures makes me much more interested in the car. "Photo quality, and perceived state of the car, is as important as quantity.
3-16 - Dave is not sure with how they will handle his phone/email. Concerned they will spam him. He's not scared of junk calls but is very protective of email address. A disclaimer about how info will be used is needed and this should not be used for marketing - We want no obstacle in place for contacts..
3-17 - "I can't tell if this seller knows why I'm emailing them. Would be nice to know what the email will look like." Some preview function for the email is useful for understanding what action will be taken.
3-21 - Finds online/offline terminology very confusing. The site assumes knowledge of what the magazine is and what value that brings. That information should be present 'Will be published in such & such magazine with n1000's of readers'
3-22 - Enhanced Ad: "This is definitely confusing because it's this bizarre matrix of different options and you can have an enhanced ad, or and I don't know what enhanced means other than deluxe ore premium. Just showing what each ad would look like might help". Multiple Ad options are very difficult to convey. We should reduce options as much as possible. ATC should not be emulated.
3-23 - Having a phrase generator for car description is cheesy. Avoid it. Examples are a better way to do this.
3-26 - "It's good to show a closeup of a small imperfection so they think that's the worse thing wrong. The other side of the car could be on fire.".
4: David: User Usability Post-Interview (Part I & II) Top
4-3 - Find your car? Easiest one to use was a tossup between ATC and ebaymotors. If I had to go back and do it again, ebay would be easier. I had to figure out a couple of quirky things. Ebay motors was so user friendly that it messed me up a little bit but now I understand what it was thinking I'd go back and feel more comfortable there of all 3
4-4 - [Steve] how do you feel about the availability of cars on the 3 sites. Which seemed to have the most promising inventory.
4-5 - I guess the autotraderclassic had the most, or ebay. Hemmings had a lot but they were, it was a tossup because you didn't know how expensive they were and they had fantastic cars but..
4-7 - going to hemmings and not seeing prices. I basically gave up there. We saw one price on there, that was out of our range. The rest I couldn't find any prices so I gave up
4-9 - The easiest was probably ebay. But hemmings was fine, too. Ebay was a little better in that you knew exactly what you were getting. Hemmings,you didn't quite have demonstrations of everything.
4-11 - Umm. I don't remember. Maybe ATclassics. It wasn't very clear. That was the first one I did so it was kind of hard to tell, but that one, it just had too many little different sections where you weren't sure where this was going in the ad and it had that silly little dragover menu selecting power-steering for your ad instead of just typing it in your ad. It was more confusing than helpful and it wasn't integrated - it was just catch-phrases they were suggesting you put in your ad. That wasn't helpful.
4-15 - The ebay was just the most aesthetically pleasing even though it's kind of cheesy looking. It's still, big pictures and just recognizable layout, looks like other sites - looks like ebay, amazon, with a bar with all the information in separate categories and you can just scroll down that bar and click on what you want. It's pretty straightforward. So I think that's the best.
4-16 - [Steve] which site would be best for selling your car? Which would you use, which do you think makes the transaction happen? The type of transaction you want.
4-17 - I would prob go to ATclassic for buying or selling. A big reason is the name, I'm familiar already. Ebay - even though it has the buy it now and sell it now category, there's still an irrational part of me that's scared of it because it is ebay - doesn't want to go on it because it's ebay. And I feel like the hemmings, it's too much, the way it's set up it's too much of an esoteric 'car guy' site. It's car guys selling cars to other car guys. It's just, seems a little too exclusive and not commercial enough.
4-19 - The reoccurring failure was not being completely clear about the way your ad is going to look in the end. And pricing. Neither were particularly bad. All 3 could have had better parameters, search-narrowing parameters.
4-21 - As granular as you could have categories. I don't think it would be difficult to have lots of categories - narrow it down using google maps. Ebay had that, lots of options, but their stupid user-friendly thing at the beginning but it screwed up for me. They had popup menus of narrowing items.
4-22 It didn't give year-start to year-end- it gave you brackets. So we had to pick 1966 - 1986 or something. And then it had pictures of different cars, like click on the picture of the sedan, then enter in what kind of car you are looking for, then it took you to a separate menu where you could whittle it down.
4-23 - It had this whole unnecessary step where it didn't manage to keep our mercedes option intact. And when you did get to the part to whittle down the options further on that final menu - they worked in different ways. Some you click on them and it instantly reloaded - others you had to select option and hit go. That's confusing. You don't need two different types of options like that.
5: Mike: Dealer Interview Top
5-3 - Hemmings ought to have the most kick-ass website in the - I mean they've been doing collector cars since before they were collector cars.
5-4 - Also, Hemmings demographic is older dudes. When we first got in the business and went online we had this super-fancy website with all of these bells and whistles and music and all that shit, and we found that our demographic didn't really operate it that well. Keep it Simple Stupid - I mean a hardcore IT guy would look at our website and go "God dang, that's kind of basic." We're not trying to win an award from the IT community, we're trying to sell cars.
5-5 - To me, there's just too much shit right there on the homepage. There's just too much, I mean I might like to never figured out how to login as a dealer. But of course I eventually figured it out.
5-6 - First of all, too much crap. What needs to be recognized is changes in screen resolutions - all kinds of screens - even that ipad thing. When I saw my site on my cousin's big screen TV - I had a white background - it was fucking blinding on that screen. We've got to think about all these things.
5-8 - I have my own site first and foremost. [ He promotes the area with pictures of the hill country.]
5-9 - I manually go in and put the cars on the website. [ the site has all of these cars with background removed, floating on photo of hill country ].
5-11 - Yeah, it's a lot of work. I've gotten it down to a science now. We used to have it broken into decades - our primary demographic is 35-65 years old - the cars we mainly sell are 50's 10%, 60's 50%,70's 10% - We used to have it broken down but that added a click.
5-12 - Now, if you want to look at this car, brings up a page with the photos. You can read the description. One more click brings up 20 large pics you can look through. That's another thing - most people tell me, guys who keep us on their favorites and come here every week guys not even in the market for a car. It's entertainment to them - they say what they like most about our site is the large pictures and they say "I wish everybody did that".
5-13 - We take the photos very seriously because, that's our salesman. Our sales manager handles 95% of sales, but without this they never get to our sales manager.
5-16 - Six. We have the owner, who is the GM. We have our sales manager handles retail sales. You have me, I handle all of the marketing, all of the advertising, all of the photographs, take care of the physical inventory. My main job is to get the car in, get it stocked in.
5-18 - The owner decides. We buy from individuals, which is our favorite way to buy, the reason we like to buy from individuals is: he's had the car, he cares about the car, he knows everything about the car. It's been his pride and joy, he's improved it since he bought it, taken it to car shows and cruise nights, etc. and it's generally a better car, above average.
5-19 - Our core business is we try to buy a really good car, the best car for the money based on our experience that we know what a car will bring based on our history. The market changes a lot and prices and desires for a particular car go up and down, but we buy a good car and then we make it a great car.
5-21 - 90% on the internet. #1 is ebay which is #1 in the world - I would be willing to say that 80% of any person that's looking for anything classic starts with ebay. We sell a lot of cars off of ebay, not necessarily /on/ ebay. Sometimes we list a car and put it on ebay, it sells on ebay, through ebay, first round. Other cars we've listed 10 times - a lot of people out there that ebay scares em to death - especially when you are spending $40k, $50k, $60k over the internet - it's a very daunting task if you don't have any experience.
5-22 - So what'll happen is the guy will call us, tell us he didn't bid on it because he is not registered with ebay and he's not comfortable doing that. "I noticed it didn't sell, can you send me more info? OK - I want to buy the car." Ebay is interesting - my main complaint - they don't allow you to promote your business. You can't link up with your dealership.
5-23 - Any advertising you do as an internet company is to get them to your website. I would much rather sell from my site than any other website. #1 they get bigger photos, #2 there's a full description, #3 they can learn about who, what we are and what we're about. It's just that's our core business and what we want to do.
5-25 - It's very important to get people to our site. Make it so the average guy can get there. As you can see - you can get to 20 huge photos that fill the screen in 2 clicks. Then you can go on to financing, insurance etc.
5-26 - Another good thing is a guy will come to our website and say "I've been looking for a car for 3 years". I'm gonna hold out for just the right car. One thing he will find is that my photography system is very consistent. The first six photos are all 4 sides of the car, if it's a convertible we'll add top up, top-down. Always show all 4 sides so you know without a doubt this car is all good. Then I go to the interior - if there's something unusual, I'll hi-lite that. Then I show the motor- if it's a really nice motor then I'll put 2 or 3. I take it from an angle to see the whole engine compartment, then I show a closeup of the top on a convertible, or vinyl top. Tight shots of the front and the back so you can see fit up and quality. I call this the jacknife shot, most people show it the car show shot [All doors, lids open, top down ] staged like at a car show, shooting down from a height. I'll always put at least 1 or 2 of these. Then I put a straight-on front and back, always show the inside of the trunk. [ back to carshow shot ] On a show quality car this pic tells you a couple of things. #1: "that's a show quality car! Look at it, it could be at a car show". #2 - it just catches people's attention because nobody else does that particular shot. Again - we are competing with all of these different dealers and websites so we want to stand out.
5-27 - Consistency - just about any car in our collection you'll see the consistency is there. Pretty much the same deal for all the cars.
5-28 - We always advertise price. [ I ask him why ]. A lot of people don't advertise price. The reason we adv price is because a car guy knows what cars are bringing. Your average guy who decides "New mustangs are cool, I want a classic mustang cause my dad had one" - I put the prices on there cause I don't want this guy to think he can get this car [shows car] for $15k. He'll call me all excited and find out it's $38k.
5-29 - They ignore it without a price. I have 4 cars on the site without a price cause they are committed to concourse auction. So I'm promoting that sale in 2 weeks, with the price removed, a very deliberate reason.
5-30 - The argument there [not showing price] for some people is "don't advertise the price, put as little info as you can and the guy will call you and I'll let my salesman put out the big spiel". If you've got a company like mine where 3 guys are answering the phone and you've got 60 cars with no price on them. You'll be answering the phone and disappointing a lot of people. Yeah, we want the phone to ring, selling is telling stories, but you don't want to tell a story to a guy who has no capable way of buying a car.
5-31 - We sell more high-end, established customers that have money. Every now and then we have a run-of-the mill car. That takes care of itself. We always advertise price, that's our philosophy.
5-32 - We might see a car in a magazine and get excited, but then we're going to call and ask them to send us pics cause that's what they do to us. A picture is worth a thousand words but 900 of them are lies. You've gotta have a good picture and a little picture in a magazine doesn't get that done.
5-33 - We advertise in hemmings about 5 or 6 cars per month in the print just to try and get people to the website. Again, I would rather someone bought off of the internet instead of a magazine. 5 years ago - oldcartrader or whatever it's called now - we're not even in there any more. I don't even have a display ad with my website with em at all. DealonWheels was our #1 pub years ago - 70% of our hits came from there. Autotrader bought deals on wheels and turned it into another autotrader and took the best magazine and made it another run-of-the mill magazine. We just weren't getting any hits.
5-34 - As ebay grew, autotrader went down. Deals on wheels, all the pubs went down. Advertising costs, a 1 page ad cost $2800. It just doesn't work for us.
5-36 - hemmings, I've only been there for a couple of years. I'm gonna be honest, I'm very disappointed. I was expecting a whole lot more hits from hemmings than I get. I get a few a week, I should be getting a few per day.
5-37 - The avg car guy, the way they feel about hemmings is that's the old man's book. It's about the 30's, the 40's - "Boy, you got a 50 Ford, you better put that in Hemmings!". That's the deal - I think it's much broader than that.
5-38 - I think restomods, that's a big segment of our business, a big segment of the hobby, a very big segment of what's going on in the collector car hobby right now. Just watch barret jackson - 67 gto modernized guts, classic car, huge part of the business. We've sold some resto-mods we've built ourselves for double what we would get if we sold the car as is.
5-39 - We advertise them on our website, ebay, autabuy - family owned and operated company that has excellent website - very modern and user friendly - they promote their magazine. I advertise with their magazine because it's only $450 per month and their art dept rocks. You tell them an idea of something you want, and their art dept is the best I've seen.
5-40 - Their dealer system, very very nice. Very simple layout - click on dealer login and it takes you completely away from the retail guys' page and then you sign in and manage vehicles. I can do anything, 26 photos, I can delete, edit, one of my favorite things is I can suspend a listing if a car is pending or needs some touchup. I put a lot of work into these, I don't want to delete it completely and input them twice. They are the only website like that - that's a huge benefit for a dealer. They are excellent with photos - their management photo thing is excellent. I've got a cheat system I'm going to get to.
5-41 - Here is my homepage. They've got my logo, mission statement, my entire inventory, and it updates every night at midnight. So even if I go in, I can reprice everything.
5-42 - Here is my cheat system: There is a company called cars for sale .com. They are basically new, I've only been with them about a year. The only reason I'm with em is my former rep from autabuy went to work with them. He and I had such a really good rapport - he was awesome. He stayed in touch with me, followed up, asked me for suggestions, asked me if I needed stuff, he was really good. When he went to work with them I was like "cool, I'll advertise with them". They are very inexpensive to advertise with - I pay like $100 /month to advertise with them.
5-43 - I log in they take me away from the retail page. I log in with my web address- again, keep it simple stupid. I have a password and I can stay signed in here. If I know I'm gonna do a lot I can stay signed in all day. Here is my inventory page - one thing they do I don't like - I have to go in every day and refresh my inventory - which moves my stuff up from being buried on their site.
5-44 - Now, adding a vehicle, super-simple. Cut and paste, download an image, it's just so simple .They have a glitch, usually their photo pops right up [as they upload shows a preview]. They are numbered, provided they are in the same sequence.
5-45 - When I go out to shoot a car I go out and shoot 200 pictures for it. I build a file for it, I have a chassis file, if a car has a bunch of flaws I'll have a flaw file. Very rare that happens cause normally our cars are good. Then I have 20 photos that go to my site and then I have a portfolio of tight shots, detailed shots, things to send you if you are interested in a particular car and you need to see more.
5-46 - Now, when I add a car to their site, at midnight, they auto feed to autabuy, which I used to do manually. They feed to classiccars.com, they feed to oldcaronline and fossilcars - another new one I've only been with 6 months or so - up and coming and redoing their site, I've talked to them. Their site is OK, but it's very cheap so it doesn't matter. Again, when companies only want $100-$200 / month - I'd rather be on 20 websites than in one magazine for half the price.
5-47 - Now what I haven't been able to make work, which is very frustrating to me, is carsforsale will broadcast to hemmings, but hemmings and carsforsale have never been able to get IT together. So even though I've worked out the bugs with these others I am still trying to get hemmings up and running. Right now I'm manual with hemmings.
5-48 - The first thing I do is go load it on my website. The next thing I do is go to carsforsale.com - cause it can broadcast it to all the other ones. I still have some problems with fossilcars and hemmings is not on board yet.
5-49 - Next I go to hemmings. I still consider hemmings huge company, very reasonable to advertise online as a dealer. Oh, now what do I do - oh, dealer login. Took me forever to figure that out. And then, they provide me with a dealer id and password, which I don't like. I don't mind them assigning me a dealerid, should be your website or your email address. You should have your own password, it should be yours, mine has been given to me by hemmings and I haven't found out how to change it so anyone could manipulate my inventory - not saying they would, but it could happen.
5-50 - The first time I log in here I should be able to put my own password. Before we even get started I've got 3 problems with hemmings. I love my Hemmings rep, by the way. She's cool, nice lady. She's tried to help me, you know.
5-53 - So here's the things I like. I've got a dealer page to work with, tells me what my limit is. They have these tiers - and they do that for advertising revenue and I understand that. 1-33 units is $99, 34-65 is $199/month - I understand but this is the only website that has a breakdown. I had to increase my deal because we doubled inventory the first quarter this year. I normally only had 30 or 40 cars to advertise at any given time so I would just take my favorite 33 and load them up which was always an argument what to exclude.
5-54 - To me, if you are paying $200/month - just make it a set deal, or just leave it open. I don't think that's that big a deal. Again, I double what I spend which is still nothing, $200/month.
5-55 - The #1 thing I need is an icon picture of that car on this list. I've got 2 black 55 chevies etc. - they all start running together after a while. I need a picture.
5-56 - [ Shows me classiccars.com interface ]. It takes me straight to the dealer page, I don't need the retail stuff. Once in a while I might go look at it to go see how our stuff broadcasts. It's updated and I've got that little icon - so at a glance I know I'm working on the right car. Say we get a car in and it had a stock engine and we go detail it up and put some headers and everything on it - I can go update it real quick. But I sure wouldn't want to put it on that truck when I'm working on this truck. That would be a huge benefit.
5-58 - My main job is sales support. I do whatever the sales manager needs. First of all what he needs is his car online for sale. He is busy, busy. We've sold 16 cars this month, it's the 17th. So we're rocking right now.
5-59 - The icon would help a lot. The actual adding a car? That's pretty cool, I'm cool with that. The thing I don't like is the limitations on the make/model. For a classic car, I need to be a little more specific for the model. For instance I need to be able to put that this is a Nova SS Restomod - I need my heading to be more specific to that car to get someone on it or off it.
5-60 [ Phone rings, customer finds a car on autabuy website that is really old, calls mike asking about it. He's really confused and doesn't know how the guy found it. ]
5-61 - The make is fine, but the model, takes forever - most of these cars I've never even heard of so they definitely do their research,
5-63 - yeah, it does, it takes me too long. In fact, depending on user id it ought to separate a classic car dealer from a new car dealer. Like, he's never gonna have nova.
5-64 - [ I make a suggestion that we put his common makes at the top of his list ] Absolutely, stuff I use a lot should be at the top.
5-65 - For instance, I had a C10 4x4 - but I couldn't tell them it was a 4x4 - they had to look at my pictures and descriptions to tell it was a 4x4 - it should be in the heading. That's a big deal because a classic 4wd is a rare vehicle. Like for camaro, there's 15 different camaros, the model needs to be much more specific. The make, the year, the condition; I actually like this. Hemmings is one of the only ones. Color, interior is find, body style is OK as long as they've got everything like pickup etc.
5-66 - Type - I guess this is where they want you to pick a section, you know there needs to be more - there needs to be muscle cars. At some point these sites are going to need to get on board. There needs to be a way to search for restomods - it's now in the dictionary, I think! Those that know it would like to search that way.
5-69 - Stock number, very important. Especially when you have 10 camaros. Description, very easy, I just cut and paste it and it doesn't limit me - it says 2000 characters but it seems to ignore that.
5-70 - The uploading of the photos is very user friendly, it's good. My favorite thing about that - allowing 25 photos is good. You should always have minimum of 20. I -love- how you can move them around. autabuy and carsforsale has that but it's really specific - with your site I can drag it to where I want it to be. On other sites I have to go manually number them which is a pain in the ass so it normally don't get done. Huge benefit for hemmings.
5-71 - I'll show you my concerns from the retail side. First of all [pointing at homepage ] "Featured this week" - there's just soo much to take in. I realize y'all are trying to sell magazines too, and gosh you have some of the best magazines on the planet - I love Muscle Machines and Classic Car. Your book, my favorite thing about the book - they have all the cars for sale, and right behind that section, Chevy, Pontiac, Ford, GMC, they've got parts also. That is valuable! We use that as a tool to find stuff for our cars and I'm sure the consumer does, too. It needs to have bigger pictures and more of them, but that's neither here nor there.
5-72 - First of all, as a consumer the first thing I should find is how to search. I don't even know where it is right now. To me, this could even be bigger [points at the sample issue thing]. It's like television - you are shopping on TV. We grew up watching the tube, the internet is so successful is it is like tv, a magazine, a book - you control. That's why people are addicted to it.
5-73 - You got to have more pictures, pictures pictures. We get so frustrated, we'll do a description. It goes on the window sticker for the car and also goes on all the websites. It has all the pertinent stuff and people will call and ask if it had bucket seats - damn! Just read the description! People don't read, they want to look at pictures. I'm that way, too.
5-74 - As a dealer, I would rather it was a specific area or something to login, get rid of everything no bells and whistles, make it simple. I don't need a lot of bells and whistles, though I could use a /few/ more it can always be enhanced.
5-75 -Search for a dealer, that's kind of cool, I guess. Should be bigger so a goofball like me can find it. This dealer login thing is really inconvenient, I should stay logged in.
5-76 - Also, updating, editing, deleting with your system is really good. Nobody lets you remove a bunch at a time. I just sold 6 cars at an auction and it was real easy to delete all of them. But I need an icon - it's real easy for me to delete the wrong damn car.
5-78 - Let me tell you how valuable it is. I could give a flip about being on carsforsale.com. I am totally hooked with them because of that feature. They do it to get business and keep it. I'm not gonna drop hemmings if hemmings is populating all of my other BS ads out there. It's worth it for me to pay them $100/month to manage my inventory for all these other websites. Why they do it? I have no idea but I'm not going anywhere. You just signed a life-long contract with me if you keep that system up at a reasonable price. You follow?
5-81 - [ Looks at some actual ads online ] Here - it looks fine. There sure is a lot of wasted space but I'm on a big screen. You got to get ready, cause I'm about to buy an even bigger screen and give this one to my brother.
5-83 - Now- as far as my car. I like the price on there - but it's so dominant - I would at least like the guy to investigate it before "OMG, it's $62,500". Here's the deal - the photo is too small - it should be huge with a heading across the top of it, it should have my contact across the bottom - so any goober could know. You got to understand the demographics - car guys aint rocket scientists - they're car guys!
5-84 - A guy is not going to read this. "Dealer's Notes" - Notes? What the hell is notes, that's a book. You need bolder fonts, looks better - this is just standard text. Needs to be bolder, more inviting, easier to read.
5-85 - Look how far you have to go "They got all these pictures at the bottom, I didn't know.." - they should be all up here on the side so they know they are there. To me, there should be a big picture, header and little pictures, with the text down low.
5-86 - I don't want my information buried down here, I don't want my photos buried down here, and Damn Sure don't want a payment calculator. That's for new cars, I don't want this guy to know that's going to be $900/month. I want him to figure that out after he's pursued financing it. How many guys have I run off by them looking at that. It's important on an 04 cavalier, but don't mean squat here.
5-87 - More cars by this dealer? That's cool. But a guy looking for a camaro? He don't give a flip about a '50 ford. I would like to see that be more just camaros, or just muscle cars, and there should be photos. There should be a bank of other camaros. If a guy has clicked on this he either loves camaros, wants a camaro or knows someone who does. If he goes down here and see "these guys have 20 camaros in stock" - know what I'm saying?
5-88 - Here's more cars from this dealer - it's just picking the first 3. What we're interested in on this page is this guy looking at this car. Everything else ought to appeal to this situation right here. If he sees this for $62,500, and he sees this yellow one for $29,500, that's good.
5-89 - [ clicks fancybox ] What I do click on a picture, look how nice it is. Nice size, dominates the page, fills up the screen, wow- that's a nice car. [ points out his url embedded in photo ] Wow this guy has a website, I'm going to go to that website. Now, ebay will not allow that. If I put that on, ebay will delete my ad and send me an email telling me I've violated their policy.
5-90 - What I like, lets look at the motor. I like how it fades up. What I think is good, but you have to find it, is you can go to the next one. People are stupid, they're not gonna find that. That needs to be down there [ In caption bar ]. It needs to be in your face. But, again, my biggest disappointment with this is it all needs to be up top in the top. This needs to say "1968 Chevrolet Camaro Restomod" Offered by Street Dreams, phone number, price. Too hard to find my info.
5-91 - People don't like to scroll. Everything I do is in a scroll mode. People call me and say "all you've got is trucks". They aren't scrolling down. "Oooh, I didn't think to scroll".
5-92 - This just ain't enough to make me go "whoa". Everything is there! It just needs to be rearranged. There's too much this way [vertical] and not enough this way [horz]. Every movie has a lead shot - we need a lead shot. I always put our site on our lead shot because so many rip it to do bogus stuff.
5-93 - For instance we had a 69 restomod gto, someone ripped my pic, and put it in autotrader, "send me a deposit", delete it and disappear.
5-95 - Ebay has a huge problem with it. I guess it stands out because there is so much more volume. I used to have problems with autotrader but I'm not with them anymore. If you pulled out an autotrader I could point out the false ads to you. Those nimrods don't make it look like other ads.
5-97 - [Steve] Collins and I've talked about "Do dealerships get more credibility by being associated with hemmings?" and is there anything we can do to make that work. [ I explain "advertiser since" feature ].
5-98 - I think that is very important. Hemmings is respected, that word means "Classic cars". I think that you should have a standard that dealers who advertise with you live up to. I think they should have been in business for a certain amt of time. I think that you should get to know them - sending you out here is huge. You can see we're not messing around. We been in business 11 years, that's important.
5-99 - People ask us all the time. This is very important and people ask us this 10 times per day. "Do you own your own inventory or are you a consignment dealer. We own every car and part out there, we're family owned and operated, there's just 6 of us out there and we're selling avg 13 units per month with 5 guys. That's pretty strong. We do stuff different from the other guys. A consignment lot? He ain't fixing nothing. Because that's $ out of his pocket. We're not a consignment lot so we fix everything. That's an important distinction.
5-100 - Were dealing with old cars. They ain't going to be perfect, they never were perfect but we're going to try and get them as close to perfect as we can so that the guy finally steps up and says "this is my dream car, this is what I want" we're trying to make that dream not a nightmare. We want it to run, drive, stop, handle and look as good as it can. That's why were' successful, we don't cut corners.
5-101 - The way we run our business is the closest thing to a certified classic car you can get. The 'certified' thing is a big buzzword and has been for the last decade with OEM's, I think lexus or BMW started it with special financing and warranties.
5-102 - We don't offer warranties. Warranty companies for classic cars are so expensive, they cost as much as a new engine and transmission so it's kind of stupid to get it done with huge deductibles. Businesses come and go.
5-103 - [Steve] What if we created the concept of a certified dealer? Vetted by hemmings, dealer directory with our certified dealer.
5-104 - This is autotraderclassics. They have one of the worst websites out there. Their photos are all small, you gotta go through all this crap to find something. They're just trying to do too much. Everything you could possibly find on just one page.
5-105 [ Shop guy interrupts, asks Mike if he wants to go to lunch. Mike declines to keep interviewing. ]
5-106 - One of my former favorite websites.Deals on wheels - they used to have the best website before Autotrader bought them with a great dealer search. They have almost too much search criteria. I think that things like fwd/rwd, dual exhaust, color, they get a little crazy with it. To me, the coolest thing is when I'm trying to find stuff is they let you do all makes, all models, price, distance, but then they have more detailed search, then this popular search. [ points out bad formatting] This site used to be a killer site. I don't even advertise with em any more.
5-107 - This fossil cars. They're a new one. Revamping their deal, their homepage has a bunch of cars for sale. "look at this, cars". My deal is "keep it simple stupid". Don't make a guy dig for what he's looking for.
5-109 - We've toyed with doing videos but it's too hard to do right. #1 thing would be getting, if a guy lands on a car. I get calls where a guy will ask me first thing "Are you a dealer?" Yes - click. They don't want to fuck with a dealer, they don't trust us. The reputation is bad. One thing websites have the opportunity to do that they don't do, is to say "hey - this is a dealer, but they're a damn good one".
5-111 - Yeah. You need to meet a certain criteria. Ebay does it with feedback. Tony does a masterful job of promoting, maintaining and keeping a 100% positive feedback. How he does it is a miracle to me, but it's the way he operates and handles the customers. Keeping that feedback is huge. For an avg website, some dealers won't meet the - you know?
5-112 - There are a lot of dealers out there but there are some, like us, that are just different. I believed that before I came to work here. We're working on ours, it's gotten to the point - we're having all of this stuff redone. The owner took a click away to have all inventory to be on the front page.
5-116 - If you do change things you better give that old fart that's been there for 15 years a chance to go back to the old way he's used to doing it. And it needs to be easy for him to find.
5-117 - Like you said, everything is there. If I could be, the harshest criticism I would have towards hemmings' website. It's kind of crude. It ain't pretty. It doesn't grab my attention. It has all the information, but it's not manipulated. It needs to be artistic and inviting, you want that guy to lock on that car. And you want it to be in his face "I know I'm on Hemmings, I know I'm looking at a camaro, and I know I'm looking at one from street dreams. And should I decide I want to pursue this car, without going to look for it, I need to know he's in Fredericksburg, TX, this is his phone, his website, oh gosh - he's a hemmings certified dealer?" All that stuff to me is just huge.
5-118 - To me, Hemmings should be the #1 classic car website in the country. Because they deserve it. Because they have promoted, and maintained and supported the collector car hobby since there was a collector car hobby.
5-120 - I mean it's a great business. Lets face it, the internet makes it. We would not be here without the internet.
5-121 - I'm not sure how much they're promoting themselves abroad. We've been selling cars to Europe like crazy. Just this year we've sent a '77 transam to australia... sweden ...norway...Germany - I can always tell when the Euro is strong against the dollar, my email and phone light up.
5-123 - Some guys are more email than phone. In the last 5 years that has shifted more to email than phone. A guy at the office looking at this 69 camaro, if he picks up the phone for an hour he's gonna get busted. He can sit at his computer and email back and forth to Tony while he's doin his work. I think that's why you've seen the shift. We all know that's why the internet is annihilating productivity in the business world. But us, we wouldn't exist without it.
5-125 - Yeah, kids interested in cars their grandpa drove. This guy's buying a 51 chevy instead of an EVO. It's more kids in their 30's and it's cause their dad had one, or wanted one, or used to race one. I think a little bit of strategy to get younger people to your website is a good thing - cause lets face it, all this stuff is gonna run its course in a while. For instance I notice we don't really have Model A's and Model T's -- we used to and sell 4 or 5 a month. We don't sell those any more because all those guys are dead. That went away. We sell a few not to some old men who want to have the car their grandpa used to ride them around in. They want to do the same with their grandson.
5-126 - These fat fendered trucks? 80% of the time that's a woman driving the sale of those trucks. "I like them fat fenders".
5-132 [ Cruiser guys, Restomod, Horsepower guys, Patina guys, ratrod, vintage race, track cars, restoration ]
5-134 - [ Discuss car header line ] I would like the option to type in what it is, cause I'd like to be really specific.
5-136 - I think that everything y'all need is there. It just needs to be manipulated and changed and beautified. That fact you can click on a picture, guy needs to know that- he needs to be directed. The website is good, there's nothing cool about hemmings, it looks old like it's been around forever and it's never been changed.
5-138 - They had done research - most everyone is starting ebay. We don't even like ebay but we've gotta use it. There's things about it that creep me out. The thing about ebay - it's a phenomenon. It's a necessary evil. Their advertising prices are decent, they just keep bumping em.
5-140 - No. They manipulate, they get you all hooked up clicking on the different features and get you spending $150 on something you coulda got for $70. I don't like... when I was in the car business, You have to promote not just the car but the dealership. What we're about and we are good people who sell a good product. You can't make everybody 100% happy but we try, especially on ebay where it's right there in your face.
5-142 - It's the same with dealers. People are scared of it - it's been the same thing since the first mule was traded in for the first covered wagon. The thing about it is, we treat it like "we got nothing to hide". Lets just be up front and honest.
5-144 - The owner sets prices based on his experience knowing how much that car will bring. He can almost look at a car and say "Well I can't buy that car cause there's no meat left on the bone. that's the most I could ever get for it." A few things that are conducive with us, our photos are professional where other people take snapshots and throw them up. Our sales people are great, we're notorious for getting more money car - we'll sell for $5k more than we buy a car from a dealer! It's your reputation, the way you sell, and the tools you use to sell.
5-145 - It's hard to represent a car in a way that won't disappoint people when they come in, takes a lot of work to tell the real story behind the car.
