Won't the dealers still be sleazy when you go to pick up the car and pay the agreed price? Won't they tack on extra things, say the price they quoted doesn't include a warranty, or who knows what other tricks?
Also how does CarWoo handle trade-ins? What about financing?
I really hope this work out though. I swore off buying new cars after my last terrible experience at a dealer. Hopefully something like this might let me buy a new car yet.
We've built a reputation system, which, in short, helps ward off a lot of bad dealer behavior. I can get into more details if anyone's interested.
If you have a trade-in, you can describe it and the dealers will include a quote for that in addition to the quote for the new car.
They can also give you an estimate for financing, although for the most part that is still handled at the dealership. Financing is one of those last-mile problems that we haven't totally solved yet, but we're working on it.
I really like the looks of your product so far. If you offered the option of financing the purchase for the consumer, that would be a huge value proposition. I imagine the dealerships would not like this, but I urge you to consider it for the future.
According to the "How it Works" page, "we know which dealers are the friendliest, which ones will give you the best prices, and which ones to avoid completely." Presumably they wouldn't send you any quotes from known bad dealers, but obviously the question is whether or not they can execute on that promise.
True, the dealer can still haggle you on trade-ins and financing, but removing the "price of new car" variable simplifies that negotiation quite a bit. One of the current tactics that works very well for dealerships is trying to throw as many variables at you as possible (Google the "four square method"). Plus you can always sell your car to someone else instead of the dealership, and/or get a loan from your own bank.
Given that dealers are mostly tied to physical locations I wouldn't imagine it would be a big problem. Sure they could create more accounts when they get bad feedback but in the end people still have to pickup the car from the same physical location.
Also how does CarWoo handle trade-ins? What about financing?
I really hope this work out though. I swore off buying new cars after my last terrible experience at a dealer. Hopefully something like this might let me buy a new car yet.