I was running through a dealer’s website the other day and came across Purecars.com on their website. I haven’t heard much about Purecars.com in a while and decided to look at it again. I started a thread in the forums to gauge whether anyone was doing anything with it and not much has been said, but then I came across this statement on their dealer page.
The PureCars Pricing Graph
The number one concern used car buyers have is price. With hundreds of customers clicking the PureCars Value Report button found on every used vehicle page on your website, we’ll independently verify for customers when you’re priced below market. Customers will see the PureCars Pricing Graph when they’re getting a great price, and if you’re priced above market, there’s no worries, as the PureCars Value Report will automatically showcase all of the other known value highlights of your vehicles such as Vehicle Certification, Owner and Accident History, Low Miles, and Popular Color, among others.
This got me thinking “how does Purecars.com make a car that is priced too high appear to be a good value for a customer?” This program sounds really good!
So I dug a little further. Here is a PureCars report for a 2006 Subaru Forester that looks to be priced a little high: http://www.purecars.com/ValueReport/ValueReport3.aspx?vehicleID=5590043
Things to note:
- LL Bean Edition
- $18,881 price tag
- PureCars is looking at a 150+ mile radius
Using this dealer’s zip code on Autotrader.com (01702) by advanced searching for a 2006 Subaru Forester with the keyword “bean” in a 100 mile radius I found these Autotrader results (keep in mind these results will change over time).
- Out of 15 results, only 2 are more expensive than the car in the provided PureCars report
- I only searched within 100 miles
And another link from another used car marketing site to look at for this example: CarGurus search for a Forester around 01702 (these results will change over time).
This PureCars example obviously stacks the cards in favor of the dealer, but are customers gullible enough to fall for this? Sooooo, are you using PureCars and is it working for you? Any other opinions?