How do I start a Cars.com or a Autotrader.com

[makemoves617]

Hey guys i been coming to this great site for a while now since im about to take over my fathers car dealership here in Mass. He has owned this dealership for 14 years and will be retiring soon.
I have been thinking on building a website for all car dealerships to sell used and new vehicals on my site. I will be promoting this website all over auto auctions and dealerships threw out New England just to begin with. But here is the problem! How do i find a good web host and a designer to build me a website like cars dot com or autotrader dot com? And how much will it run me? Thanks (Bobby.

[chrispalko]

Custom programmed, I'm sure you are looking at high $X,XXX to low $XX,XXX. How do you plan on profiting from this site? Do you have the capital to compete with such sites?

[makemoves617]

Custom programmed, I'm sure you are looking at high $X,XXX to low $XX,XXX. How do you plan on profiting from this site? Do you have the capital to compete with such sites?

I plan on profiting from dealerships adding cars for sell with pics and info, also ads of car shops, dealers, car shows, parts, etc. Now tell me chris where do i find these major custom programer's

[daniel.sanchez]

lol you don't need to spend anywhere near that much money if you are willing to do your due diligence! Search for "car listing script" and dig up some of your options. I guarantee there are hundreds of different PHP scripts that will help you get to where you want to be.

Find a webmaster to help you in the process of starting it, what is your budget?

[HostRail.com]

Building it will cost you, like others have said. If you try to do it yourself, I can guarantee it will fail. To compete with those other sites on that level, you have to have a professional designed site that works internally (user accounts, listings, etc). That is just the beginning. Those other sites became popular because of TV and radio ads. Do you have the money for that as well? If you end up with a lot of traffic to your site, you should also expect to pay $200-600/month for 2+ dedicated servers to run the website as the traffic grows.

[flnazrael]

Yes, what you are talking about is a relatively large undertaking. There may be some open source solutions for this, but I doubt it.

[YoungNFocused08]

I'd say the best thing to do is find a "commercial script" (a script that must be purchased.) Then survey other sites and get a idea for what they have and how you can beat it.

I honestly in a sense don't think it'll take $x,xxx+ for this project assuming you outsource it. oDesk.com is your friend

In any case, here are some straight tips:

1. Use a commercial script to start up, once you start generating income, then have a custom script written
2. Work with some auto advertisers to offer exclusive deals to your members that they'd love
3. Promote using PPC search marketing and I'd also suggest a few PRINT publication advertisements. Find the right magazines and you'll be successful *(assuming it doesn't cost a arm and a leg for the advertising spot.)
4. If your using a commercial script (which I'd suggest over an open source) - you can also hire programmers to create enhancements for the system. Once again, oDesk is your friend
5. To start off, I'd say offer affiliate programs as well in conjunction with personal advertisement on the site.

When starting off, I'd say the most you need is a shared hosting plan but as someone said above, once traffic starts rolling in you'll need a dedicated server. Although saying you'll need 2 servers is pushing the envelope a bit.

[startupstudent.com]

makemoves617,

I agree with YoungNFocused08. His advise was legit.

For this type of undertaking I would talk to a consultant. Someone that has done this type of development before and knows what they are doing. Here are a couple of my suggestions.

1. I am always a fan of market research. Is this a 'need' or something that will help you make a profit? Put together a online survey and email it to some people that you know around town. Other dealerships etc. You could have the best idea in the world but if no one agrees then it is useless. Make sure your survey goes to people in your target market! I like polldaddy.com for surveys. They do a great job and are extremely professional.

2. There are commercial and open source 'listing' scripts out there ... be careful with them. I have never purchased a commercial script. I have had to many friends screwed over by them. I would suggest asking around town. Even going to a local website that you like and emailing them asking who did there site. Go to a site you like email them and ask who did it.

3. If your going to go with hosting I would suggest rackspace.com they are legit. They are pricey but you get amazing customer support. I would also suggest going with a Ruby on Rails developer because the type of application that you are suggesting would be considerably easy to produce with Ruby on Rails rather than PHP/MySQL.

Hope that helps ...

-Adam

[ukevents]

Went to autotrader.com and redirected to Used Cars UK : Nearly New Cars UK

[millionaire]

do you mind to consider website builder or automatic installer, and sincere support?

[GUN]

do you mind to consider website builder or automatic installer, and sincere support?

Websitebuilder is a nice resource in many ways and can be get for free from some companies.