Hello Everyone,

 

i am currently living in a developing country which i have been visiting regularly for over 7 years, i want to set up a really nice quality but stripped down and lite version of autotrader, simplifying the process of creating a listing and reduce the data transfer requirements to a minimum bringing on-line vehicle trading within the reach of everyone.

 

right now the internet speeds are poor but with the proportion of the population with access to a smart phone increasing and internet quality set to improve year on year now is the right time to get something really user friendly and tweaked for this climate up and running as soon as possible, get everyone using it and corner the market!

 

once the product is right i have a good strategy for marketing to get a large numbers of vehicles and users on to the site at a low cost.

 

only problem is that i know nothing about website building and/or online business! (i am starting a crash course as type)

 

i was considering buying and adapting Netartmedia's 'car portal' to get a model of the functions that i want to have on the site working and get the site up and running to demonstrate to prospective investors.

 

does anybody have any experience with Netartmedia's 'car portal' or any other 'off the shelf package like this..? what would the limitations be..?

 

any advice would be greatly appreciated...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi,

I used an older version of Net Art media's Car portal back in 2012.

 

It was ok , no major problems, it was easy to set up, easy to integrate a design and it was easy to add dealers and banners etc.

 

The older version was good value for money. However I haven't used the latest version.

Two systems spring to mind:

 

http://www.68classifieds.com/ - getting old but works well, very light footprint which is ideal for slow connections

http://www.subrion.com/product/autos.html which is a premade Car classified system, lots of options, basically an extended version of http://www.subrion.org/ CMS

 

If you get a good developer on board you should be able to create a well optimised system that's suited for your average connection speeds.

firstly, thanks for your responses...

 

i was half expecting to be advised to 'only build from the ground up'... I'm now tempted to buy one of the above packages and and find a developer to help me customise it to exactly what i want...

how do in go about finding a developer? is this customisation something that can be done remotely..? what are the costs likely to be..?

 

also, any recommendations on where to source domain name and hosting... and what its likely to cost..?

 

 

sorry about all the basic questions but i have to start somewhere.. )

Which of the world are you located in, It helps to find hosting in a region close to where your main users will be.

 

To find a developer, you can post a job in the job board in this forum.

Well you could build something custom but there are numerous off the shelf "classifieds" style CMS's which give you the foundation anyway, no need to reinvent the wheel. They key is to choose a system that's flexible enough for your needs, some classifieds systems aren't too good, but others are well established and will do everything you want.

 

http://www.wsnclassifieds.com/ is another very flexible system, http://www.hotscripts.com/category/scripts/php/scripts-programs/classified-ads has loads listed!

 

For hosting what country are you in? It normally makes sense to host a site in your target country for the best speed.

Appologies for the delay.. i was unable to get online...

 

i am in Guinea Bissau, but want to start the site in a country nearby, the idea is to have sections for a few neighbouring countries on one 'hub' website. eventually becoming a one-stop site for users across the area because many vehicles are bought and sold in the region by customers from different countries...

 

i looked through what was on offer on the hotscript list and i still like net art medias 'car portal'. if i am able to customise it and simplify it then it could be made into something close enough to what i want. the functionality and style of the site are clearly very important and i need to get that basically right first but whether or not the site is a success will be largely determined by marketing so i think its better to get something thats 'nearly right' up and running and focus on getting people to use it rather than spending a disproportionate amount of time, money and effort creating exactly what i had initially envisioned.

 

i realise that i don't have to become a developer in order to launch a site but i want to have a foundation knowledge of what I'm working with so i can at least ask the right questions when needed...therefor i have started online courses in HTML & CSS and MySql & PHP to learn the basics...im actually enjoying it so far..!

There is a couple of WP plugins and I know a few AutoTrader style websites that use it...

 

Im not sure about the tools suggested, but car platforms over here all give the option for larger dealers to give them a feed (XML) of all their cars etc. Might be worth seeing if the tool your are using can do that.

 

Also AutoTrader us CAP / Glass to get the vehicle technical details / valuations which comes at a cost for each car.

 

Have a think about the image hosting too because that could rack up some serious space.

 

The above sounds a lot further down the road but worth checking the tools you are using can accommodate if required.