Webzation and Industry News

Two of Webzation's clients received top honours at last night's Autotrader Click Awards.

The annual awards, which have been running now for five years, recognise best practise in automotive website usability.

Pentagon Group the multi franchised dealer group based in Derby won the Dealer Website of the year award and The Car People won the Car Supermarket Website of the Year award.

Webzation would like to congratulate both clients who have been recognised for their hard work and creativity in this field.

According to a report released by the Finance and Leasing Association on the 15th September 2011 the use of PCP to fund used cars has increased by 17% compared with the previous 12 months.

A breakdown of the financial products used by private purchasers of used cars shows that Hire Purchase remains the most popular method of financing through a dealership – accounting for 65% of finance on used cars. PCP accounted for 20% of used car finance. Personal loans arranged through the dealer were the other main source of finance.

Webzation has partnered with Trader Media Group’s digital marketing division RAZSOR to power their new dealer finance calculator. The Webzation Quoteware service is now fully integrated across the RAZSOR platform. By including interactive finance calculators alongside their vehicle stock, RAZSOR’s dealers now have access to functionality that has until now been the preserve of larger dealer groups.

According to an article by Motor Trader new research from Mintel has found that the internet accounted for 3 per cent of all new and used car sales in the UK.

Mintel said 200,000 vehicles, used and new, were purchased online in 2010 compared with total car sales of 8.1 million units.

Just over a third of consumers continue to opt for the traditional approach of going via a franchised or independent dealer to purchase their next car.

Well after 'days' of waiting we now have a new player in the market namely Tesco. Interestingly there hasn't been much comment about the Co-operative who have operated within the sector for a number of years and sell cars through traditional retail outlets. So what's in store (no pun intended) for the sector following Tesco's entrance within days of the demise of Autoquake? Well perhaps looking back through recent history we see can the future.

After five years in business online only car retailer Autoquake was placed in administration on 17th March 2011.

The website has won numerous awards for it's unique approach and hassle free consumer experience.

Administrators commented: ‘Autoquake was in investment mode as a business and required scale to become profitable; despite significant strides in the development of the business model it was unable to secure the funding required to build it to critical mass'.

More people chose to buy a new car using finance through a car dealer than any other finance option in 2010. 52.1% of new cars bought last year were bought using dealer motor finance, according to the latest statistics from the Finance & Leasing Association, the trade body for the motor finance industry.

New rights introduced today will give customers more control over how they manage their credit accounts and make it easier for them to shop around for the best deal. This is the message from the Finance & Leasing Association, which represents lenders offering credit cards, store cards, store instalment credit and unsecured loans. The main changes introduced today are:

South Wales based Hutchings Vauxhall has recently partnered with Webzation to help fulfil their web strategy. The partnership was featured in the January 2011 issue of Car Dealer Magazine.

The Finance and Leasing Association has published its latest motor finance data outlining November's performance.

More than 50,000 cars were financed through dealers and advances of £480M was up 14% on the previous year. This represents 51,129 cars financed which is up 16% year on year. The average balance financed is now £9,388.

The rise in used car finance comes in the same month as an 11 per cent fall in the number of new cars being bought by individuals on finance provided through dealerships compared with November 2009.

Webzation is delighted to announce the launch of Decisionware with client Mann Island Finance the UK's largest and most successful finance broker based in Liverpool. Mann Island Finance have access to just about all the main finance providers operating in the UK. Their motor finance and leasing business can now more effectively manage their vendor/dealer introduced applications and in effect match the the customer with the right lender or leasing company.

The October 2010 issue of Car Dealer Magazine featured an article about Webzation and East Midlands based Sandicliffe Motor Group. The article focused on how Webzation have helped Sandicliffe deliver their web aspirations and how Quoteware has been successful in demonstrating the affordability of Sandicliffe's used car stock and in creating a more interactive user experience.

Webzation are pleased to announce that we have completed the move of our technology centre to new offices which are conveniently located just off the M56 motorway in Cheshire.

Scott Rowland Webzation CTO commented; 'We had simply outgrown our Manchester premises. In looking for new office space to house our team of developers we wanted to ensure that we found a more accessible location, both for attracting new staff over the coming months and in order to ensure that our partners and clients could visit our team more easily when required. Our head office is still located in North Wales'.

Videoware, Webzation’s latest product delivers a complete video production solution for your website. In an age when 57% of UK adults use online video there has never been a better time to include video on your website.

Statistics show that over half of users take action after viewing an online video. This includes increased phone traffic, increased visits to dealerships and stores and an increase in click throughs of 30-40%.

New figures from the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) show that 264,377 people used forecourt finance to buy a new car in the first six months of 2010 (representing 49.4% of all new cars sold to consumers). This means more people used dealer finance than personal loans or savings to make a new car purchase. The number of new cars bought on finance was up 26% in the first half of 2010. New car finance sales in May 2010 increased by 15% compared to May 2009 and more than half of car buyers used dealer finance to fund their purchase that month.

Webaztion are delighted to announce that they will be judging the prestigious Car Dealer Magazine Ewards 2010!

This is the fourth year of the awards which recognise the very best websites in the sector in the following five categories;

1. Single Franchised Dealer
2. Multi Franchised Dealer
3. Car Supermarket
4. Independent Dealer
5. Car Manufacturer

Following extensive research Ford has found that four in ten buyers now want to buy their next car over the internet just as they would buy a washing machine or holiday. Perhaps surprisingly the research also found that these consumers would by a car over the Internet even without taking a test drive.

From today every model in Ford’s range will be available for consumers to purchase via FordOnline.co.uk and delivered for collection to one of 12 regional delivery centers where customers will inspect the vehicle before signing a final document and driving away.

Webzation is delighted to announce the appointment of James Tew to the board as CEO. James (formerly Managing Director of Codeweavers Limited) brings with him a wealth of experience from the automotive and financial services sector.

In a recent survey by HPI only 11% of car buyers surveyed said they would take out finance through a dealer. HPI found that 56% of of those looking for finance through dealers said that the rates were not competitive and 52% believed that there were fewer finance options open to them. 74% said that they were not worried about using credit for their next car purchase, however as the survey suggests they are less likely to look to dealers as a source for this credit.

Car Dealer Magazine has again featured an article about Webzation. The May 2010 issue of the magazine pointed out how Webzation’s Quoteware product is a powerful tool in making used cars look more affordable. In the article entitled 'Hidden gems' a parallel was draw with the success of the government backed scrappage scheme in making new cars more affordable to consumers.

Webzation are pleased to announce that Mike Davis has joined as Business Development Manager. Mike, formerly Sales Director at Southern Finance, brings a wealth of industry experience having worked in the Motor Retail and Motor Finance sector's for over 20 years.

On 11 February, the Government announced an extension to the transition period for implementing the Consumer Credit Directive (CCD), which will now run from June 2010 to January 2011.

The move follows intensive lobbying of the Government by the FLA in light of the continued delay in publishing the final regulations which are now currently expected before the end of March.

Webzation will keep you updated of any further developments in this area.

The April 2010 issue of Car Dealer Magazine featured a double page article about the products and services provided by Webzation.

It was announced this week that the Government’s Scrappage Incentive Scheme is to be extended by one month. The scheme will now end on March 31 or when the funding runs out. The move was said to have come after ‘intensive lobbying’ by the National Franchised Dealers Association.

The Government said the extension would give manufacturers and dealers “more time to prepare for and operate the exit phase of the scheme”. It also means scrappage will be a sales tool for dealers during the March plate change.

According to Fleet News HSBC has withdrawn from vehicle finance after four years of offering the service to its business customers through Lex (now Lex Autolease).

HSBC outsourced its vehicle finance business to Lex in 2005, at the time however Lex was part of Halifax. Following subsequent mergers and takeovers, Lex now forms part of the Lloyds Banking Group. As a result HSBC felt the referral agreement was "not meeting the expectations of either Lloyds or HSBC". Therefore, the banks have now reached a decision to end the referral agreement.

The Office of Fair Trading's Consumer Credit regulations are due to change on 11th June 2010. These new regulations are yet to be ratified but it looks certain that even those who complied fully with the current regulations will have to conduct a full review of their web-based consumer finance offering to ensure compliance from 11th June.

Webzation, the web technology experts, have launched Hostzation offering clients secure data hosting.

Dedicated servers located in Webzation's Manchester data centre provide the ultimate hosting solution for your business. Hostzation's network setup has been designed to keep your dedicated server available 24/7.

Webzation has agreed a deal for rack space to house its 16 high spec quad core servers.

The key to the reliability of internet services depends almost entirely on the infrastructure. Webzation's attention to detail in this area is the key to their reliability and demonstrates their commitment to being the best at what they do.

Web technology experts Webzation are pleased to announce that they have been accepted as a Microsoft BizSpark Partner.

The BizSpark programme provides Software, Support and Visibility for selected software companies. To qualify companies must be innovative and creative; they must also have a need to access and use the latest Microsoft software.