Automark.co.za: second-hand vehicle buying made easy

With new car sales dropping in excess of thirty percent every month, year on year, the car industry is in a dire situation. With the recession resulting in potential buyers having less disposable income or access to credit people are trading down either to smaller or second-hand cars.

While new car sales are lagging, the used car market is still selling as many cars as before. Current figures show us that used cars outsell new cars by a factor of two to one and that they are losing less value than ever.

What second-hand car buyers are so desperate for is an easily accessible, reputable location to find second hand cars. Automark, the Toyota second hand car brand has recently launched a new, user-friendly website to address this need.

The new site is built on a technology known as Ajax and what this means is that the site works like an application on your computer. Explains James Smith, Toyota’s Manager for Web Communication Systems:

“Essentially you need to download and install the website much like you would when installing a programme on your computer. Simply put, the site loads a little slower to begin with but what this means is that there is no reloading of any pages when searches or filtering occurs. The slightly longer initial load times result in instantaneous searches as well as instant filtering.”

“The site is uniquely positioned to allow for people with no technical competence to easily find the car that best suits their need while at the same time allow for more efficient interaction with dealers.”

He adds that a fairly large amount of time was spent looking at the current websites available for buying cars online while developing the Automark site.

“What was discovered in this comparison process was the lack of visuals and as such the emphasis on the new Automark site is to provide a visual experience for car buyers. For many buyers it is the looks that provide the added push to make the purchase of a vehicle. The Automark site has strong emphasis on imagery to provide a stimulus resulting in the purchase of a vehicle.”

Users can search either via car make, price or by car type. The site then allows the user to filter their results down even further by categories such as model year, province and accessories. In order to help a user decide there is also the ability to make a comparison between four different vehicles. Once chosen you can compare kilometres, price as well as accessories. When searching for vehicles the user is also given a list of 'recommended vehicles', making the process of finding a vehicle even easier.

With online shopping slowly becoming more and more prevalent in South Africa a potential buyer could actually buy a car directly from their bedroom and have it delivered once financing has been approved.

Visit the site on www.automark.co.za