A few days ago, a reporter from CarLocate.com’s “hometown” newspaper, the Dayton Daily News, dropped by our offices to find out more about the site and what we are up to. He was already pretty familiar with our parent company, Reynolds and Reynolds, but didn’t know much yet about CarLocate.com. (Read about Reynolds and CarLocate.com.)
Nicole, our general manager, gave the reporter a demo of the site and some background on how it was started, what we are trying to do, and what some of our plans are for future improvements to the site.
In the resulting news story, we think the reporter picked up on something very important – the CarLocate.com team is having a lot of fun in what is serious business: helping you “shop smart” for your next new or used car.
As a start-up inside a larger company, we’re able to put focused resources toward building a website that makes car shopping easier and more enjoyable for you. We’ve built the site from the ground up to give you the best search features possible and help you locate the car that best fits with what you want to buy and how you want to buy.
It’s fun. It’s hard work. It’s what we’re all about here at CarLocate.com.
Below are some excerpts from the article.
Reynolds and Reynolds lets affiliated dealers list vehicles on new website
Dayton Daily News
April 17, 2010
KETTERING — Check out CarLocate.com’s Facebook and YouTube channels and it might seem that folks behind the locally grown Web site are having fun.
But behind it is serious business: Connecting auto dealers to customers in what is a new way for Web site owner Reynolds and Reynolds.
Reynolds has long offered dealers a “Dealer Management System” to manage business. Now, Reynolds’ DMS customers can have their vehicles listed on CarLocate.com.
Reynolds started the site in summer 2009. Serious marketing began six months ago.
For Reynolds, focusing on consumers is new.
“It’s not really shifting our focus away from dealers to customers,” (Tom) Schwartz (the spokesperson for Reynolds) said. “It’s complementary.”
Read the full article.