by Clive Sutton - Wednesday, 12th December 2007 -

With most manufacturers introducing New Year models in the last quarter, industry insiders estimate that there is a staggering 400,000 unsold existing-model new cars on forecourts across the UK. And they need to be sold, believe me!

So what goes on at this time? Well, having been in the motoring industry for more Christmases than I’d like to admit, I’m all too familiar with the incentives offered by manufacturers to encourage dealers to hit registration targets. These incentives, usually retrospective financial bonuses, are offered to dealers to shift as many vehicles as they can before the year end, all in the hope of claiming an extra slice of the market-share pie.

In fact, many unsold cars will be registered in the dealer’s name (known as pre-reg) and are then marketed in January at knock-down prices. But before the sound of Auld Lang Syne can be heard across the UK, there are some serious savings to be made by consumers in December.

The problem for the consumer, of course, is locating a car that meets their requirements at the best market price. Historically, they have been confined to either trawling through manufacturer websites or visiting various search engine sites mainly designed for
used cars.

If you go down the manufacturer website route, this leads you to your local dealers – often one and the same company. This can mean similar prices and no way of knowing if there is a dealer out there who’s got a better offer. Motoring search engines such as eBay Motors or Auto Trader are a great way of finding and comparing used cars, but unfortunately they don’t deal with new vehicles.

Looking to the more general search engine for counsel has left many new car shoppers complaining of "search engine fatigue": finding many thousands of confusing search engine results for a seeming simple question.

I tried this out myself and a Google search for "New Mini Cooper London" produces 474,000 results. An attempt to further refine the search to "New Mini Cooper London Best Deal" increases the number of results to 787,000! Crazy!

With an estimated 85 per cent of all new car buyers going online before setting foot in a showroom, most of these consumers are left high and dry with product information, but no tools to buy a specific car at a competitive market price!

This got me thinking: with more and more consumers opting to shop online, it seemed foolish that motorists looking to buy a new vehicle at a competitive price should
miss out.

Given it’s the end of the year, and the season of goodwill, I hope you don’t mind me indulging myself, but at the same time giving you potentially an early Christmas present. My recently launched website Motorati.co.uk is for consumers that are ready to buy and want to find the best deal out there, without trawling endlessly through showrooms and websites.

Using Motorati.co.uk will help put motorists in contact with dealers from all over the UK who are keen to strike a Christmas deal, guaranteeing them the best possible price.

So, Motorati is my Christmas present to you. Give it a go amidst the deluge of wrapping paper and mince pies. Happy Christmas!

Clive

www.motorati.co.uk