CarWoo Chronicle

CarWoo! Partners With FindTheBest To Deliver The Ideal Car Buying Experience

April 20, 2012 – Burlingame, Calif. – Live now on FindTheBest’s Car Comparison site, CarWoo! provides buyers with the ability to quickly and easily get great market prices on their chosen vehicle while retaining their privacy.  FindTheBest and CarWoo! have partnered to deliver a seamless and consumer friendly car buying experience from research and comparison through agreement on the final price.

“FindTheBest lets buyers really zoom in on the exact car they are looking for with their Car Comparison,” explains Tommy McClung, CarWoo!’s CEO.  “Armed with that information, CarWoo! is able to help them get that car in the easiest, most efficient way possible.  Aligned on making the entire car buying experience easy, our partnership provides end-to-end ease for buyers.”

McClung continues, “It was important to FindTheBest that people who used their premier comparison tool receive prestige treatment through the buying experience.  They were not interested in exposing their users to the traditional ‘free quote’ system where they become ‘leads’ and are then hassled by unwanted calls and emails.  They saw CarWoo! as a smart alternative.”

Car buyers in the CarWoo! MarketPlace are able to select the car they are looking for and receive detailed, VIN Identified offers from several local dealers.  Through this process, buyers can be assured that they are receiving excellent market prices without giving up their privacy or having to visit multiple dealers.  They are able to arrive at a final, agreed price for their desired car before they set foot in the dealership.

Access to the CarWoo! MarketPlace is available now though FindTheBest, as well as directly from CarWoo.com and many other partners.

About CarWoo!

CarWoo! provides the online MarketPlace where buyers get great deals with no games and dealers are able sell cars online using their own unique approaches with a full understanding of the buyers through the CarWoo! transparent MarketPlace.  Buyers remain anonymous, get great market prices, save a ton of time and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within 3.5 days 80% of the time.  As seen on The Today Show, CNN Money and other leading national media outlets, CarWoo! is the only true online MarketPlace for car buyers and sellers.  CarWoo! was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young.  With early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Ventures and InterWest Partners, and others.  Find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/carwoo and on Twitter at twitter.com/carwoo.

About FindTheBest

FindTheBest is an unbiased, data-driven comparison engine. We organize and present data in a consumer-friendly format so that you can make quick and informed decisions based on what’s important to you. What Kayak does for travel, FindTheBest does for the thousands of other decisions in your life.  Started by DoubleClick founder Kevin O’Connor and backed by Kleiner Perkins, FindTheBest is a data-driven comparison engine that allows users to find and compare their options across more than 800 different categories.

BURLINGAME, Calif., Jan. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — According to CarWoo!‘s first infographic of 2012, men and West Coast buyers got the best deals on new cars in 2011.  Current shoppers are able to use the data revealed in this infographic as a key research tool, helping them with their car buying decisions.  All of the data was based on new car offers in the CarWoo! MarketPlace in 2011.

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click here.

Based on CarWoo! data, the top 12 makes for saving money in 2011 were Jeep, Nissan, Chrysler, Suzuki, Ford, Buick, Mazda, Infiniti, Kia, Dodge, Chevrolet, and Mitsubishi. Jeep led the pack with an average discount of 17.7% off MSRP for CarWoo! buyers.

When broken up by region, CarWoo! MarketPlace data shows that buyers on the West Coast garnered slightly higher savings in 2011 than buyers in other regions, with an average of 10.5% off MSRP across all makes. Buyers in the Northeast averaged 10% off all makes.  Buyers in the middle of the country, such as the Midwest or Mountain Region, saved 9.9% and 9.3%, respectively.

“Our data suggests, not surprisingly, that people living in more densely populated areas get somewhat better offers,” said Tommy McClung, CarWoo! CEO. “If you live in a more rural part of the country, the data suggests that being open to a larger geographic search may result in better offers.”

The 2011 CarWoo! MarketPlace data also indicated that women and older adults search for less expensive cars than men and middle aged adults. People in the 35 – 44 year-old age range seek the most expensive cars – their average offer price is around $33,630, compared with $30,742 for buyers aged 45 – 54. As far as savings go, men and women seem to fare about the same in the CarWoo! MarketPlace, with men saving around 10.3% off MSRP on average and women saving around 10.2% on average. This keeps with an earlier MarketPlace finding that this online MarketPlace eliminates gender bias.

Unique to the CarWoo! MarketPlace is the fact that buyers are kept anonymous until they are actually ready to accept an offer and work with a specific dealer.

“Dealers don’t know how old our buyers are, or if they’re men or women, and this anonymity levels the playing field,” McClung said.  ”Dealers give our buyers uniformly good offers simply to earn their business regardless of gender, age or ethnicity.”

The infographic can be found at carwoo.com/infographics.

 December 14, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. – CarWoo! announces the closing of a $6M funding round, bringing total funding to over $12M.  With the funding, CarWoo! is adding industry veterans Rudi Thun, formerly General Manager of AOL Autos, and Phil Yeh, previously from Dealix.

CarWoo! finalized the additional funding from investors InterWest Partners, Comcast Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Raymond Tonsing and others.  Having more than quadrupled its dealer network over the past year to over 11,000 dealers, CarWoo! intends to use this round of funding to continue that level of growth with their consumers, to launch new products, to further develop the team and to cultivate strategic partnerships.

Michael Yang, Managing Director at Comcast Ventures, says, “We are excited to be part of such a fast growing company.  The trajectory that CarWoo! is on with regard to engaging car shoppers, dealers, and automotive manufacturers has accelerated over the last year.  CarWoo! has positioned themselves as the win-win solution in the industry.”

The addition of Thun as Chief Operating Officer and Yeh as Vice President of Marketing brings additional industry specific expertise and discipline to the existing CarWoo! team.

Thun comes to CarWoo! after over nine years at AOL, where he was responsible for the strategy, product, marketing, editorial, design, and development of AOL Autos and Autoblog.com.  During the past several years Thun doubled AOL’s automotive web traffic to over 10M unique visitors per month while also doubling revenue.  Thun is a graduate of Cornell University and earned an MBA from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

“CarWoo! is the most innovative online automotive company I have seen in a long time,” says Thun.  “When the opportunity came to join the CarWoo! team, I was eager to jump on board.  I truly believe that CarWoo! will permanently change the way cars are bought and sold and I really look forward to being a part of the change.”

Yeh joins CarWoo! from SpeedDate.com where he was also Vice President of Marketing.  Previously, he spent four years at Dealix, the largest lead provider to auto dealers nationwide, where he was Director of Marketing and ran consumer marketing for automotive portals including UsedCars.com.  Yeh holds a degree in Business Administration and attended Santa Clara University School of Law.

“Having Rudi and Phil join our team, closing this round of funding, and demonstrating the strong progress to date are all great endorsements of what we are doing,” says Tommy McClung, CEO of CarWoo!.  “We have gained significant traction throughout the industry.  CarWoo! is supporting over 11,000 dealers, and with our new initiatives in 2012, we are poised to become the foremost online destination for car buyers and sellers alike.”

As Horror Stories Abound, CarWoo! Reveals Car Buyers Bill of Rights 

November 11, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. – In the face of an ever increasing number of disgruntled buyers, CarWoo! presents its Bill of Rights for car buyers.  This Car Buyer Bill of Rights, based on the buyer’s experience in the CarWoo! MarketPlace declares the rights which should be available to all car buyers.  Buyer’s horror stories about their car buying experiences caused CarWoo! to deliver this Bill Of Rights.

“The car buying experience has been dreaded for far too long,” says Tommy McClung, CEO of CarWoo!.  “When the Millenials prefer a visit to the dentist over going to a dealership, you know that there is a systemic problem.  The online CarWoo! MarketPlace helps deliver the rights which should have been available to buyers all along.”

Among the eight rights included in CarWoo!’s Car Buyer Bill of Rights are:

• The right to privacy through anonymity so you avoid unwanted calls, emails and aggressive dealers.
• The right to convenience and efficiency so that you can buy a car on your own schedule and as quickly as you choose.
• The right to competitive market prices that you can confident in so that you know you are getting a great price.
• The right to professional and respectful interactions with fair and honest dealers so that you have an enjoyable and productive experience.
• The right to honest, comprehensive prices so that are for real cars so that you know when you get to the dealership your car will be there at the price you agreed to.

The complete text of the CarWoo! Car Buyer Bill of Rights can be found online at carwoo.com/bill_of_rights with additional information on CarWoo!’s blog, The CarWoo! Chronicle.

“Buyers do have rights when it comes to buying a car,” continues McClung.  “Most fundamentally, they have the right to a great car buying experience.”

CarWoo! will be publishing stories of buyers who have great or less than great experiences buying their cars.  Buyers are encouraged to send their stories to buyers-rights@carwoo.com.

About CarWoo!

CarWoo!, as seen on The Today Show, CNN Money and other leading national media outlets, is the only true online marketplace for car buyers and sellers.  In the CarWoo! marketplace buyers remain anonymous, get great market prices, save a ton of time and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within 3.5 days 80% of the time.  It was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young. With early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and Interwest Partners. Find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/carwoo and on Twitter at twitter.com/carwoo.

Enabled by the CarWoo! MarketPlace, DealerRater releases PrivateBuy to consumer members offering an online service providing auto consumers the ability to get great market prices and a positive online car buying experience while maintaining their anonymity

November 3, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. – CarWoo! announces a strategic partnership with DealerRater through which the CarWoo! MarketPlace enables DealerRater’s recently launched PrivateBuy.  For consumer members, PrivateBuy provides the CarWoo! MarketPlace which is an anonymous online car buying marketplace where multiple dealers provide competitive offers before the selected dealer obtains the personal information of the buyer.

“At DealerRater we believe that car buyers are entitled to a great experience and to know, in advance, who is going to treat them well,” says Chip Grueter, DealerRater President.  “CarWoo! definitely assures the quality of the online buying experience and by teaming with them, we know that, with our combined reviews and their process, car buyers are going to be well informed and fully satisfied.”

In addition to DealerRater’s consumer members, all CarWoo! buyers will gain access to the DealerRater reviews through this partnership.  DealerRater’s over 460,000 dealer reviews will be incorporated into the CarWoo! MarketPlace reputation system providing all CarWoo! users with comprehensive dealer and dealership reviews as they make their purchase decisions.

“CarWoo! powers a fantastic car buying experience for consumers,” says CarWoo! CEO Tommy McClung.  “We are delighted to provide the CarWoo! MarketPlace to the highly informed DealerRater consumer members with this powered by CarWoo! experience.   Enabling buyers to have even greater insight into dealer quality by incorporating the DealerRater reviews into our reputation system is truly exciting for CarWoo!.  Consumers absolutely win with this partnership.”

Additional details are available on the CarWoo! blog, The CarWoo! Chronicle.

About CarWoo!

CarWoo!, as seen on The Today Show, CNN Money and other leading national media outlets, is the only true online marketplace for car buyers and sellers.  In the CarWoo! marketplace buyers remain anonymous, get great market prices, save a ton of time and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within 3.5 days 80% of the time.  It was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young. With early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and Interwest Partners. Find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/carwoo and on Twitter at twitter.com/carwoo.

About DealerRater

DealerRater was founded in 2002 as the first car dealer review website worldwide.  DealerRater is the world’s #1 online resource for anyone seeking third-party information on automobile dealerships.   DealerRater features more than 41,000 U.S. and International car dealers, 460,000 user reviews and over 1,000,000 cars for sale.  DealerRater attracts more than 5 million consumers every year who visit the site to search for car dealerships, read current reviews, write their own descriptive reviews, and find car deals – all for free.  Car dealers are rated on the criteria of customer service, quality of work, friendliness, price and overall experience.  In addition, DealerRater offers qualified car dealers a Certified Dealer Program as a reputation management tool to help them grow their online presence and achieve higher SEO rankings across the Web.  Today, more than 4,100 dealers are members of DealerRater’s Certification Program.  For more information, visit www.DealerRater.com or call 800-266-9455.

Targeting the 56% of Gen Y buyers who prefer to shop exclusively online, Dealer Plus empowers Dealers to provide buyers the best online experience while holding their margin

October 5, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. and Las Vegas, NV– CarWoo! announces general availability of its CarWoo! Dealer Plus™ product to help dealers sell more cars and provide the best online experience for buyers while simultaneously eliminating the “race to the bottom” enabling them to hold their margins.  Driving incremental traffic as well as increasing Internet Lead and Be-Back close ratios, it provides actionable information and insights from the CarWoo! MarketPlace. Dealer Plus equips Internet Departments to address the online buying requirements of Gen Y. These buyers, who represent over $4.5B of car sales this year, require that dealers continually improve their online practices, earn positive customer reviews through professional engagement and generally provide the ideal online shopping experience.

“We believe that Dealer Plus completely changes the Internet Sales landscape,” says CarWoo! CEO, Tommy McClung.  “CarWoo! is unique in that we provide the best experience for the buyer and the dealer, and no other company or service achieves that.  By providing complete transparency throughout the online process, we ensure that dealers are not required to engage in a race to the bottom and that they can win by being professional, responsive and by providing a price that is simply competitive.”

“With this product we provide dealers with all the tools necessary to provide the best online experience with real-time tips and guidance for improvement. We also bridge the internet department and showroom floor with the Be-Back Saver which allows dealers to capture and close those elusive Be-Backs and also the tools to transparently and effectively engage Internet shoppers.  Today, Gen Y represents 25% of new car buyers and over 50% of them would prefer to shop entirely online.  Dealer Plus provides the exact tools required for successful selling to this $4.5B segment,” adds McClung.

“CarWoo! absolutely got it right with this product,” says Mark Rikess, Founder and CEO of The Rikess Group.  “They had a great start with their basic CarWoo! Marketplace product and Dealer Plus extends online sales capabilities in a direction and with an effectiveness that no else can even come close to.  This is definitely a real game changer.”

While the CarWoo! MarketPlace remains free to dealers and dealers will still be notified of buyers in their area who have paid to participate in the MarketPlace, Dealer Plus participants see additional buyers who select them because of their improved star ratings.  Key features of CarWoo! Dealer Plus include:

• Dealer Plus Engage:
• 25 CarWoo! buyers per month after 60 days
• Unique URL for Be-Backs and Internet Leads offering CarWoo! at no charge to the buyer and complete transparency to the dealer
• Enhanced dealer and dealership profiles which support unique marketing copy and photo uploads
• Review reconciliation by a dealership expert (i.e. a Customer Service Specialist)
• Advanced training and achievement distinction
• CarWoo! personal courtesy action reminders
• DealerInsights throughout the product providing:
• Actionable information as to how to improve performance and ranking
• Specific information about which deals are about to close and which offers are most interesting to the buyer (the “InterestBar™” and “Deal Heat™”)
• Account Owner, Salesperson, Reputation Management and other roles providing different in product views
• The ability to flag suspicious offers to eliminate less reputable dealers from the MarketPlace
• The Be Back saver to allow retention of hard to close price shoppers by providing an online shopping solution for the buyer

McClung continues, “Since its inception, CarWoo! has been about real innovation in the automotive industry and about enabling the best online car buying and selling experience.  Over 10,000 dealers have validated our initial concepts and we have over fifty dealers who have worked with us through the early days of Dealer Plus.  We are excited to be releasing this product to the general dealer community.”

CarWoo!’s Dealer Plus is available nationally and for all makes.

“I was a participant in the CarWoo! MarketPlace from very nearly the beginning, and I have always thought it was a great place to meet real buyers and sell cars,” says Owner and General Manager of St. Augustine Hyundai, Andrew DiFeo.  “Dealer Plus has made my team’s job easier, while also helping us sell even more cars.  The combination of the insights with the Interest Bar and Deal Heat, the ability to really differentiate my store with my enhanced profile, and then to bring the internet to the floor with the Be Back Saver, makes selling cars simple.  This is just another great product from CarWoo!.”

Dealer Plus is available today for the general Dealer community with introductory pricing of $499 per month per franchise.  CarWoo! is presenting Dealer Plus at the Digital Dealer Exposition in Booth 1211, with their annual party to be held Thursday evening in The Paradise Café at the Mirage Hotel.

Benefiting Opportunity Impact, FOG Rally Kicks Off With Launch Party On September 22

 September 8, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. –CarWoo!, presenting sponsor for the Ferrari Owners Group Road Rally from San Francisco to Los Angeles announces that Dartanyan Brown, recently inducted into Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, will perform at the Rally Launch Party on September 22.   Jamie Davis, who Clint Eastwood has described as his favorite jazz vocalist, will perform at the Rally Banquet  on September 24 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.  All proceeds from the rally and its associated events are being donated to San Francisco based charity, Opportunity Impact.

Dartanyan’s career in music defies boundaries. He is a recent inductee into the Central Iowa Blues Society’s revered Hall of Fame, while jazz bible Downbeat Magazine, as early as 1974 noted him as “one of the few electric bassists in jazz exploring the melodic possibilities of his axe.”   While he has been a thrilling performer onstage, his work in the classroom has been inspirational to the hundreds of students he has worked with over the last 15 years.

Following Davis’ outstanding performance in London with the BBC’s sixty-four piece Orchestra and Big Band, Sir Michael Parkinson, the BBC’s arbiter of important international jazz proclaimed, Jamie as the ˜chocolate voiced baritone”. Clint Eastwood is another fan of Jamie and inspired by his performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival, exclaimed “…Jamie Davis is one of my favorite singers.”
Sharing his passion for music with his audiences at venues around the Globe, Jamie performs at Yoshi’s in San Francisco, Dizzy’s and The Blue Note in New York, Milan, Tokyo, Istanbul and Ronnie Scott’s in London and recently the Union of Composers Jazz Club, Moscow. Monterey, Sacramento, Aspen, Lake Tahoe, Dubai, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Annecy and Serbia Jazz festivals and not forgetting the popular Holland America Jazz cruises.

The rally festivities begin with a Launch Party at Ferrari of San Francisco on Thursday evening, September 22 at 6PM.  In addition to Dartanyan Brown, the 50 rally Ferraris will be on display and the drivers will be in attendance including Virginia Bamford, the only female driver in the rally.  She is driving a very rare 2011 White 458 Italia with carbon fiber rocker panels and other custom accents rarely seen on Ferraris.  Virginia  has a personal straight line racing record at the Salt Flats of 196 miles per hour in her Lamborghini Super Vellacio.

Premier wineries including Hall, Rubicon, Boisset-Raymond, Viansa, Spring Mountain and Penfolds will be serving their fine wines.  Heavy appetizers will be served as well.   Attendance is expected to be around 500 guests, including other local celebrities and luminaries.  Tickets are still available for $100 each and may be obtained on the FOG Rally website (http://www.fogrally.com/register.)

The rally itself kicks off on Friday morning, September 23, precisely at 9:30AM following a launch breakfast at Piazza D’Angelo Restaurant in Mill Valley.  Drivers and their cars will be available from 7:30AM.  Emily LoSavio, Executive Director for Opportunity Impact will also be present.

At 9:30AM the California Highway Patrol will escort the Ferrari caravan across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Cars and drivers will arrive for the night at the Mar Monte Hotel in Santa Barbara between 5:00PM and 6:00PM.

After making their way into Los Angeles, drivers, guests and friends will gather at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel at 6:00PM for cocktails, a charity auction, fund raising awards, a banquet and live entertainment, including Jamie Davis.  One “item” being auctioned is a dinner prepared in your home by for up to ten people by Chef Dominique Chen (also attending the Launch Party) who has been Michelin starred in 2009, 2010 and 2011 and is an Iron Chef Winner.  Tickets for this event are $250 per person and can also be obtained on the FOG Rally website.

In preparation for the rally, there will be a logo “wrap party” taking place at T & R Automotive on California Street in San Francisco on Sunday, September 11.  The cars will be arriving starting at 9:00 AM, in shifts, to have the sponsor logos strategically and identically applied to each one.  There is a planned lunch break for the drivers, and the second “shift” begins at 1:00, with the day tentatively slated to end around 4:00PM.

Additional details on the rally, including the route and driver information and on Opportunity Impact can be found on the Fog Rally website or on the CarWoo! Chronicle.

About CarWoo!

CarWoo!, as seen on The Today Show, CNN Money and other leading national media outlets, is the only online marketplace for car buyers and sellers where buyers remain anonymous and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within two weeks 80% of the time. It was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young with early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and Interwest Partners. Find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/carwoo and on Twitter at twitter.com/carwoo.

About Opportunity Impact

Opportunity Impact was founded in 2007.  Opportunity Impact offers youth the skills needed to be free from the obstacles faced in our lowest income communities and to gain the opportunity to create the life they desire.

Our goal is to create a new reality of unlimited opportunity for this generation of youth who are growing up in America’s lowest income communities.   The Executive Director for Opportunity Impact is Emily LoSavio.  An informational video interview with Emily LoSavio can be seen here.

About The Ferrari Owners Group

FOG’s chief mission is to harness the spectacle of exotic and vintage Ferraris in order to draw attention to and raise support for worthy charitable causes. FOG also provides a calendar of driving and other social events for Ferrari owners and resources for local services.  Visit our monthly events calendar to learn about upcoming track days, GT rallies, wine country tours and other events in which you may wish to take part.

Industry Wide Consumer Prices Improved 7% Over June

 August 10, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. – According to CarWoo! (www.carwoo.com), the only true online MarketPlace for car buyers and sellers, prices for new car buyers improved 7% over June.  Nissan and Ford remained the discount leaders offering 10.38% and 8.38% discounts off MSRP respectively.

The most popular makes for online car buyers remained Toyota and Honda, with Toyota once again passing Honda to retake the top spot in buyer popularity.  Audi jumped to be the fourth most popular vehicle, moving up from the twelfth position in June.  Ford moved up from fifth place in June to third in July.  Nissan dropped from third in June to fifth in July.  BMW was the biggest loser online dropping from fourth in June to seventh in July.

Prices, which appeared to have reached their highest prices in May and early June are generally showing steady consumer improvement.  Toyota prices dropped by 5% in July to 5.64% of MSRP while Honda prices held steady at a 4.1% discount.  Notwithstanding its online popularity, Audi’s discount dropped from 4.22% in June to 2.1% in July.

CarWoo! MarketPlace prices include incentives.

According to Tommy McClung, CarWoo! CEO, “We are seeing a steady drop in prices across the board.  As inventory levels stabilize later in August, we anticipate major prices wars starting up.  Early fall looks like it could be a great time to buy a car.”

Additional information can be found on the CarWoo! Chronicle.

CarWoo! recently passed 100,000 fans on Facebook.  In celebration of this CarWoo! has launched a sweepstakes on Facebook and will give away a Honda Fit when it reaches 200,000 fans.   Details for the sweepstakes can be found at the CarWoo! Chronicle or on Facebook.

About CarWoo!

CarWoo!, as seen on The Today Show, CNN Money and other leading national media outlets, is the only online marketplace for car buyers and sellers.  It was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young. It is the only online marketplace where buyers remain anonymous and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within two weeks 80% of the time. With early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and Interwest Partners. Find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/carwoo and on Twitter at twitter.com/carwoo.

Buyers Negotiate Longer And Harder When Discounts Are Low

 August 31, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. – CarWoo! data, obtained from their online MarketPlace for new car buyers and sellers, reveals that after peaking during July, the rigor of negotiation appears to be lessening as new car prices begin to return to first quarter levels.

In March of 2011, online new car buyers were making their purchase decisions in just over one day.  By July, as the full effects of the inventory disruption impacted new car prices, buyers were taking nearly two full days to make their decisions.  The online interactions between buyers and dealers increased over 30% between March and July.

Prices in August began trending back toward early 2011 prices and as of the end of August, buyers are making their decisions in 1.5 days and are interacting with dealers only 10% more than in March.

“The CarWoo! MarketPlace allows us to observe all aspects of the online transaction,” says Tommy McClung, CarWoo! CEO.  “We are able to see the interaction between price and buyer behavior.  As buyer interaction went up, we also saw the importance of dealer behavior.  As we have observed before, professionalism trumps price in these negotiations, with the winning offer being the lowest less than 43% of the time.”

Additional information can be found on the CarWoo! Chronicle.

CarWoo! recently passed 100,000 fans on Facebook.  In celebration of this CarWoo! has launched a sweepstakes on Facebook and will give away a Honda Fit when it reaches 200,000 fans.   Details for the sweepstakes can be found at the CarWoo! Chronicle or on Facebook.

About CarWoo!

CarWoo!, as seen on The Today Show, CNN Money and other leading national media outlets, is the only online marketplace for car buyers and sellers where buyers remain anonymous and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within two weeks 80% of the time. It was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young with early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and Interwest Partners. Find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/carwoo and on Twitter at twitter.com/carwoo.

CarWoo! MarketPlace Data Show Nissan Outpacing Industry Discounts By 100%

 August 24, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. – Online car buyers are seeing Nissan offering discounts that average 11.9% in August, compared with the industry average of 5.5% (all CarWoo! MarketPlace prices includes rebates, incentives and other discounts.)  Nissan buyers make up 7.2% of online buyers in the CarWoo! MarketPlace.

In the pickup category, the Nissan Frontier is currently offering buyers discounts over 15.8%.  For SUV lovers, the Armada is leaving showrooms with 14.8% discounts.  The Altima family sedan is being sold 13.6% below MSRP.  The already low priced Nissan Versa is selling below the Nissan average at 7.0% discounts, still 27% better than the industry average.

“Through this period of inventory disruption and complicated market forces, Nissan has maintained it’s position offering discounts substantially better than the industry average,” says Tommy McClung, CarWoo! CEO.  “People looking to buy cars at a great deal as we approach the end of summer have to look at Nissan.  Ford remains aggressive as a domestic brand, continuing to offer discounts in excess of 7%.”

Data from the CarWoo! MarketPlace reflects real time offers being provided to consumers.  This data is available because all offers are placed within and through the MarketPlace.  The data reflects all prices that dealers were willing to offer.

Additional information can be found on the CarWoo! Chronicle.

CarWoo! recently passed 100,000 fans on Facebook.  In celebration of this CarWoo! has launched a sweepstakes on Facebook and will give away a Honda Fit when it reaches 200,000 fans.   Details for the sweepstakes can be found at the CarWoo! Chronicle or on Facebook.

About CarWoo!

CarWoo!, as seen on The Today Show, CNN Money and other leading national media outlets, is the only online marketplace for car buyers and sellers where buyers remain anonymous and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within two weeks 80% of the time. It was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young with early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and Interwest Partners. Find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/carwoo and on Twitter at twitter.com/carwoo.