Does a car dealer still need its own website if it sells on DoneDeal?
Yes, for most dealers, but not instead of the portals. DoneDeal and Carzone are where Irish buyers search, so that is where many first enquiries come from. Your own website does the jobs a portal cannot: it shows only your cars, it is what people find when they search your name, it is where your adverts on Facebook, Instagram and Google can send people, and the enquiries and customer details it collects are yours. The sensible setup is both, fed from one stock list so nobody types a car in twice.
What the portals do well
- Reach. Buyers who do not know your name yet search the portals first, by make, model, price and county.
- Comparison. Buyers like seeing many cars side by side, and a well-priced car with good photos stands out there.
- Habit. People trust the format and know how to filter, save and message.
What that costs the dealer
The same strengths work against you as well. Your car is shown next to your competitors' cars, the page and its layout belong to the portal, and the buyer's first relationship is with the portal rather than with your dealership.
What only your own website can do
- Be found for your own name. Someone who drove past the yard or heard about you searches the dealership name. If there is no site with your stock, they land on a portal page or a directory instead.
- Show only your cars. No neighbouring listings, no "similar cars" from another dealer under your car.
- Take ad traffic. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Google ads need a page to send people to, ideally the exact car in the ad. Vehicle catalogue ads work from a feed of your stock with links to your own car pages.
- Collect enquiries you own. Finance applications, trade-in valuations, viewing bookings and stock alerts land directly with you, with consent recorded the way you need it.
- Tell your story. Opening hours, warranty, how you prepare cars, reviews, finance partners: the things that make a buyer pick you over a cheaper car further away.
Where dealers go wrong with a website
- Stock that is out of date. A sold car still showing for two weeks costs more trust than having no website.
- Typing every car in twice: once on the portal, once on the site. It stops being done within a month.
- Forms that email one inbox nobody checks at the weekend.
- A site that cannot be found: no page per car, slow pages, no proper titles, so search engines show the portals instead.
One stock list, several places
The practical answer is to keep the stock in one system and let it feed everything else. The website updates itself when a car is added, reduced or sold. The same list produces the catalogue feeds for Meta and TikTok ads. Portal listings stay where they are; the point is that the dealer's own channels never fall behind.
Each car then has one page that can be shared on WhatsApp, linked from an ad and found in search, and every enquiry from it arrives in the same inbox as the portal enquiries.
How 10X Dealership does it
10X Dealership holds the dealer's stock with photos, prices and status. From that one list it keeps the dealer's website up to date, produces the vehicle catalogue feeds for Meta, TikTok and ChatGPT, and receives the enquiries from the site, the portals and social media in one inbox attached to the car. Website forms (enquiry, test drive, finance, trade-in, reservation) go straight into the system rather than into an email inbox.
If you already have a website, the first step is a review of what it does now; we only suggest changes that are worth making.
Related questions
Will my own website get as many enquiries as DoneDeal?
Usually not on its own, and it does not need to. The portals bring people who are browsing; your website catches people searching your name, people coming from your ads and people who want to apply for finance or book a viewing.
Do I have to add cars to my website by hand?
Not if the website is fed from your stock system. The car is added once and appears on the site, with price changes and sold status following automatically.
What should each car page on a dealer website have?
Clear photos, the price, mileage, NCT date and key specs, a short honest description, and easy ways to enquire, book a viewing, ask about finance or get a trade-in figure.
