SoftMoon WebWare Automotive Dealer Websites

 help@SoftMoon-WebWare.com

You can easily compare your favorite vehicles up close all on one page.  When viewing the main inventory page or your search-results pages, check the boxes of your choices and click the Compare Selected Vehicles button at the top or bottom of the page.  On any showcase page, simply click the Compare This Vehicle button.  After you have chosen 1 or more favorite vehicles, click the Compare Choices tab at the top or bottom of the page at any time to review and further compare the selections.

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Not all browsers are fully capable of all modern website design techniques.  For example, this demo features an experimental component that allows you to change the skin of the website (seen to the right), but only current versions of Mozilla Firefox & Opera browsers fully support this feature correctly.  Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari (on Microsoft Windows based computers) require a page refresh to make this function.  This is the dilemma of the modern website design team.  A technique that works in one browser fails in the next — and visa-versa.  To make it worse, individual users can change some browser’s settings to impersonate another browser.  (if you are one of those users, you may not get the desired results here)

SoftMoon WebWare produces only fully operational websites and backend software that has been tested on all modern browsers for performance, user friendliness & accessibility, proper functionality, and error-free operation.  While our demo site shows off the future of the web where it can, you can rest-assured your production-level website will be rock-solid, compatible with legacy systems, and ready to be easily upgraded in the future.  In the mean time, our websites bring the most up-to-date modern features to your online sales presentation.

You can get a feel for how your dealership’s website can be customized to fit your individual style.  Try out some of the pre-designed skins available below.  Of course we can coordinate the overall color scheme to match your pre-existing logos and other graphics, as well as any visual compositions our design experts may develop for you.  For an even more personalized effect, our designers can completely reconceive your website’s character to bring a fresh, unique, and invigorating touch to your client’s online shopping experience that they will remember and identify directly with you.

Does your website validate?  Check the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Markup Validation Service for this page by clicking below: Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional

If you’re having trouble finding the specific vehicle that your heart desires, we can keep an eye out for it in your behalf; and if we do find it, we can email you immediately.  Simply use the Vehicle Finder on our Contact page, and you will be automatically informed of the new arrival on our lot.

SoftMoon Dealer Websites Demo

About SoftMoon WebWare’s Auto-Dealer Websites

At SoftMoon, we want to bring you the best website that you can get.  Our WebWare offers your customers the easiest to use interface, the most powerful search engine, and great looking results for a hassle-free experience.  We don’t just pawn-off Open-Source software as our website’s structure, for its functionality*, or in its design presentation.  Our websites are written by hand from the ground up to function the way they should.  We don’t use third-party* software for the simple reasons that it keeps your site lean-and-mean (loads faster — functions quicker), makes it stand out above the rest of the “cookie cutter” sites, and adapts to your business scheme — not the other way around.  This also allows us to build websites using the most up-to-date industry standards for page content access to accommodate the needs of the handicapped, cell-phone and other hand-held users, as well as for Search Engine Optimization.  We can also submit your site to the major Search Engines, and do include this service with our Comprehensive Website Package.

We offer three main website packages:  the basic Backend Package, the Backend Plus Layout Package, and the Comprehensive WebSite Package.  You can choose the one right for you, or we can fine-tune a package for your specific needs.  Our website development team can customize the look and graphics of your website, including the design of any business logos to give your site a personal and professional look and feel;  or we can work directly with your current Web Designer/Developer and/or Graphic Artist to customize your website.  Either way you get a great looking and functionally specialized website.

To learn more about our services for Automotive Dealers, please read below:

*We use industry standard code in the behind-the-scenes portion of our eMailer to verify the authenticity of an email address and to send HTML-based email, as emailing is a standardized practice and the Open-Source code for this needs no refining or improvement.

SoftMoon Dealer Websites Advantages

When you shop the competition, the advantages of SoftMoon’s website features for Auto Dealers become clear.  Powerful, yet sleek, with distinctive designs from lead-talent artists and developers, our websites stand head-and-shoulders above the rest!  Why?  Because we wrote the software from scratch, instead of repackaging “freeware” to sell.  Our standard features are mere options with website packages from other sources, if offered at all. 

Our integrated search engine offers far more power to your customers, where they limit you to finding only make and model or charge you extra and still limit you to price and mileage.  For dealers with large inventories, this is an indispensable tool for keeping your website visitors interested in your site, and driving them to your brick-and-mortar establishment.  Statistics show that most visitors leave a web page within a few seconds if they can’t find what they are looking for.  On the other hand, when they do find what they are looking for, having your own website consistently delivers clients ready to purchase.  A client looking for an inexpensive vehicle to drive back and forth across country for work can search for “4-cylinder vehicles under $10,000 with Air, Cruise, and Power Windows.”  A soccer mom can find a wagon or minivan to haul the kids without having to spend the hour she doesn’t have (and won’t give you because she can’t) trying to figure out if Toyota’s minivan is the Avalon or Sienna, or why you don’t have a Ford Caravan in stock. If you don’t stock volumes of exactly what they seek, our Smart Search Engine provides the closest possible matches, promoting the inventory you do have, rather than sending a flat “we don’t have it” message.  When faced with a list of 100+ vehicles, many would otherwise become frustrated or bored and look elsewhere if they had to search your inventory by hand.  By directly attending to your customer’s real-world needs, it’s as if they walked in your front door; and this ease of use and personalized consideration marks your business and website as outstanding.

Our websites’ other standard features elevate our WebWare from outstanding to best.  We offer a virtually unlimited number of pictures per vehicle (limited only by your systems’ hard drive capacities), where they limit you to only a few or charge you extra and still limit you to 10 or 20.  Our vehicle database management system works WITH YOU, where they force you into their box.  These are only a few examples of why we offer your dealership the best website; and we do that at prices that meat or beat the competition.  Read below to find out more...

  • Easy to Use
    • We put everything your customers need to access on your site at the click of a button — all on every page, in a well organized format.   No more navigating through multiple pages to search for a vehicle or find your street address.
    • All the modern features that make your dealership stand out are included in the package.
      • Send the Search Results as a Text-Message to a mobile device (cell-phone, etc.).
      • Send the Search Results to an eMail address.
      • Automatically notify your potential customers by Text-Message or eMail when their vehicle of choice arrives on your lot.  No need for your secretaries to keep notes and send the emails, our website software does it for them.
  • Easy to Read — and Compliant with the Disabilities Act
    • Our Layout is fully “liquid” and “elastic” and will size itself nicely to virtually any size Window on any Monitor with any Resolution and any native Text Size.
    • As opposed to “other” websites, ours allows your customers to change the Text-Size of the Entire Site — on the fly — using their Browser’s native functions, the way Web Browsing is supposed to be.
      • Your Potential Customers who have a hard time reading small print can See your site without having to squint and lean forward — by simply using their browser’s built-in functions.
      • We avoid small print text from the beginning, allowing most text to be displayed on your Potential Customer’s browser at its native size or larger.
    • Our colorful layouts utilize the modern research and ancient wisdom of the power of color to enhance the visual experience — allowing your customers to see and “understand” your sales presentation in a glance.
      • We have many different available standard color schemes to match your dealership’s individual style, allowing you to get your site up and running in no time.
      • We can customize the color selection to your dealership’s current color scheme to more closely match existing advertising, logos, building color, or whatever suits your needs or desires.
    • Our websites look great and function with ease in all of today’s modern browsers, on desktops with widescreen monitors, on laptops with smaller monitors, on mobile devices like cell-phones, Blackberrys®, iPhones® & iPads®, as well as when using basic “old-school” text-only browsers.
    • Our website is designed to allow audio text-readers simple access to all information.  We don’t “hide” any vital text in graphics like some of those other websites do.
  • Powerful Search Engine
    • Our Search Engine is designed to help your customers find what they are looking for no matter what the size of your inventory.
      • It is fully configurable to yield a minimum number of matches to your potential customers’ searches.  They will never see a blank page of Search Results (unless you want to configure it that way).
      • It is “smart” and can find “similar” matches based on their choices.
        • Initial priority can be given to search categories based on your dealer’s experience with the average customer.
          • In Detroit, “Make” may be most important.
          • In the mid- and north-west, both model and drive-train may be most important (for snow and gravel roads).
          • In Maine, drive-train alone may be important (for snowy roads).
          • In Texas or New York or suburbia, model alone may be most important (i.e. for truck lovers, business persons wanting sedans, or soccer-moms needing mini-vans).
          • In “Smalltown, USA,” price may be most important, especially in these trying economic times.
        • The customer ultimately has control over what is important to them.
        •  coming soon The Search Engine “learns” what the average customer is looking for.
          • It can automatically adjust the initial priority used for searches based on actual demographics.
          • It can report an overall average to the dealer.
          • It can report “average customer profiles”:  i.e. people looking for trucks favor Red Fords, people looking for vehicles under $10,000 prefer Hondas, etc.
          • Of course, the dealer can use this information for making better decisions regarding retail pricing, trade-in allowance, wholesale purchase pricing and choices, auto-auction bidding, etc.
    • We can configure our Search Engine for any of your specific needs, if your database contains additional options that you want to be able to search for.  Usually this is at NO extra charge to you!
    • Our Search Engine can work with multiple databases at once.
      • You can use separate or intermixed databases for new vehicles, used vehicles, vehicles for lease, and/or vehicles for rent — in any combination.
      • You can use separate or intermixed folders for multiple dealership locations.
    • Our Search Engine instantly adapts to your database, allowing you to use your current existing inventory software, as long as that software can save or export its database as a text file.  We can also customize your website installation to synchronize your website with your existing vehicle database software, usually at no extra charge!
      • Our software instantly recognizes two database styles:
        • A comma-delimitated style such as those used with the Kelly-Blue-Book® service and others.
        • A tab-delimited style such as can be generated by Microsoft® Excel®.
      • Vendor specific databases we can customize for:
        • dBase   — commonly understood by Microsoft® Windows® spreadsheets and organizers
        • DB++   — made by the German company Concept asa
        • FrontBase
        • filePro
        • Firebird/InterBase
        • Informix
        • IBM DB2   — IBM® DB2 Universal Database, Cloudscape and Apache Derby
        • Ingres   — Ingres DBMS, EDBC, and Enterprise Access Gateways
        • MaxDB   — 7.5.0 and above
        • Mongo
        • mSQL
        • Mssql   — Microsoft® SQL Server
        • MySQL
        • Mysqli   — MySQL Improved Extension
        • Mysqlnd   — MySQL Native Driver
        • OCI8   — Oracle OCI8
        • Ovrimos SQL
        • Paradox   — Paradox File Access
        • PostgreSQL
        • SQLite
        • SQLite3
        • Sybase
        • tokyo_tyrant
      • We can also adapt our system to read any additional text-style database, and perhaps others.
    • If you don’t already have a database system, we can as well supply one that works in conjunction with your dealership website and integrates effortlessly into your website’s presentation.
      • Our Database System makes it a snap to keep track of your Inventory, and keep it in order.
      • Our System is designed specifically for the needs of an Automotive Dealer, with an interface developed and fine tuned for entering Vehicle Specifications.
      • Our System can also help you keep track of your long term & short term Sales Statistics.
      • Our System’s Database is compatible with other common database systems such as Microsoft® Excel®.
      • Best of all, our Database System is included at no extra charge!  You get the best of both worlds — support of your native database and ours — again as standards, not options, with a “Best Automotive Dealer Website” from SoftMoon WebWare.
      • Please contact us for a demonstration of how easy our System is to use.
  • Easy to setup and maintain
    • Website maintenance is fully integrated with an interface that makes even daily updating a snap.
      • Easily and simply upload as many pictures per vehicle as you want, and our innovative Picture Uploader makes it even quicker to upload in quantity.
      • Uploading the database & pictures from your office computer to your website is:
        • as simple as a few point-and-clicks of the mouse.
        • fully secured against outside intrusion.
        • fully secured against inside intrusion as well, allowing you to sub-contract the job of taking pictures of all the new vehicles and adding them to the website.
      • Matching pictures to vehicles is point-and-click, so the process is as simple as take the pictures using any digital camera, transfer them to your computer, use any browser to access the website’s password-secure update interface, upload the pictures, then quickly and easily match them to the respected vehicles.
      • Thumbnails and Pocket-size pictures are automatically generated from the original, making the process fully automated and very simple.  Note your prospective clients always have access to the full-size picture by clicking on the smaller one; this keeps people with dial-up from waiting too long, and your bandwidth use down.
      • It cleans up after itself as well!  Press a button, and it finds all the pictures that don’t have a matching vehicle in the database, and verifies with you whether to keep them for later or delete them automatically.
    • Website setup is included in the Comprehensive WebSite Package, but the maintenance interface also allows you to fine-tune the database presentation at any time, again with no special skills or technical knowledge necessary.
      • Easily include or exclude any database category you want on the Inventory / Search Results page and the Showcase page with the click of a mouse button.
      • Easily place a database category in the vehicle title / identifier list, vital information list, or additional information list — again with a mouse click.
      • Easily prefix or suffix any database category with any text for definition, further understanding, easy reading, etc.
      • Easily add a CSS class automatically to any individual database category to further enhance the visual experience.
    • Adding content to the sidebar is simple and quick.
      • Templates are provided to allow easy additions with no HTML experience necessary.
      • Even complex additions integrate with no problem, should your needs require.
      • Adding sidebar content using the packaged integrator is point-and-click and requires no knowledge of HTML, website design, server setup, or any other “technical” background.  If you can use your computer to read emails, and know how to write letters using a text-editor, you can update your website.

SoftMoon Dealer Website Packages

Our three main Website Packages, the Backend, Backend Plus Layout, and Comprehensive, are outlined below.  Within each Package, we offer two options: Primitive or Searchable.  The Primitive option is for very small dealerships that don’t have a large enough inventory to make the Search Engine needed.  The Searchable option is for medium to large dealerships, multi-location dealership chains, or multi-dealer associations.  If you have any special requirements, we can accommodate them, also.  Drop us a line if you have any questions.

  • The basic Backend Package:
    • All files for the Inventory (new, used, leased, & rentals) / Search Results page; the Showcase page; the Compare Favorites page; the eMail, Text-Message, & Contact pages — with the included security box generator & interface, and the automatic-email-responder for customer requested vehicles that are new to the database; plus the Search Form & Search Engine (if not the Primitive option), as well as the super-structure file(s) that bring them all together with a header & footer & any optional sidebar content into single web-pages, are included in all Packages.  Special customized header and footer files that automatically highlight the proper link as the current page, and turn on/off the Search Results and Showcase links when appropriate, are also included.
    • All files for the database maintenance interface needed for your Package option are included.  Bundled are the point-and-click database and picture uploaders, the picture-to-vehicle matcher, picture cleanup utility, the Inventory / Search Results & Showcase database presentation administer, plus the Search Engine administer (if not the Primitive option).
    • Consultation regarding the setup and further development of your website is included.
    • Onsite* consultation introducing you to use and maintenance of your website is included.
  • The Backend Plus Layout Package:
    • For web developers interested in expediting their final product, dealers with existing contracts or other relationships with their current graphic designer, or the rogue do-it-yourselfer, we include everything in the basic Backend Package, plus a CSS file customized to your choice of graphics and colors.
    • There are several layout plans to choose from, including possible combinations of the following:
      • links under header (as in this demo)
      • links in the left-hand column
      • links in the right-hand column
      • Search Form under header
      • Search Form in the left-hand column
      • Search Form in the right-hand column (as in this demo)
    • Eight hours of consultation with your graphic artist are included.
  • The Comprehensive WebSite Package:
    • This Package includes the entire website development process and all the files to make the site happen:
      • Everything found in the Backend Plus Layout Package
      • All the basic pages seen in this demo — customized to the dealer’s needs
      • Up to 10 additional pages of basic content:  you supply the content and we will make it look great!
      • All Graphics (see below)
      • Installation on the server
    • This Package includes complete graphic services:
      • Logo design & development
      • Website foreground images including maps, banners, advertising bling, etc.
      • Website background images
    • This Package includes one year of technical support regarding the maintenance of the website and database.
    • This Package includes complete Search Engine Optimization (SEO), from the ground-up SEO compatible code, through Search Engine submission — i.e. we specifically build and tune your website for SEO and then notify the major Search Engines of its existence.

*Travel expenses may apply and are not included.  Our reps are often mobile and already in your area!

Package Pricing

Although our Packages are as complete, professional, and up-to-date as they come, we’ve priced them to be affordable to the dealers with smaller lots who want to remain in the eye of the modern consumer who uses the newest technology of the web to find what they need in this rapidly developing world of many options;  and for all the dealers, our packages are a steal in terms of long-term advertising dollar.  Remember: no other form of widespread advertising other than word-of-mouth from satisfied customers will bring you a greater sales profit margin.  Prices start at $350 for the basic Primitive Backend Package, and top off at between $3500-$3700 for our all-inclusive single-dealer Searchable Comprehensive Website Package.  For multiple-dealer-association sites, please contact us to evaluate your needs.

Please contact us for a quote regarding complete pricing information for your specific needs.
help@BestAutoDealerWebsites.com