Dealer.com Reviews

Pros

Comes with one of the broadest automotive digital product suites Cox offers and the way everything connects across their tools is tough to beat. It works with the partners we need, handles integrations the way it should and having a dedicated performance rep helps keep everything aligned and moving in the right direction.

Cons

At the same time, being part of a company as large as Cox Auto has its downsides. Customer service, innovation and even their overall business approach can feel inconsistent at times. We also end up cycling through performance reps once or twice a year on average and the difference in quality from one rep to the next can be pretty significant.

Pros

The platform is very user friendly when it comes to inventory integration and it does a really good job of pushing vehicles out to third-party sites.

Cons

It does cost a bit more than some other options on the market.

Pros

Stands out in the automotive website space with visually appealing designs that look better than what many other providers offer. Adding and managing content is easy and user friendly which makes daily updates much easier. Their customer support is also better than average and has been a real plus.

Cons

One thing that could be improved is the difference between the mobile and desktop experience compared with other providers that use responsive design. I'd prefer a more fully mobile-responsive solution.

Pros

I can build my own pages, add creative, check inventory and make changes whenever needed without much hassle. Updates happen pretty fast and the fact that we currently have unlimited exports for our inventory feed is really important for our operation.

Cons

Seems to put a lot of focus on small details and present them as major improvements, while the front-end appearance and customer-facing experience don't get the same attention. I'm hearing more and more from management that they prefer the design and functionality of other dealers' websites that aren't on Dealer.com. It's hard to judge how those platforms compare on the backend or operational side but it really needs to step up in the areas that the public sees most.

Pros

Having a product or service is one thing but it matters a lot more when there is someone dependable to contact whenever help is needed. That is a big reason this has been such a positive experience. Anytime an issue comes up, I know I can reach out to our account manager and trust that it will be taken care of.

Cons

Would like to see more flexibility for dealers on the creative side of their website. At times, the pages that are generated come across as bland and repetitive especially since similar versions are shared across dealers within the same manufacturer.

Pros

Their customer support team has been consistently attentive, well informed and genuinely friendly to work with.

Cons

I'd change the way pictures are browsed. It uses a side-scrolling format and I'd rather have a vertical scroll-down layout instead.

Pros

Works really well as an eCommerce platform. It displays products, photos, pricing and all the other important details clearly.

Cons

Once you try to use it for anything beyond eCommerce, it falls short fast. The page editor is honestly the worst I've ever dealt with. It's hard to believe that a modern platform still doesn't let you pause the live page while making edits. That means whenever you want to preview changes, you have to hit publish, rush over to the live page to check them and then return to the backend if more editing is needed. Reordering items on a page is also a headache. There are movable content boxes but every single one has the same generic "content" label. So if you have 10 identical "content" boxes and need to move the third one down to the eighth position, it becomes unnecessarily confusing. And if you accidentally move the wrong one especially something like the second box, fixing it is a nightmare because there's no back button and no undo option.

Pros

Whenever something comes up, their customer service is quick to step in and get it resolved which has been the biggest plus for me. On top of that, my website has a really polished, attractive look.

Cons

A limitation is that if you have coding knowledge and want to make changes yourself, their website can be tough to customize. I just wish there were more flexibility for making your own alterations.

Pros

The website editor is easy to use and you can build or update pages without needing any HTML knowledge. Having templates available when creating new pages is helpful too.

Cons

During our time with it, we ran into a lot of bugs and ongoing issues. Support was often slow to respond which made those problems even more frustrating. The site designs also feel very cookie-cutter and dated so it is tough to make your website stand out using their older templates. We also experienced multiple outages along the way.

Pros

Has been very easy to use and whenever something isn't accessible on my end, their tech support line is there and ready to help. Out of all the support teams I've dealt with, this one is by far the simplest to reach and most of the time they can solve the problem right over the phone without needing to escalate it. The websites also look polished and work well across multiple sites which makes integrating pricing, images and just about anything else you need very convenient, while still leaving most of the control in the customer's hands.

Cons

A few features don't always work the way they're supposed to but a fast call to tech support usually gets them corrected pretty quickly. They also keep certain tools behind extra paywalls that feel like they could be included or should already be part of the base package but aside from that, it remains very user friendly.

Pros

Right from the start, this platform has been simple to navigate and very user friendly. It comes with a lot of useful tools, feels versatile and covers many of the daily needs I have at the dealership.

Cons

My only real complaint is that I can't rely on it for every part of my internet management. I also wish it worked better and had stronger compatibility with other programs.

Pros

One thing that works well is having multiple Dealer.com tools in a single place, including website analytics, paid search and other products.

Cons

The software feels outdated from a design standpoint and there were times when the analytics numbers didn't match what I was seeing in other sources.

Pros

What stands out is how much data it gives us about our site's performance. Updating the website is fairly easy and the templates provide a solid starting point to build from.

Cons

A staging environment for website updates would make a big difference because right now most changes go live immediately and I'd rather choose when to publish them myself. The analytics are useful but I also wish I could follow a lead from the website all the way through their visit and see exactly where they came from.

Pros

Working in the back end feels very easy. We can make updates right away and push them directly to our website and AutoTrader without any hassle.

Cons

A few updates can be handled on the dealership side but some changes still have to go through the Dealer.com support team and that usually comes with an extra charge.