Prewritten App for Used Car Dealer? [closed]

Question

Is there somewhere I can find a prewritten WebApp (with database) for a used car dealer? The application would need to support the following:

1. Easy setup in a low cost Shared or Cloud Host
2. Give potential customers easy way to browse current inventory (cars on lot) with suggested prices
3. Give dealership easy way to login and update inventory (cars on lot) and suggested prices
4. Give potential customers easy way to send the dealership an inquiry about a specific vehicle on the lot with CAPTCHA style SPAM protection

I prefer ASP.NET MVC and Microsoft SQL Server, but I might consider other technologies such as WebForms and LightSwitch (HTML5). I am reasonably comfortable with MVC and WebForms, but I really don't want to waste a bunch of time writing an application that might already exist.

I did find a few interesting templates via Bing that seem to control CSS and Layout, but I'm not sure if they contain any business logic or if they would integrate well into an MVC App.

Answer 1

Most auto dealerships use a DMS application. Used car lots tend to use smaller apps like AutoManager and DealerClick.

These software companies have built SAAS services to host dealer inventory and create dealership websites. I think they run around $100 per month. Built into these are the ability to aggregate listings to Craiglist, EbayMotors, AutoTrader, Cars.com. Most intergrate with CarFax accounts as well.

I know you said you are looking for a pre-written application, but consider the costs. A self hosted application would need to be both supported and maintained. When Ebay and others change their API, you would have to update the application. Its a huge investment. When you consider the cost, it might be more feasible to go with a hosted solution.

There are a lot of hosted solutions, ebizautos.com dealer.com and others. The reason I recommend the one from the DMS provider is that it saves the dealership time from double entry. Most dealerships dont manage data in the most organized way. Adding to areas (the dealers DMS inventory system) and a seperate marketing site just adds to the dealearships workload.

If you have to have a hosted solution, you could get something like this http://www.phpjabbers.com/auto-classifieds-script/ and just customize it out. or this? http://www.autowebtoolbox.com/

Just google PHP auto dealership script. Php runs on IIS very well.