Attended Wireless Technology Forum’s Mobile Media SIG event

Had the pleasure of attending the Wireless Technology Forum’s SIG on Wireless Apps and Mobile Media. Today we had the iPhone Product Manager for autotrader.com – Nick Park presenting. 

Excellent presentation Nick. Thanks. Enjoyed the session

Nick was speaking about autotrader’s mobile web app. Some key aspects from his presentation :

Autotrader is primarily focused on iPhone but its web app works on BlackBerry and Windows Mobile too. AutoTrader’s app is about finding new and used cars, their pricing and nearby dealerships based on a number of criteria. AutoTrader is part of the Cox family. Some stats on autotrader :

• 14 million unique visitors each month
• 40000 dealers use AutoTrader
• 3 mill cars in inventory
• 250K private sellers
• 220 employees

Audience of AutoTrader :

• 78% visitors are males
• Average age is 43.7 years
• Average income $74300
• 40% have graduated college
• 63% are married

Basically the primary market audience is mid-market customers.

Another interesting stat : 83% of AutoTrader’s audience are looking for used cars. Only 10% visit to sell their cars on AutoTrader. So not a big selling platform. It is primarily search and find.

Critical aspects of AutoTrader strategy which also define its mobile app are : Portable, Rich Media, Local, Brand. Portability was a challenge as earlier strategies involved print media localized to communities. The mobile app was originally developed for portability reasons (in-pocket accessibility) and also to keep the brand fresh and young.

AutoTrader thought best to go with a mobile website as opposed to a device app. This was the easy thing to start with as it allowed them to leverage most of the backend web app and data environment. Mobile resident app would be more work and is in the future.

AutoTrader’s other brands include : AutoTrader Classic (Classic cars), AutoTrader Latino (heavy SMS usage), and AutoMart (popular with women). These three profiles require a different strategy in mobile world too.

Dealers have a substantial presence on AutoTrader. The latter enables inventory management, merchandising and auction support for dealers. AutoTrader has deep relationships with Kelley Blue Book, MSN Auto, Univision and NADA Guides.

Mobile version of AutoTrader was a result of a need to provide scalability to distributors. The mobile web app is being tightly coupled to the main web app. There is an effort to merge the business and analytics engine of the mobile app with the main web app. This helps in fast turnaround on changes and experimentation.

Functionally speaking, searching a car requires a lot of parameters to return an accurate result set. Also getting credit for referring customers to dealers has been difficult for AutoTrader so they are experimenting with coupons and such. The mapping function of the AutoTrader mobile app finds the nearest dealer having the desired car.

                                                               

                                                       autotrader.com on iPhone

Some key aspects needed to sell cars :

- photo is critical for used cars

- video is important and useful with lot of mobile users checking auto videos on mobile phones

- maps are popular to find cars in nearby vicinity dealerships

 

Next steps for AutoTrader mobile consist of : experimenting with more iPhone apps, developing for other platforms like Android, mobile / web hybrid apps and fast turnaround on application development and releases.

Thanks to WAMM (Wireless Apps and Mobile Media) SIG at the WTF for arranging this excellent presentation.