Netcars.com – Drive a Great Deal

11 thoughts on “Netcars.com – Drive a Great Deal”

1. Navigate to http://www.netcars.com

   What are your first thoughts on the design?

   My first thought is that i can search cars detail from the site and it’s very convenient for me to search as when i visit the site i directly can search it with the search engine. The design is a little too complicated for me as there is too much information in the homepage. I like the car logos you displayed in a slide shows which look nice and also comfort. The blog and the car advisor section is information overload for me. As i suggest you can have another navigation for it only when people want to view it which give people an option to choose. I suggest you can create a slide show displaying all the top cars news which could make the entire homepage looks more professional and interesting. Besides that you can have a car news section in your homepage which only show the top news. It would be great when people trying to search for car then they get some updated news toward some cars which might give them some knowledge in car.
   

   Search for a car.

   I tried the search but it shows that result not found, i type my post code which i think it is because of the post code lead to result not found. I suggest that you can add more specific search for the searcher area. Which is like ask for user to select state and city. I then notice you have the search a car by location. I suggest you add the search by location option in the homepage as the location is very important.
   

   Browse the site and give feedback.

   I browsed your site, it provide many useful information such as the loan which also stated the amount and month. I really like it as it is very convenient. The search engine can be very specific for the car searching which is really good and there is many option for me to choose. I also like that i can sell my car if i wanted to just enter the detail which is very simple. Also i notice that you provide information about the car insurance which most of the people will wanted to know it when they want to buy a car. For site like this, i would like to have a customer service which is a live chat or contact you by sending you a message for question that i want to ask. I suggest you can have a live chat service or a message area for visitor to type any message and enter their email for reply. 
   

   Would you use again if you were searching for a car (in the UK)?

   Yes, as this site is very convenient and it contain all the car detail and the payment method and interest. I would also suggest this site to my friends if they were looking to buy a car or selling their car.

2. Feedback sought:

   Navigate to http://www.netcars.com
   

   Done

   What are your first thoughts on the design?
   

   My initial thought is that it looks similar to other used car buying sites.  Autotrader.com, Cars.com

   Search for a car.
   

   Done

   Browse the site and give feedback.
   

   Well, I wish that there was a US version of this site, or a way to show the exchange rate in USD.

   Did not find noticeable usability issues but it seems like your homepage below the fold is overloaded with info and I would remove the Google Ads off of your homepage to maintain this is a premium brand. Relocate to the blog page if you must keep the ads.

   Would you use again if you were searching for a car (in the UK)?
   

   Yes, I would.

   Other suggestions:
   I like that you have a blog that produces content, and I like the forum too.
   Car Advisor is handy.

   Do you have success stories of people who sold their cars online? I would like to see testimonials.

3. Navigate to http://www.netcars.com
   Done.
   What are your first thoughts on the design?
   When you navigate to the page you can tell there was some time put into making your site look professional. Job well done. I like the color choices with the fading and darkening of the color blue and the subtle touches of the green, yellow and orange. I like that you immediately put to heavy hitter names of places where you are featured. There’s no sense in holding back that important info till the bottom of the page. I wasn’t to familiar with daily mirror but I certainly knew about top gear. I like the graphics and the pictures of the cars where very nice. I almost feel like the sell your car section should be moved or just scooted over a touch as not to look like it was cutting out the car in the picture. I think that there is a bit to much information on the homepage making the layout way to engrossing.
   Search for a car.
   It was hard for me to search using the intital tabs because I am not familiar with uk postal codes so I just did a search using the section by area. I really liked that there was nice big pictures of the cars, large font and it was nice to the text not scrunched up makig it easy to read. Your site was a little slow in loading the section with more details.  I liked the section where you showcased other cars but I was happy to be able to close that section for easier viewing of the car I wanted more info on. I would have liked to not see so  much information about looking for other cars jam packed on the pages where  you click for more information.
   Browse the site and give feedback.
   I think the blog information on the homepage needs to be moved to it’s own section, as I stated I felt there was to much info on the homepage page. I would remove the google ads and move up the latest news and car forum section.
   Would you use again if you were searching for a car (in the UK)?
   Yes its very detailed and well done.

4. What are your first thoughts on the design?
   My first thought is that I like what you have above the fold. I can see immediately that this is a site that will help me find a used car or even sell my own. It looks like I can jump right in and start searching right away. As I start to scroll down, though, I find the home page to be very long. Is it really necessary to feature so many blogs (and all with sizable pictures) and so many Twitter comments on the home page? I’d suggest just picking your top four or so.
    
   Search for a car.
   Ok, I did.
    
   Browse the site and give feedback.
   Starting with the home page, I like your slogan (“Drive a great deal”), and there are no problems with your use of color or images. Again, I like that I can jump right in and start searching, and there are a number of different ways to search, as well. If I scroll down a little further, I’m impressed that I can also search your site for car insurance carriers, car loans, and so on. I have to say, though, that if I hadn’t scrolled down, I would’ve overlooked that. It makes me feel like I’d rather see a sidebar with search categories like “Used Cars,” “Car Insurance,” “Car Loans,” and so on, each with appropriate dropdown subcategories, rather than the horizontal orientation you have now. That would help to shorten the page, too. As I said before, it would also help to shorten the page if you cut back on all the latest blogs, reviews, articles, and Twitter comments that you feature on the home page. I understand that these are teasers, but there are just so many of them. It’s too much.
    
   The search feature itself is great. It’s fast, powerful, and flexible. The many filters allow users to search for exactly what they want. The design of the directory is very nice, too. I like that each result displays a big picture of the car along with its price, mileage, color, and a few other basic details including current location. Then, if interested, the user can click for more details. Wonderful set-up! Very easy to use!
    
   The “Sell Your Car” page looks ok. You state the cost right upfront, which is admirable. However, I have to wonder why I would want to list my car at your site as opposed to a free site. I’m in the US, so I don’t know what options you have in the UK, but here we have sites like Craigslist that permit you to advertise used cars free of charge. If you have similar sites in the UK, then why would anyone want to pay? I see that the listing is free for those who write two reviews, which is nice, but if I had the option to list my car totally free of charge somewhere else comparable, I probably would. So I think your task here is to convince me to list my car on your site even though you require some form of payment from me. I’d suggest you use this page to give me some reasons why your site is better than the competition. Do you get more traffic than your competitors? How fast does the average listing sell? Do you know what percentage of your listings sell at the asking price? (By the way, the sales and fraud prevention tips are a nice touch.)
    
   Your “Car Advisor” page…Wow! I love that you have all these reviews available and that I can search for the reviews that interest me very easily. The only problem I anticipate with this is that these aren’t professional reviews; they’re reviews written by users trying to sell their cars. So I’m not 100% sure I could trust these reviewers. Nevertheless, I like the concept. As long as reviewers are being honest, the actual experience of a car owner is much more valuable than that of a critic who test drove the car once.
    
   Your forum looks really good. I like that it’s divided into recognizable sections. I just wish it were searchable as well.
    
   The articles under “News” aren’t very long or detailed, but at least you have a lot of them, and some of them even have accompanying videos, which is a great addition. Would love to see actual professional reviews here as well as a search feature for keywords, not just categories.
    
   I find your “Blogs” page overwhelming. First of all, I don’t know whether this is your site’s official blog or a feed of user blogs. In the right column, you list an overwhelming number of blogs which mean nothing to me unless I’m already familiar with them. I would suggest moving “Most Popular Posts,” “Recent Comments,” and “Categories” to the top of the right column in that order. It’s the popular posts and the comments that are going to draw new users in first. If they don’t jump right in at that point, they’ll probably want to search the blog categories for topics of interest, which is why this section should be next. That long list of individual blogs should be dead last, or else you should remove it entirely. Again, it’s meaningless to someone who isn’t already familiar with a particular blog, and if they’re already familiar with it, they’ll already have it bookmarked and won’t need a long list to find it anyway.
    
   Now, your “Services” page is a perfect example of what your other pages should look like. It’s just the right length. Above the fold, there are several bold heads with images and bulleted sales points, and just below the fold are the remaining categories. No endless scrolling necessary. The only thing I’d suggest to possibly improve this page would be to also list all these categories in a sidebar above the fold. That way, users can’t miss them even if they don’t scroll down, and those users who prefer a more vertical orientation will feel more comfortable.
    
   As I clicked through the pages that link to “Services,” I found that some of them included what looked to be useful tips. I’ve noticed tip sections on other pages of your site, as well. Are all these tips also collected in one main location on your site? If not, they should be. I’d like to see a home page navbar listing for a “Tips” page where I could look up these various articles.
    
   Just FYI, both your “Car Loans” and “Credit Cards” pages have some text overrunning the boundaries of the respective charts on each page.
    
   One more thing I should add that I really like about your site is that it has an integrated, professional feel to it. Lots of directory sites seem sort of slopped together piecemeal. Yours seems like a thematic whole, and I like that.
    
   Would you use again if you were searching for a car (in the UK)?
   I would definitely use this site if I wanted to find a used car in the UK. As far as listing a used car of my own, though, I think you’d need to convince me why I should use your site as opposed to a site that allows free listings.
    
   In conclusion, I like your site. It looks professional and thematically consistent, and the search feature is wonderful. The home page is too long, and I think you could stand to add sidebars to the home page and a couple of other pages. (Some people are more comfortable with vertical alignment as opposed to the horizontal alignment you prefer.) You have some nice content with tips and reviews and such to flesh out the site. The only real issue I have with it is that you want to charge people to list their used vehicles, and the fee you’re asking is substantial. As a new user, I want to know why I should bother to pay a fee to list my car on your site when I could list it elsewhere free of charge or for a very minimal fee.
    
    

5. What are your first thoughts on the design?

   Initially, my impression of the page was that it  seemed to be similar to http://www.autotraders.com  The design is very convenient because all of the information is compressed into one page.  I can access a large amount of information by glancing at the page.  The tabs on the homepage allow me to go to anywhere that I would like to go to.  I was very impressed with the page layout, it even made me comfortable with using the site.

   Search for a car.

   I searched but the page kept freezing.  Finally, the page opened where I could search further through the care.  I was able to find the car that I was looking for.  I did not like how they listed many types of cars in the middle of the page.  However, I did like that they had many search options for cars on the left hand side of the page. 

   Browse the site and give feedback.

   The site was very organized and was full of information.  I could have searched for days on the same site.  I have rarely seen a site that ha so much information.  It was as if I was looking at 5 sites all combined into one site.  I would remove the sell your car for free box from the homepage.   It cluttered the page and was irrelevant to some of the other information.  I would like to see a grey or a blue colored background on the pages.  I did not like the white background color.  I would also recommend moving the blog from the first page and moving it into a tab at the top of the first page that can open.

   Would you use again if you were searching for a car (in the UK)?

   I would use this page immediately i I were searching for a car int he UK.  I would spend hours and hours reading every page and memorizing the site.  It is very informative and helpful.  I just would like to see more colors that blend together and get my attention.  I would like to see shades of gray and blue mixed with bold black letters.  Possibly have some blogs with greenish colors and white words.  This would hold my attention even more.

6. Fab ad, found it easy to navigate, loads of info, after searching the internet high and low to find the right car this one stop shop is perfect. It also has a very useful tool if your thinking of selling your car. What more can i say it has everything you need to find a wealth of info on the right car for you and its easy to use.

7. What are your first thoughts on the design?
   At first glance it seems a little busy. Too many single words are all over the page as links or drop down menus. I think it would help if you got rid of or changed the lower area that contains the searches by model and town etc to something like drop downs or loose it all together it would help a lot. Other than that I believe the site is good. I like the colors and the layout otherwise.
   Search for a car
   
   I tried to search for a car from the front page but cannot since I don’t know a UK postal code and it will not let you do the search without one. This should really be changed because it could chase away a potential buyer that just wants to look around and is not initially serious enough to enter his code. Wait, it did my search when I clicked the “more options” link. The search did provide a result and I was satisfied.
   Browse the site and give feedback
   Besides the difficulty doing a search without a postal code once I did get “in” some items didn’t work again related to searching and the postal code problem. Just to change the model of the car in my search and not the make I still needed to have the postal code. This really limited me from doing much testing of the site in general.
   The deal of leaving two reviews and you get a free car listing is a great deal but is it going to get you genuine reviews or just junk in order for the user to get a free listing?
   I like the car advisor idea this can be very useful for some one purchasing a new make of car.
   I also like the forum section, there is some good advice that can be had from that.
   Would you use again if you were searching for a car (in the UK)?
   I would use it again if searching for a car in the UK. It gave me good results for my search query.

8. 
   .
   What are your first thoughts on the design?
   

   I like the color scheme and see tons of information but it’s to much information. Making the home page a smaller page would make the site more appealing.  1/2 of the blogs and half of the car adviser links
   would be less over whelming. You only need to give people an idea of what the will find when the search those categories.  The miscellaneous ads that take people to other sites should be located much farther down the page.  You don’t want people getting side tracked before they’ve seen everything you have to offer.  I really like the car advisor section but I don’t see how many people have rated each vehicle and there are no specific details on the star system. Obviously a 1 is a bad rating and a 5 is a good rating but how many bad reviews does it take to get a one and how many good reviews give it a five? I also dislike the fact that I see ad for credit cards at near the top with other car related links. I think it really hurts the authenticity of the page.

   
   .
   Search for a car.
   

   I searched for a Bently Turbor in Postal Code TN380SY. There were none. I would have like to have searched nearby to but that is not an option. I am wondering why that option not there. It seems important to me.

   
   .
   Browse the site and give feedback.
   

   Ok, I have looked at the car advisor for quite a while now and I still have no idea what it takes to get a star rating. I really enjoyed reading some of the blogs and I found some of the forum topics interesting and helpful. I really like the used car search link but I am wondering why it’s called more options on the home page. Okay so you don’t have a search near by option but I found the search by city maybe that link could show up if a car search yields not results. I am also wondering why the rate my var link is a tiny link hidden at the bottom of the page. This looks like a really neat feature that I think people would find useful and enjoy using. The news page seems boring and unhelpful compared to the blogs and tips pages. I am wondering why I did not see a link to car selling tips and price negotiation tips. 
   .
   Would you use again if you were searching for a car (in the UK)?
   
   At first I was going to say no because the site is so over whelmed with info. but as I used it I began to like it more and more so yes I think if I lived in the UK I would use this site. I think I would check it regularly for the blogs and car buying tips.  

9. $5 awarded to Latasha.

10. $5 awarded to greatfeedback4u.

11. $5 awarded to profile7780.

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