Seconds Online

Your next set of wheels is only a few clicks away with SECONDS ONLINE.

Type
Web Platform, Development
Sectors
Motor, Leisure
Technologies
Javascript, PHP, CodeIgniter, MySQL

Find your next ride through the SECONDS ONLINE website

SECONDS ONLINE is a brand spanking new website that has been custom designed and developed from the ground up.

Users of this website are able to use powerful search and filtering tools to find their next set of wheels. The concept behind SECONDS ONLINE is to provide the general public with stock (vehicles) that are sold by dealers which have been hand picked and approved, to ensure that the dealers represented are committed to selling quality vehicles and providing service excellence.

SECONDS ONLINE - FIND YOUR NEXT RIDE

During the conceptual phase of the website there were many requirements that needed to be essential parts of the website, such as a slick and clean User Interface (UI), easy to use navigation, search and enquiry tools, as well as a sophisticated and secure dealer platform that allow dealers to have control over their profiles, stock and enquiries.

With Elemental having significant exposure and experience working within the motor industry, we were a natural fit for this project. We've previously performed integrations with the major industry players and their platforms, which would be a certain requirement for this project too.

STOCK FEEDS ARE KEY FOR AUTOMATION

While building the SECONDS ONLINE website, we've become acutely aware that having up to date and highly accurate stock (vehicles) is imperative for both dealers and users seeking to find a new vehicle.

Many dealers that are featured on the website have an automated stock feed and lead management system in place.

"Why is this important?" you may ask? Well this allows us to get automated updates of a dealer's stock in a timeous and systematic fashion. By doing the custom development to integrate with these stock feeds, we're able to get all the current vehicles that a dealer has available. This information contains various important data points such as the make and model, the selling price, the year, together with a bunch of specs and finally an array of images for each vehicle. The feeds also allow us to remove vehicles that have been recently sold, ensuring that only available vehicles are accessible for enquiries.

Not only do we get the stock through the feeds, but we're able to inject leads (enquiries that the end user makes) back into each dealer's Lead Management System (LMS) or CRM. This means that the dealer's sales team are notified immediately of a new enquiry and can action this straight away.

All of the above processes are custom developed to ensure that these systems speak to each other and work in an automated way.

PUTTING THE POWER IN THE DEALER'S HANDS

Many of the dealers on the website make use of the above mentioned data feeds to provide us with updated, realtime stock, however not all dealers have these types of facilities in place.

To make provision for this, we've developed a portal that allow the dealers to login and manage their profile. In this portal they are also able to add new stock (with the full spectrum of details related to each vehicle as well as multiple images).

When stock is sold, the dealers have the ability to remove this stock too.

This portal gives the dealers additional benefits such as allowing them to view all enquiries made for any and all vehicles, as well as make offers on vehicles that are sold by private sellers through the website.

Combined with the admin portal are automated emails that are trigged based on various actions, such as lead submissions and offer submissions.

This custom coded portal will evolve and provide dealers with additional features to make their lives easier and provide more value through the release of cutting-edge features.

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CONSTANT EVOLUTION

Since the initial launch of the website, there have been numerous additions developed into the website: such as a section for BLOG articles, a new section that provides users with the ability to sell their vehicle and a comprehensive dealer listing section which allow the end user to view all dealers and find the vehicles that they have on offer.

However this is only the start of the long road ahead for the SECONDS ONLINE website and online presence.

There are many more features that are planned for roll out on the website. These features will be beneficial for the the website users who are trying to find vehicles, as well as for the dealer, who we empower through technology to better manage their profiles, stock and view data based on the engagement with their vehicles.

By obtaining feedback from both the users and the dealers, we are able to determine which features will add the most value and then roll them out. This is great as we're directly responding to the user's demands which ultimately help us build a better digital product.

Check out the secondsonline.co.za website for your new ride and over time witness new features being rolled out.

INTERESTING FACTS

Within a few months of the launch of the SECONDS ONLINE website, the website features over 18 000 vehicles as well as over 450 dealers. These are impressive stats considering how new the brand is to the automotive industry and yet there are serious inroads being made in terms of attracting dealers of all sizes to be featured.

WE LOVE A GOOD CHALLENGE

Quite a few of the dealers on the website provide us with stock feeds to allow us to manage their stock data in real-time. They also provide us with lead management systems that allow us to submit enquiry submissions on vehicles directly into their systems.

These integrations are all done via APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) however the complexity comes in where all the feed formats are different and the lead submissions all work in their own way.

To complicate matters further, some dealers don't have Lead Management Systems, meaning that these leads need to be sent to various stakeholders via email.

It was a challenge to ensure that all these systems tie into the website seamlessly and that enquiries are routed to the correct dealers via their respective Lead Management Systems.