Auto Trader automotive classified site for used cars: Key pointers on alerting, mobile, geo location, parametric search & platform integration.
Auto Trader: Mobile 2.0 – Next Generation of Mobile for eBusiness by Jody Goodall
Presentation at the Endeca eBusiness Forum 2011.
Autotrader.co.uk is the biggest automotive classified site in Europe with 11M monthly unique visitors checking on roughly 400’000 used cars via 1M mobile unique visitors.

The WAP solution was replaced in 2009. Today there are all sorts of native apps following a ‹Everything is Mobile› approach. But having an app is not a mobile strategy! Mobile is just one of many elements that should provide a seamless customer experience.
The process of buying a car is fairly well known. According context related alerting and on location services include geo, similar cars nearby, driving directions, refinements.
The process is segmented into 3 steps
- Find the car
- Can’t find the car
- Found the car
Each step comes with different requirements, services and up-selling opportunities. E.g. Google Goggles will be used so that customers can take a picture of any car and Auto Trader will tell where the next car of that make and model is available at what price.
Auto Trader has an inhouse mobile development department in order to keep up with the big efforts involved in development and maintenance of the numerous apps.
The process for buying a new car is different from the one for used cars. Buyers of new cars are much more web savvy and other criteria are involved than with used cars. Auto Trader accomodates for 8 different customer segments.