TrueCar True Cash Offer Alternative for Car Dealerships

Source used inventory from the owners in your own zip codes: opt in seller leads that belong to your store, buyer leads for the units you bring in, and one CRM that works both.

TrueCar is known as a car shopping marketplace built around pricing information and a network of participating dealerships. Its True Cash Offer program brings the same model to the sell side. An owner answers questions about the vehicle on TrueCar, receives an offer, and brings the car to a participating dealer, which inspects it and completes the purchase.

For a dealer already in the TrueCar network, the program is a natural extension. The store gets owners arriving with a figure in hand and a reason to visit, and the marketplace handles the consumer side of the experience. It also connects the acquisition conversation to a shopping audience the marketplace already reaches.

Program rules, fees, territories and terms change over time, so confirm current pricing and terms with the vendor directly before you plan around any of it. If you are weighing the wider marketplace relationship as well, the TrueCar alternative page covers the buyer side.

A marketplace offer program and a local offer request both end with a car on your lot, but they start in different places. In a marketplace program, the owner's first stop is the marketplace. The offer, the brand and the first impression all come from there, and the dealership appears at the redemption step as one of the places the offer can be honored.

A local offer request starts with your store. The owner sees a campaign in their own area, fills out a vehicle offer request, and asks to be contacted by a dealership. The request comes to you, and your salesperson is the first person the owner speaks with. Condition, payoff, timing and whether the owner also needs a replacement vehicle come out in that first conversation, before anyone commits to a number.

That difference shapes the whole used car department. When the store owns the first touch, the appraisal is a confirmation of a conversation already under way, and the owner's next car is part of the same relationship. The seller leads page shows what those requests look like when they arrive.

Leave your number and a lead specialist calls you back to answer your questions about pricing, coverage, and setup. Mon - Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.

Features change on both sides. Verify anything that will drive your decision with each vendor directly.

The first gain is a territory that is yours. In Leads Manager you draw the zone around your store in the zone editor, check zip stats and a market scan, choose the campaign type and the prescreening questions every owner answers, and add Custom Offers. See Samples previews the ads, and our team builds and runs the campaigns from those selections on the webXintel Ads Network, included with every plan. Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture, and backed by a replacement review through Quality Control Requests, so a bad lead costs you nothing.

The second gain is both sides of the used car business in one account. The Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan delivers seller leads for acquisition and buyer leads for retail together, with the CRM included. A unit bought from a local owner on Tuesday can be in front of a shopper who asked about that kind of vehicle by Wednesday, with Inventory Link putting it on your inventory sites and the inventory insert button dropping it into any text or email with photos and price.

The third gain is a workbench built for acquisition. Every call, text, MMS, email and voicemail for an owner sits on one timeline on the lead record, calls are recorded and transcribed, and the phone validator and email validator show validity right on the lead before anyone dials.

The cheapest car to buy is often already in your CRM. Past buyers, service customers and old trade appraisals sit on records with vehicle detail, and LeadLocate holds up to five vehicles of interest plus trade in lines per lead, so a list of owners driving the models you need is a search away.

From there the outreach is built in. Bulk texting sends a short, personal message to a recipient list, bulk email and email automation carry a longer buy back offer, and voicemail drops reach the owners who never pick up an unknown number. Trackable short links in the texts show who clicked, so a buyer calls the interested owners first. Usage Credits for bulk texting, bulk email, voicemail drops and phone validation are bought in My LeadLocate and applied to the account right away.

Consent stays clean the whole way. The DNC Blacklist blocks numbers that opted out, a live do not call lookup checks numbers on the spot, and opt outs are honored across the platform. Run the phone validator on the list first, and the campaign reaches real phones instead of dead ones. The trade in acquisition marketing page lays out campaign ideas that work for this.

Owners selling a car talk to more than one buyer, so the first real conversation carries the day. When a request lands, round robin assignment or your distribution rules route it to a named buyer, Manager Lead Copies put a copy in front of the used car manager, and the Automated Templates for the seller feed send the first text within moments. RCS with automatic SMS fallback lets the owner send photos of the car before anyone drives anywhere.

At the walkaround, the DealTracker trade in form captures photos and a trade VIN scan, the trade info scanner and document AI read the paperwork, and the identity scanner puts the driver license on the customer record. When the owner is also buying, EZ Desking pencils cash, finance and lease with the 50 state tax matrix and trade credit caps, and the customer deal page shares the numbers with PIN access and e-signature. A SecureWebX apply link collects the credit application, and Send to Lender shares it securely with the lender your store picks.

The consumer vehicle acquisition software page covers each of these tools in more detail.

Nothing about the move interrupts buying. In the first week, the account is set up for you, usually the same day. Import your contacts and past customers, set the zone, campaign type and prescreening questions in Leads Manager, and review the sample ads. Training is included with every plan through the video library, Live Training and Schedule Training on the top bar.

In the second week, connect your website forms so trade and offer requests from your own site land in the same inbox, turn on Follow Up Processes for seller leads, and set Call Alerts with keywords like payoff, lien and trade in. Build a recipient list of past customers driving the models your lot is short on and send the first buy back campaign.

From the third week, tag every unit by where it came from, whether a zone seller lead, your own list, the service drive or the lane, and compare landed cost per unit with fees and transport included. Keep an exit plan in writing with every vendor you run; the CRM data export checklist works for all of them, including us.

Marketplace Acquisitions for seller leads starts at $999 a month, the Inbound plan for buyer leads starts at $799, and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan runs both from $1,599. Every plan with leads includes the CRM, and every plan is month to month with no long term contract. Extra lead sets and extra zones can be added to an active subscription from My LeadLocate. Current details are on the pricing page.

Measure the program on four numbers per source: owners reached, appraisals set and shown, cars bought, and landed cost per unit. Add a fifth for Hybrid stores, the retail deals written to owners who came in to sell, because that is where the strongest months come from. The activity, company and management reports read all of it by source.

We cannot guarantee lead counts, acquisitions or gross, and no vendor can, because those depend on your market, your appraisal numbers and how quickly your team responds. LeadLocate puts owners who asked for your call in front of your buyers and gives them the tools to answer first. Call 844-376-2274 to see a zone mapped around your store.

How is a LeadLocate seller lead different from a marketplace cash offer?

The owner starts with your store. They filled out a vehicle offer request in your zone and asked to be contacted by a dealership, your salesperson makes the first call, and your appraiser sets the purchase number after seeing the car.

Are seller leads exclusive to our store?

Yes. Every lead in your zone is delivered to you and only you, prescreened at capture with the questions you choose, and backed by a replacement review through Quality Control Requests, so a bad lead costs you nothing.

Can we get buyer leads and seller leads in one account?

Yes. The Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan delivers seller leads for acquisition and inbound buyer leads for retail together, with the CRM included, so the units you buy from local owners already have shoppers asking for them.

Can we run buy back campaigns to our past customers?

Yes. Build a recipient list from your CRM, then use bulk texting, bulk email, email automation and voicemail drops. The DNC Blacklist, a live do not call lookup and the phone validator keep the campaign clean.

Do we need a DMS connection or an inventory feed?

Neither is required. If you have a feed, Inventory Link ingests it or imports inventory from your website and puts your units on your inventory sites and into every text and email composer.

What does the seller side cost?

Marketplace Acquisitions starts at $999 a month and the Buyers and Sellers Hybrid plan starts at $1,599. Both include the CRM and are month to month with no long term contract.

We will draw a zone around your store, set the questions every owner answers, and show you seller and buyer leads landing in one CRM. Month to month, no long term contract.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.