Case study · MBU Car Sales
The dealer management system behind MBU Car Sales
MBU Car Sales is a family-run used car dealer. We built their website and, behind it, a dealer management system (DMS) that runs the business from their phones: stock, enquiries, invoices, MOTs and the margin on every car.
Where they started
Stock was managed through Facebook posts and memory. Enquiries arrived across three messaging apps, and those received overnight were easily missed. Without a website, a buyer searching for a specific car could not find them, and the figures behind each vehicle were worked out on paper.
We delivered two systems that work as one: a website that presents their stock and generates enquiries, and a dealer management system that runs the operation behind it.
The DMS, module by module
Everything the dealership runs on, in one place
Designed around how MBU operate, and used from their phones on the forecourt. These are the modules the system is built from.
Stock management
Add a car from its registration and the make and year come back from the DVLA. Photos, price, MOT, history and a private record of what it cost, with drafts, reserved and sold.
Enquiry management
Every enquiry from the website arrives in one inbox with the car it’s about, including part exchange and finance requests. Reply by WhatsApp or phone in one tap.
Daily operations overview
One briefing each morning: MOTs due or expired, enquiries awaiting a reply, vehicles that need a decision, and incomplete listings.
Decision analytics
Data-driven insight on every vehicle: slow movers identified, the likely cause named, and one recommended action: a price adjustment, featuring it, or a market check.
Profit and margin reporting
Sale price, purchase cost and preparation for every vehicle; month-to-date margin against last month; six months on one chart; stock value and capital tied up.
Invoices and payments
Invoices for full payment, deposits, balances and monthly payment plans, with part exchange included. Sent as a PDF, with payments recorded as they arrive.
Acquisition tools
Before bidding: a vehicle’s history and a maximum bid worked back from the target sale price, fees and preparation, a price book of auction results and past sales, and checks against current market prices.
Auto Trader integration
Valuations, Retail Rating, days to sell and competitor pricing from Auto Trader, inside the DMS, from the dealer’s own Auto Trader account.
Website analytics
Page views, the most-viewed vehicles, contact taps by channel and where visitors came from, measured without cookies.
Integrated with Auto Trader
Auto Trader’s market data, built into the DMS
The DMS is integrated with Auto Trader Connect and works from the dealer’s own Auto Trader account. Before buying at auction, or before pricing a car for sale, they look it up from the forecourt by registration and mileage, and the figures that decide the deal are on one screen.
- Retail, trade, part-exchange and private valuations
- Retail Rating and expected days to sell, nationally and locally
- What comparable cars are advertised for now
- Where an asking price sits on Auto Trader’s price indicator
- The car’s full MOT history
- Live Auto Trader adverts, with their price indicator and views
In daily use
What it changes, and how it applies to your business
Each phone below is MBU’s real system, scrolling through one of its screens. Tap one to pause it.
A single daily view of the business
- The challenge
- Operational detail lived in notebooks and memory: an MOT could lapse on a car in stock, and an overnight enquiry could wait until someone noticed it.
- What the DMS does
- A morning briefing sets out what needs attention: MOTs expired or due, enquiries awaiting a reply, vehicles that need a decision, listings not yet published, and the month’s margin to date.
- Applied to your business
- A salon’s rebookings due, a garage’s MOT reminders, a restaurant’s bookings for tonight: every priority for the day, in one list.
Data-driven decision support
- The challenge
- Vehicles stayed on the forecourt with no way of telling whether the price, the presentation or a lack of visibility was the cause.
- What the DMS does
- It analyses the data it already holds on each slow-moving vehicle (days in stock, views, enquiries) against the rest of the stock, identifies the most likely cause, and recommends one action: a price adjustment sized to the market, featuring the vehicle, or a market check.
- Applied to your business
- Which service is under-booked, which product needs better photography, which page loses visitors: a clear diagnosis and a recommended action, rather than a dashboard to interpret.
Real-time profit and margin reporting
- The challenge
- The true margin was calculated at the end of the month, if at all.
- What the DMS does
- Sale price, purchase cost and preparation recorded against every vehicle; month-to-date margin against the same point last month; six months of performance on one chart, and the current month tracked against the last.
- Applied to your business
- Revenue, costs and best performers at a glance, and a reliable answer to “are we ahead of last month?”
Website performance analytics
- The challenge
- Time and money went into posts and adverts with no measure of which ones produced enquiries.
- What the DMS does
- Weekly page views, the most-viewed vehicles, the pages visitors open, contact taps, and traffic sources: Google, Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram. Measured without cookies.
- Applied to your business
- Clear evidence of what visitors engage with, and which posts, listings or adverts actually bring in business.
Compliance and renewal tracking
- The challenge
- MOT dates sat in paperwork, and a lapsed MOT is a vehicle that can’t be sold.
- What the DMS does
- A calendar of every vehicle’s MOT, flagged amber and then red as dates approach, which they add to their own phones’ calendars from one link, with reminders.
- Applied to your business
- Renewals, services, certificates and licences: any deadline the business can’t afford to miss.
The DMS is MBU’s real one, shown on invented cars, customers and figures, so the screens show what it does without showing their business. Their own numbers stay private.
The website
The website and the DMS work as one
Cars added in the DMS appear on the website; enquiries from the website arrive in the DMS with the car they’re about. Here’s what each part of the website changes about their day.
Every enquiry arrives with its vehicle
Every enquiry, from every button on the site, lands in the DMS’s inbox with the car it’s about. One tap to answer.
How: each enquiry carries its car; WhatsApp and Call buttons on every one
Stock goes live from the forecourt
No laptop required. A car can be listed before the buyer who called about it has left the house.
How: type the plate, tap Look up, and the make and year come back from the DVLA
Buyers find the right car without calling first
A buyer looking for a diesel automatic within a budget sees the cars that fit, on their phone, whenever they’re looking.
How: live stock, searchable by make, model, fuel, gearbox and price
Sold vehicles keep working
A sold car stays up as proof that cars sell here, and turns into an easy way to ask for one like it.
How: sold pages become “Now sold · want one like this?”
The case study, on video
From the challenge to the system, in under two minutes
Where MBU started, what they needed, and the dealer management system we built, module by module: stock, enquiries, decision analytics, Auto Trader, invoices and the margin on every car.
Your business
Could your business use a system like this?
Most businesses run on something: a diary, a spreadsheet, a notebook, three messaging apps. We build the system that replaces them, around how you work: bookings and deposits, orders, stock, customers, invoices and the numbers behind them. Custom software starts from £375 a month, and your concept is free.
More case studies to follow. New work appears here once it’s live and its owners have agreed.
Want to see what a website looks like at each price? Ask on the call: we’ll show you the same business built at each level, so you can see what the extra investment buys.