TULSA, Okla., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Thrifty Car Sales, a subsidiary of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. , continues to blaze new trails with its ThriftyCarSales.com website, adding features that have resulted in significant increases in traffic for the national network of franchised used car dealerships.
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In 2008, ThriftyCarSales.com beat its own "personal best," with 7.8 million page views and nearly 2,000 unique visitors per day, an increase in visitors of 166 percent from a year ago with the implementation of a new site by vendor CarTHINK. Much of the increased traffic is attributed to a more open architecture that has allowed "spidering" and improvements to the company's search engine optimization efforts. The average visitor stays about 8.5 minutes on the site.
"These are especially good numbers when you consider our site is pretty much a 'one-click' process when consumers are shopping for a vehicle," said Lee Goldey, Director, Operations, Marketing and Advertising for Thrifty Car Sales. "We are adding new features that get consumers even closer to the cars they are considering purchasing, so I anticipate our numbers will continue to grow exponentially on ThriftyCarSales.com."
Among the latest features on ThriftyCarSales.com are: -- "Specials" pages: Dealers have the opportunity to showcase local Internet specials on vehicles of their choosing and are featured prominently on their local pages. The selection varies greatly and changes frequently. Dealers are required to change specials a minimum of every 14 days or less. -- Expanded Inventory pages: On vehicle inventory pages, dealers now have the capability to display video and slideshows of vehicles; many use the "movie gallery" feature so consumers can better experience the vehicle they will be purchasing. "It's the next-best thing to seeing it in person," said Goldey. -- eBay indicator: Vehicles that are listed concurrently on eBay are marked with an identifier if consumers would like to take a shot at purchasing the vehicle at a potentially lower price using eBay's popular online auction format. -- "Wipeout" video advertising campaign: Thrifty Car Sale's ad campaign is a focus on the site's home page, underscoring the company's value message: "Wipe out high prices, wipe out high payments, wipe out high pressure . . . Be Smart, Buy Thrifty!" Dealers also have the option to display national or local TV ads on their location pages on ThriftyCarSales.com.
ThriftyCarSales.com continues to evolve with the guidance of CarTHINK, LLC, a privately-held company that provides full-service Internet marketing, software and services to hundreds of franchise and independent dealers across the country. CarTHINK is a data partner with Reynolds & Reynolds, an eBay Motors/eBay Local certified solutions provider and has data distribution agreements with hundreds of online classified destinations such as Autotrader.com and Cars.com. For more information on CarTHINK, visit http://www.carthink.com/.
About Thrifty Car Sales
Thrifty Car Sales is a subsidiary of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. , a Fortune 1000 Company headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Thrifty Car Sales, with 39 locations, franchises retail used car sales dealerships throughout the United States. Dealerships offer a wide range of late model, low mileage vehicles. Thrifty Certified(R) vehicles pass extensive inspection and are backed by a limited warranty. Thrifty Car Sales was founded in 1999.
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