CARS
CARS is the leading automotive marketplace platform, providing a robust set of digital solutions to connect car shoppers with sellers.
Launched in 1998 with the flagship marketplace Cars.com, that serves over 27 million monthly in-market car shoppers, has evolved into a portfolio of brands and digital solutions including Cars.com™, Dealer Inspire®, DealerRater®, FUEL™, CreditIQ™ and Accu-Trade.com™. Together, these brands are driving the future of automotive retail by developing omni-channel experiences that inspire, match and connect tens of millions of car buyers with local sellers and OEMs across the country.
The end-to-end digital experience provided by the CARS portfolio of tech-forward solutions and brands optimizes time, budget and resources for the benefit of both car buyers and sellers, and it all began with the search for the perfect car.
For nearly a quarter century, Cars.com has equipped shoppers with unrivaled editorial content, resources, reviews and digital solutions to confidently match them with the right dealership and purchase the vehicle that best suits them. Nearly 20,000 dealerships and almost all auto manufacturers nationwide rely on Cars.com’s marketplace solutions and proprietary data-driven intelligence to efficiently identify and showcase their inventory to in-market, ready-to-buy consumers.
Dealer Inspire runs the digital storefront for nearly 6,000 dealers across 40 global automotive brands. Dealer Inspire’s website technology platform coupled with innovative digital retailing solutions is a catalyst for selling more vehicles, more efficiently. This technology is future-proofing dealerships and giving them greater control over how consumers interact with their brands.
DealerRater accelerates dealerships’ ability to automate and amplify positive car buyer feedback, enhance online reputation management, boost search rankings and grow their brands. With more than 12 million reviews and counting, DealerRater is the industry’s leading car dealer review and reputation management engine, promoting transparency and integrity by spotlighting consumers’ first-hand car-shopping experiences.
FUEL: In-market video, powered by Cars.com’s pure, first-party audience data, delivers relevant in-market digital video content to only active local car shoppers, maximizing the ROI and market share gains for its dealer and OEM partners and providing a significant competitive edge.
CreditIQ, provides instant online loan screening and approval to facilitate online car buying. CreditIQ converts in-market shoppers into pre-approved customers with ready-to-fund deals directly from Cars.com marketplace and Dealer Inspire websites. This technology offers automated lender decisions from dealers’ preferred lender networks, a key differentiator for CARS. CreditIQ further strengthens attribution for the CARS platform while expanding our end-to-end capabilities for buyers and sellers.
Accu-Trade, is CARS proprietary, VIN-specific, real-time platform that enables dealers to drive operational efficiencies, increase profitability and efficiently acquire inventory at scale, while delivering a more transparent trade-in process for consumers. Accu-trade's consumer facing Instant Cash offer product empowers consumers to receive an accurate and competitive cash offer for their vehicle based on real-time, VIN-specific data. This provides subscribing dealers with the opportunity to source additional inventory, that they might not otherwise see, directly from private sellers via Cars.com or their own websites. This further provides dealers with additionally buying opportunities to source inventory from private sellers via Cars.com or from their own website using Accu-Trade.
The CARS integrated platform is fueled by a powerful combination of valuable first-party audience data from the Cars.com marketplace, industry-leading technology and innovative media and sales solutions that deliver a seamless, convenient and accessible car shopping and selling experience.