A car dealership website for a small forecourt: honest stock and easy test drives
Car buyers want to see what's on the forecourt today, with real photos, the price, the mileage and the history, and then book a test drive. Anticode can hold your stock as CMS pages that you update by hand and book test drives by the slot. It has no feed from dealer stock systems and no finance calculator, so busy dealers should pair it with those tools.
Who this suits, and who it doesn't
A franchised dealer or a busy used car supermarket turns stock over daily and usually lists it from a dealer management system that pushes vehicles to its own site and the classified portals at once. Anticode can't take that feed, and retyping fifty cars a week isn't sensible. Where it fits is the independent dealer, specialist or prestige trader with a smaller, slower-moving stock: perhaps a dozen to a few dozen cars, each worth a proper page, where the site has to carry the business's reputation rather than just a listing grid.
What a buyer checks on each car
| Field | Why buyers want it |
|---|---|
| Make, model, trim, year, registration date | To match it against listings elsewhere. |
| Price and what it includes | Warranty, servicing, a fresh MOT or inspection, delivery. |
| Mileage | The first filter almost everyone uses. |
| Fuel, gearbox, engine size or battery range | Running costs and suitability. |
| Owners and service history | Full, part or none, and where it was done. |
| Condition notes | Marks and wear stated plainly, with photos of them. |
| Status | Available, reserved or sold, kept current. |
In Anticode that table becomes a CMS collection, say stock, with typed fields for each line. Every car gets its own page at /stock/<slug>, and the collection page lists them all. Photos go into the build and are stored under your account; shoot twenty or more per car in even light, including the interior, the tyres and any damage. Generic generated dealer sites tend to use one glossy stock image per model. Buyers notice, and they assume the car itself has something to hide.
Stale stock is the mistake that costs most. A buyer who drives an hour for a car that sold last week won't come back. Mark cars reserved or sold the same day, from the dashboard, and remove them after a short while.
Test drives and viewings
The booking calendar asks for a service, day, time, name, phone and email, and gives each slot to one person only. Its times are fixed, six a day from 09:00 to 17:30 with Mondays skipped, and Anticode doesn't email the buyer, so you confirm each one. Set up "Test drive" or "Viewing" as a service, and check each request against who's on the forecourt that day. The fixed form won't ask which car, so put a short note on each stock page telling buyers to mention the registration. Bookings arrive by email; nothing syncs with your diary. The guide to adding a booking calendar covers how slots and the 120-day limit behave.
Part-exchange and finance enquiries
A part-exchange form needs more than the standard contact form's name, email and message. A custom form can take up to 30 plain-text fields: registration, mileage, service history, number of keys, known faults, outstanding finance, and the car they're interested in. Its site function can pass the details to your own valuation tool over a signed HTTPS call, or simply save them for you to reply. Visitors can't upload photos of their car, so ask for them by email. Each submission is saved sealed at rest and can go straight to a Slack channel or a CRM such as HubSpot through a connector.
Finance is regulated in most countries, and so is how it's advertised: representative examples, lender relationships and who may introduce credit. Your own wording, checked against those rules, belongs on the site; Anticode doesn't write compliant finance copy. It also has no finance calculator integration. If your lender provides an application or calculator page, link to it rather than building an estimate of your own.
The rest of the site
- About the business: how long you've traded, how you choose cars, the preparation each one gets.
- Warranty and aftercare: what's covered, for how long, and how to claim.
- Opening hours and location: forecourt hours, viewing by appointment, how to find you. Maps can't be embedded on a published page, so link to a map instead.
- Reviews: link to your profiles on independent review sites rather than pasting quotes.
What to pair Anticode with
- A stock system or classified portals if you list many cars: Anticode has no stock feed or import.
- Your lender's tools for finance applications and quotes.
- A payment provider if you take holding deposits: point a reserve button at a payment link from Stripe Payment Links or PayPal. Anticode has no deposit handling of its own.
- Vehicle history checks from a specialist provider, linked or quoted by hand.
Questions people ask
Can Anticode import my stock from a dealer management system?
No. Stock pages are CMS entries you add and update by hand in the dashboard, which suits a small stock that changes a few times a week.
Can buyers book a test drive online?
Yes, as a slot on the booking calendar. The booking form's fields are fixed, so ask which car when you phone to confirm.
Can I add a finance calculator?
There's no finance calculator integration. Link to your lender's own calculator or application, and use regulatory wording you've checked yourself.