DEALER INCENTIVE

ON AN EPISODE OF THE HBO SERIES Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David Fulfills a dream by taking a job selling cars at a Los Angeles Toyota dealership. Like most of his ventures, it turns into a disaster and he's fired within days - to great comic effect, however.

Paul Lavandeira did something similiar a couple of years ago, with much happier - if less humourous - results. Lavandeira wored at a car dealership for three months. He sold cars, he detailed cars and he worked in the office of the used car lot, all in an effort to understand how car dealers work.

It was part of the process of creating ShopAuto.ca, a new option for dealers and individuals to sell new and used vehicles. After countless hours and an investment approaching $1 million, Lavandeira started operations last month.

Shop Auto is both a website and a weekly publication, both of which cater to the needs of car dealers, taking on the Goliath of the business, Auto Trader.

Lavandeira, 33, got the idea a few years ago when he was happily operating Creative Web Studio. He designed and maintianed websites for a variety of businesses. He walked into a dealership to look at cars. While there, he discovered the dealership had been trying to incorporate online financing into its website but hadn't found a way to do it.

"I took that as a challenge and came up with a solution for them. Then other dealerships started calling looking for help. Pretty soon I was doing a lot of work for dealerships and learning a lot about what they wanted and needed to sell cars."

Eventually he decided the opportunity was too great to ignore. He walked away from his website business and dedicated himself entirely to the car business. This is when he went to work at a local car dealership. The highlight of that experience was closing his first deal. "It was an awesome experience to sell a car, " he says.

He consulted with dozens of dealerships, selling both new and used cars, to understand what would entice them to advertise on a new website and in a new printed listing, particularly name brand dealers who also benefit from the national advertising of manufacturers.

Two central issues were common among dealers. They said there were too many errors in existing website listings, and they wanted the printed publication to be printed in colour. Oh, and they thought the print catalogue should cost less for consumers.

That sounds like a more-for-less request, but again Lavandeira accepted the challenge and created a solution. The ShopAuto.ca website promises the very best customer service to avoid print errors. The weekly catalogue is full colour and sells for $1.97.

Dealers in southwestern Ontario pay Shop Auto $750 a month for unlimited website listings and a full page of ads in four weeks of catalogues. To date, the company has signed up close to 60 dealerships, primarily in southwestern Ontario. There are a few Toronto used car dealers, but Shop Auto is waiting before tackling the Toronto market head on.

Individuals can list vehicles as well for $14 per week.

To ensure the kind of customer service that he has promised, Lavandeira has hired 20 people already. They are available to update dealers' web listings as needed and to address any other concerns.

Anxious to ensure dealers get some bang for thier book, Shop Auto is spending about $500,000 in its first 12 weeks on advertising. And the company is giving away a used vehicle every month to anyone who signs up on its website. Thus far, it has given away a 2002 PT Cruiser.