← Integrations · Vehicle / inventory stock
Your stock, on your own site. Not AutoTrader's.
The stock module plugs into your UK Web Marketing site as a fully-indexable vehicle catalogue — photos, key specs, finance enquiries, part-exchange forms. Same builder (me) on both sides. Buyers find your stock on Google directly; you stop paying AutoTrader £500–1,500/month for visibility you can own.
The maths
What AutoTrader and the others are actually charging you.
AutoTrader is the dominant marketplace for UK used cars — and its pricing reflects that dominance. The typical small-to-mid independent dealer is paying somewhere between £400 and £1,500/month for visibility on AutoTrader, plus per-vehicle "premium listing" upsells, plus an "AutoTrader Premier" or "Branded Dealer Pages" fee for anyone wanting to look like they own their listings. Add in Motors.co.uk, Car Gurus, eBay Motors and similar and the marketplace bill alone can hit £2,000+/month.
For a dealer with ~30 cars on their forecourt:
| Platform | Monthly cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| AutoTrader Lite | £400–600 | Listings, basic dealer page |
| AutoTrader Premier | £900–1,500 | Featured listings, branded dealer page, performance dashboard |
| Motors.co.uk | £250–500 | Listings only, smaller audience |
| Car Gurus | £200–400 | Listings, "Great Deal" badging |
| Your own UK Web Marketing site + TicketWave HQ stock | £45 + TicketWave HQ sub | Full stock display, finance & part-ex forms, on YOUR site |
The honest counter-argument: AutoTrader brings volume — buyers searching for "BMW 320d 2018" land on AutoTrader's results page first, not yours. That's real. But: buyers who already know your dealership (from a billboard, a recommendation, a previous purchase, your van) often arrive via AutoTrader simply because they couldn't find your own website easily. Owning the direct channel is what shifts that.
Most dealers using this module run a hybrid for 6–12 months: keep AutoTrader for new-buyer discovery while building up direct-traffic SEO; phase down to AutoTrader Lite once their own site is ranking; drop AutoTrader entirely after 18–24 months if direct traffic + repeat-buyer business sustains.
Anatomy of one enquiry
What happens when a buyer wants the silver Audi A4.
- Buyer searches "Audi A4 [your city]" on Google, or types your URL after seeing your dealership sign. Your UK Web Marketing site loads in under a second.
- They scan your stock page — 30 cars, filterable by make, price, year, mileage, fuel, body. Sort by newest-in / cheapest / lowest-mileage / highest-spec.
- Tap the silver A4. Vehicle detail page — 12 photos in a swipeable gallery, full spec sheet, service history note, registration year, finance example (HP + PCP if you offer them), part-exchange form pre-filled with the model they're looking at.
- They submit a part-exchange enquiry — their reg, mileage, condition photos. Lands in your dashboard + email + optional SMS.
- You reply within the hour via WhatsApp or call from the contact info on the form. Buyer is now in your CRM — name, phone, the specific car they're interested in, their part-ex details.
- Stock-list updates — when you sell the A4, you mark it as sold in the TicketWave HQ dashboard. It auto-removes from your site within a minute (no "still listed but actually sold" embarrassment).
What's in the box
Features that come with the stock module.
- Stock catalogue — add vehicles via the dashboard or bulk-import from CSV. AutoTrader feed import supported (so you don't re-key when joining).
- Photo galleries — drop multiple photos per car; they're auto-resized for the gallery, auto-optimised for fast loading on mobile. Up to 30 photos per vehicle.
- Spec sheet — registration, make, model, variant, year, mileage, fuel, transmission, body, doors, colour, engine size, owners, MOT, service history, V5C, ULEZ status. Show all or selectively.
- Finance examples — built-in HP + PCP calculator. Enter the example deal terms (rate, deposit, term); it auto-displays a monthly payment on every car. Compliance text included.
- Part-exchange form — buyers submit their reg + photos + mileage; the form pre-fills the car they're enquiring about. Lands in your dashboard with optional SMS.
- Finance enquiry form — separate from part-ex, for buyers who want to apply for finance before visiting. Lands in your dashboard for forwarding to your finance provider.
- Local SEO baked in — every vehicle page has JSON-LD Vehicle schema, so the cars show up in Google's vehicle-specific search results. Page titles auto-include your city.
- Featured stock — pin up to 6 cars to your homepage as "featured" / "just in" / "great deals". Drag-to-reorder.
- Sold archive — when you sell a car, mark it sold. The page redirects to your stock list (with a 301), but the SEO value is captured (Google saw the page, knew you sold a similar car, ranks you for that model).
How the integration works technically
API mode — every car is a real, indexable page.
The stock module uses the API integration pattern: your UK Web Marketing site server-fetches stock data from TicketWave HQ at build time + revalidates every few minutes. Each vehicle becomes its own static HTML page at /stock/[reg] — Google can crawl every car, every spec, every photo. That's what drives "I'm looking for a specific used car" Google traffic to your site instead of AutoTrader's.
The vehicle detail page is a hybrid: the static content (photos, spec, finance example) is server-rendered for SEO + speed; the interactive parts (part-exchange form, finance enquiry form) are small JavaScript islands that load only when interacted with. Result: every vehicle page scores 95–100 on Google Lighthouse + ranks for the specific make/model/year combination. New to these terms? See the glossary.
Onboarding timeline
From "I want this" to "stock live on my site".
- Day 0: WhatsApp me with your dealership name + current AutoTrader URL (if you have one). I send the TicketWave HQ stock signup link + current pricing.
- Day 1: You subscribe on TicketWave HQ. I import your existing AutoTrader feed into the TicketWave HQ dashboard (saves you re-keying 30 cars).
- Day 1–3: We sweep the imported listings — fix any photos that didn't transfer, add the finance example terms, set up the part-ex form fields.
- Day 3–5: I wire the stock module into your UK Web Marketing site. Your stock list lives at /stock; each car gets its own URL like /stock/yp19xyz. JSON-LD schema goes live; Google starts seeing your cars within 24 hours.
- Day 5–7: Go-live. Test a part-ex form. Test a finance enquiry. Update the "Powered by AutoTrader" links on your bag of business cards. (Optional: cut your AutoTrader Premier down to Lite to start saving £500/mo immediately.)
Common questions
What dealers ask before activating stock.
Will Google actually rank my cars vs AutoTrader's listings?
For the specific make/model/area combination ("BMW 320d 2018 Leeds"), AutoTrader will outrank you in the short term — they have massive domain authority. But for the long-tail of variants ("BMW 320d xDrive M Sport 2018 Leeds", "silver Audi A4 Avant 2019 LS6 area"), well-structured stock pages outrank AutoTrader within 3–6 months. The SEO play is the long tail, not "BMW for sale".
Can I keep AutoTrader running alongside?
Yes — and a lot of dealers do for 6–12 months while the direct-traffic SEO ramps up. The stock module pulls your current stock from a single source (your TicketWave HQ dashboard), and feeds both your own site and an AutoTrader-compatible CSV export. So you don't double-enter cars; the same source data goes everywhere.
What about finance — do I need a separate provider?
Yes — the module shows finance examples and captures enquiries, but the actual finance contracts come from a third party (your existing finance broker, or a new one like Mann Island or Close Brothers). The module's enquiry form lands the deal details in your inbox; you forward it to your broker the same way you do today.
How do part-exchange valuations work?
The customer's form is the front-end of your existing process — they submit reg + mileage + condition photos; you reply with a valuation the way you do today. The module doesn't try to auto-valuate (cars need a person to look at them). It just structures the enquiry so you have everything you need to give a fast quote.
What about MOT history, service history, V5C — can I display those?
Yes, all of them. MOT history can be auto-pulled from the DVSA API by reg number (free). Service history is uploaded as PDFs. V5C is a yes/no on the spec sheet. The more transparency you offer, the higher the conversion rate from "browse" to "enquiry" — the modules support showing all of it.
Multi-site dealers — does it support that?
Yes — one stock dashboard can power multiple UK Web Marketing sites (if you have a separate sales site, an auction-only site, etc.) or split stock per location (Leeds branch / Bradford branch). Each site can show all stock or a filtered slice.
What the embed actually looks like
Preview of the vehicle / inventory stock module hook.
Below is the exact placeholder that sits on every UK Web Marketing site in the matching vertical until the customer activates the TicketWave HQ subscription. When activated, this region flips to the live module — no rebuild, no page change.
Vehicle / inventory stock for car dealers · garages · traders
This site is built with the integration hook ready. Once you activate the TicketWave HQ vehicle / inventory stock subscription, this region of the page becomes the live module — no rebuild, same day. Pricing and timing on the TicketWave HQ side.
Get this on your site
Start the website first. Add this module when you're ready.
The UK Web Marketing site is £45/mo with the first month free; this module activates separately via TicketWave HQ on its own pricing.