“One of the greatest things about the sport of surfing is that you need only three things: your body, a surf-board, and a wave.” Naima Green, Surfing: Rules, Tips, Strategy, and Safety.

Surf’s up:
Conceptualised in July 2005, Surf4Cars.co.za core business focus is to generate sales leads for dealers, whilst providing the public with a user-friendly portal to search through thousands of updated and pre-owned cars. The business also presents the potential buyer with access to relevant market information, finance calculators and more.

Point break:
Having invested the past 12 months in design and function development, Surf4Cars.co.za is pleased to present a fresh look and feel, as well as unveil new features and search engines to the public. Explains Kevin Bainbridge, Surf4Cars.co.za general manager, “Essentially, our goal is to create more effective platforms to introduce related products and services, thus making it easier and more appealing to generate sales leads, and introduce better functionality and ways to help improve the buyers’ options through information sharing.”

Bainbridge adds that although initial targets for the new website are to increase traffic and lead conversion rates, the company is well aware of the need to keep with the times in terms of dealing with the inherent scam emails that exist online. “You can’t stop the spam but you can certainly manage this on-going war a little better.”

Dropping in:
Contemporary and in line with current design trends, the new website’s functionality is premeditated to meet user expectations and deliver simple results that are relevant to the searches performed.

The new website offers:
• Enhanced search engines.
• Greater emphasis on car price and not make, as the deciding factor.
• More effective presentation of cars, with an upgraded short-list and access to generic data, inclusive of specific vehicle characteristics.

Frequency down shifting:
Successfully established for more than seven years, the website caters to any person with internet or mobile internet access looking to buy or sell a vehicle. “Our customers understand the power and convenience of online searching, as well as the opportunity to control the manner in which they are contacted by the seller (telephone or email).”

The business focus is currently swayed towards used cars, however, Surf4Cars.co.za promises the launch of the following new products and services within the next quarter:
• A new car section,
• A new mobile website and mobile applications,
• Easier access to related products with incentives and discounted pricing,
• Access to news and racing updates, and lastly,
• Commercial vehicles, bikes, boats and leisure websites.

“Our ultimate hope for the revised website is to create an environment that is both informative and caters to visitors returning to the site, despite not looking to purchase. We have introduced a live chat feature offering an additional way to communicate with us, be it for advice or feedback. Our new and improved mobile and new cars campaigns will be launched to market soon, both being very different and more feature-rich when compared to what is currently available.”

Full on, gnarly:
Surf4Cars.co.za boasts a national vehicle listing of over 14 000 in stock. It deals directly with all the major groups, as well as hundreds of independent dealers. In terms of pre- and post-sales support, Surf4Cars.co.za contacts every individual who submits a request online via its dedicated in-house call centre, thus ensuring that potential customers do not fall through the cracks and are contacted timeously by the relevant dealer principal.
Surf4Cars.co.za also provides access for users to perform credit checks and very soon, vehicle checks too, which they can perform before contacting the seller.

Owning the surf: A quick word from Surf4Cars.co.za co-founder and owner, Charles Grassie
“These are exciting times for us. We have invested an enormous amount of effort into this new website and can’t wait to witness the public and trade’s reaction to it. Designed to constantly evolve, we aim to provide permanent channels for public feedback and suggestions, to ensure that we claim the most user-friendly and functional car website in the country.”