Lingscars.com

ballyblack

From the site;

Whatever, if you use the car normally, the servicing requirements will be minimal. Only heavy users will ever need to replace brake pads, for example.

no brake pads for 4 years 40,000 miles???




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Joe_Horner

ballyblack wrote: »

From the site;




no brake pads for 4 years 40,000 miles???




.

Sounds fair eough to me - usually expect around 50 - 60k from a set, so that gives a good 20% margin.

Joe_Horner

arcon5 wrote: »

It's not just her website that's insane, also her advertising campaigns! Didn't she once put a tank in a field near a main road advertising her website?

She's well and truly swam against the tide and it seems to be working well for her

Ex Chinese nuclear decontamination truck, c/w fake Chinese nuclear missle on the back

Istr the local council (Sedgefield - Tony Bliar's constituency) got a bit upset!

londonTiger

lol, this looks like a scam site if I hadn't known any better. If it was the first time visiting this site - that would be my first impression.

Maybe in the b2c market the kookiness could be entertained but for b2b this reeks of amatuer. Professionalism is very important for b2b - the company has to look legit and viable.

jaybeetoo

The prices quoted are for flat paint and no options - can you configure a car with extras?

marlot

ballyblack wrote: »

no brake pads for 4 years 40,000 miles???

I've just changed the ones on my wife's Jazz at 7 years/35,000 miles, but she does a lot of town driving. Modern pads and disks don't last as long as they used to (no asbestos now), but 40,000 should be easily achievable for most people.

Joe_Horner

londonTiger wrote: »

lol, this looks like a scam site if I hadn't known any better. If it was the first time visiting this site - that would be my first impression.

Maybe in the b2c market the kookiness could be entertained but for b2b this reeks of amatuer. Professionalism is very important for b2b - the company has to look legit and viable.

Most scam sites go out of their way to look "legit" apart from (so I've heard) the dodgy !!!!!! ones. Ling's seems to work for what it's designed for and her stats aren't too bad for a site that reeks of amateur:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lingscars.com#trafficstats

End of the day, unless your'e selling mail-order, a site is mainly there to get people talking about you - and hers certainly seems to do that!

londonTiger

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Most scam sites go out of their way to look "legit" apart from (so I've heard) the dodgy !!!!!! ones. Ling's seems to work for what it's designed for and her stats aren't too bad for a site that reeks of amateur:

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/lingscars.com#trafficstats

End of the day, unless your'e selling mail-order, a site is mainly there to get people talking about you - and hers certainly seems to do that!

I'm not sure if alexa is indicative of a companies viability. duedil.com gives a free summary of a companies ac!!!!s. They do seem to be doing well over the recent past.

https://www.duedil.com/company/06178634/lingscars-com-limited

the stagnant liabilities and growing assets and cash suggests that the company is growing fast.

I still think they could be losing business from their unprofessional presentation.

Importantly:
Ling has won multiple awards for her business and appeared on BBC Dragons' Den in 2007 when she was offered investment in LINGsCARS from Duncan Bannatyne, but turned him down.

I think she just went on Dragons Den to get free publicity, I remember shortly after the episode, her website was dotted all over business forums that I visit (which are her target market too!). I think the website does pull in a lot of viral traffic - so actually may not be such a bad idea at all.

OP posted this for their crazy website.

neilmcl

londonTiger wrote: »

I still think they could be losing business from their unprofessional presentation.

Unprofessional to the layman. I'd argue that it's very good marketing, proven by her continued success. The following was a quote from Ling on a marketing website, I think it explains her ideology quite well.

I view my main role (apart from the core leasing services) as entertainment. Much in the same way that Top Gear does not “road test” cars on TV, but entertains the viewers in many different and quite crazy ways. I lead on the Internet (in fact I am about the only person who does this), in my new-car field. I get a lot of criticism in the car trade for this unconventional and “unprofessional” approach. Their view of being professional is to be conventional.
Every other company seems to concentrate on cars; I concentrate on people. The new car buying cycle is very long, often 3 or 4 or 5 years. I need to engage, entertain and become memorable in people’s minds for a very long time. Other companies just look at who is buying today; so here are some cars. That is intensely narrow and boring. I look at the future and infect people’s minds with my name and character so that when they choose to replace their car in the future, they will consider LINGsCARS as one of their main choices. They will not even remember any other website names.
I look on every activity as marketing, even when there is no direct benefit. For example, I am proud to be listed by EdExcel as an A-Level exam question https://www.lingscars.com/feature/bized.php alongside McDonalds, EasyJet, Boots and Sainsbury’s, for students taking business qualifications. While none of them will directly take a car from me, who knows what their parents will do when they see their project? I assist them online by answering questions. You always have to give, give, give, you never really know where the results will come from.

londonTiger

the balance sheet is 350K ish. They're still quite a small fish in the car leasing game.

Look at the league tables of car leasing companies in UK.

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/fleet-leasing/fn50-data/

Look up #50 in duedil - its balance sheet value is 17.5M which is 50 TIMES larger than ling cars!!!

Ling clearly believes in her marketing, she's a big personality and a major extrovert. The downsides of people like that is that they can only see their point of view. A lot of corporate buyers will be put off from this website. A consultant hired by say Thames Water tp help them manage their leasing contracts would NEVER consider short-listing ling cars and forwarding that to their client.

Ling cars MAY do business with individuals and business owners of small businesses who find lingcars by themselves.

On the plus side their SEO is great - i think because of their wacky site which gets linked to all the time.