May 3rd, 2012
The title seems to say, “I am super excited about the Thrifty Nickel being back”, I must say that isn’t 100% true but it is a great improvement over the “American Classifieds”
Let’s face it, I am way more excited about Ebay, Amazon, Auto Trader, Facebook marketplace, before I am the Thrifty Nickel but this paper is convenient.
When I am sitting somewhere waiting for my car to get fixed, etc. so long as I find quality in the paper I will pick up again. If I pick it up this time only to find a bunch of schemes and local car dealer ads then there will be another multiple year long drought before I spend my time turning pages in that thing again.
In a previous blog post I really went after American Classifieds because they seemed to destroy the old Thrifty Nickel beyond recognition.
I am not sure how many people even knew but the Thrifty Nickel hasn’t been around for several years because it became American Classifieds.
When this happened it seemed a bunch of mail stuffing national work from home ads began appearing all throughout the publication and other stupid non personal local ads.
Lots of car dealer ads were in the American Classifieds paper and it seemed to almost completely lose any local Tyler TX connection unless you were in the market to look at car dealer ads.
I was used to finding really good deals from local people in The Thrifty Nickel but the American Classifieds was so overrun with national ads and business ads I failed to find the local people ads with cool junk for sale.
Local people seemed to ditch publicizing in the American Classifieds maybe because it was too expensive for ad space or something else, I really don’t know.
I hope now that the Thrifty Nickel is back that more cool local junk ads will appear like perhaps an old Nintendo console for sale, some retro Rayban glasses, and a $60 push lawn mower.
Tags: Ad Space, American Classifieds, Auto Trader, Blog, Business Ads, Car Dealer, Cool Junk, Dealer Ads, Ditch, Drought, Ebay, Ebay Amazon, Find People, Glasses, Good Deals, Home Ads, How Many People, Lawn Mower, Local Car Dealer, Mail, National Ads, Nickel Back, Nintendo, Thrifty Nickel, Tyler TX
Posted in Marketing and Advertising | No Comments »
March 4th, 2010
Most people are comfortable with driving around town randomly looking at auto’s for sale in Tyler Texas without ever taking the time to consider if this is an efficient use of your time. There is an online shopping phenomenon that has taken over the automobile industry all over the US. Many people now find and purchase their used and new cars online.
I have an interesting story about how my very own brother purchased his last two automobiles online. One of them was a Z71 Tahoe and the other was a Nissan sports car. He had a reason for his unconventional shopping behavior. He discovered that online sales departments will quickly offer you the very bottom dollar they will take for a particular car they have for sale on their lot. Why is this?
People shopping for cars online are price shopping and are conscientious about getting a good value. These types of shoppers have likely price matched a few times and have been to multiple car dealer websites. The fact that a car dealer gets a call from a potential buyer simply means they have price compared a car that you have and are likely very interested in that exact car.
Once an online shopper calls you on the phone they may be willing to accept your offer even if it is a couple hundred dollars more than the cheapest offer simply because of proximity. As a car dealer you may be asked if you will let the car go for a few hundred dollars less. Of course, you have probably listed your car for sale at a deep discount since you have it in your online inventory but you need to keep in mind that the buyer probably has a good reason for asking for a cheaper price.
As a car buyer it is good to understand how the psychology of this works. The dealer may or may not come down anymore if a dealership in Houston has the car listed for $200 cheaper. The reason is that the Houston car dealer probably has a much larger inventory and moves cars much quicker. A Houston car dealer can afford to come down further or price their cars the cheapest initially. A Tyler Texas car dealer may be a few hundred dollars more expensive but you can’t beat the convenience of proximity.
It doesn’t hurt to try and talk the car dealer into moving the price down to match the dealer in Houston but keep in mind their margins online are thin and they aren’t moving cars as fast as in a big city. At this point you need to weigh the risk reward of buying it local in Tyler or taking the trek to Houston to save $100 after gas money and time wasted.
Rather than driving around town looking for a Tyler Texas car we recommend Googling “Tyler Texas Cars” and searching through online inventories of cars for sale in Tyler. You will find this process to save you a lot of time and it will be easy to price compare. You can get on Ebay and try and find similar cars and see how the prices compare as well.
A Tyler car dealer will be much more willing to come down on the price if you can bring in evidence of what prices you have found on similar cars. The negotiation process of purchasing a car in Tyler is much easier when utilizing the Internet. The only other problem you will have is working out financing. The dealer may attempt to recover any lose in price reduction by working your interest rate up.
I recommend in most cases using your bank in obtaining financing when purchasing a car in Tyler. This will help build your relationship up with your bank and offer additional loan opportunities through your bank in the future.
We would like to recommend our preferred used car dealer in Tyler Texas: Autohouseonline
Tags: Automobile Industry, Automobile Shopping, Automobiles, Bottom Dollar, car, Car Buyer, Car Dealer, Couple Hundred, Dealer Websites, Efficient Use, Exact Car, Good Reason, Interesting Story, New Cars, Online Shopper, Online Shopping, Proximity, Sports Car, Taking The Time, Tyler Texas, Z71 Tahoe
Posted in Tyler Texas Used Cars | No Comments »
February 11th, 2010
Narc Your Car Work From Home Business or Ponzi Scheme?
There is a new work from home business that is more of an online only type of thing that even people who did not know much about the internet could participate in until it was shut down for being a scam. Narc That Car wanted to build up a very large database of car and truck license plate information but in reality a few at the top likely made a lot of money at the expense of their reps.
This license plate information was supposed to be combined with the address location where you may have seen the car. You could simply snap some car license plate photos with your cell phone. Once you get home you just type that license plate information into the Narc That Car website along with the address information where you saw the car. To many it sounded too good to be true to get paid for this type of work and it turns out it was.
So why would an online database company want to pay people for something as simple as narcing a cars license plate and location information? The reason has to do with lien holders finding this information extremely valuable. Another reason could be that this company knew they could keep people confused about this long enough to reap a ton of profits. There are Tyler Texas automobile owners who default on their car payments yet keep driving their car anyway and for many it made sense to to have this type of service. 
Instead of returning their car to the local Tyler Texas car dealer they bought it from they pretend as if nothing is wrong. Narc Your Car claimed to be able to help people find these cars and offered an opportunity to pay you for your assistance.
The car license plate database company would pay you for each license plate you entered into their system. In theory you could make a nice little side income by doing a simple task like this. There are a lot of database companies using conventional means by hiring people to call you and ask you consumer informational questions. The Narc That Car website is a simpler more affordable way for a database company to get this niche specialized information without paying as much as a traditional method would cost or it is a clever ponzi scheme. As time played out it appears this company was nothing more than a basic ponzi scam.
The Narc That Car concept didn’t allow for traditional means of getting to this information since they need onsite eyeballs finding these cars and reporting them. You could report any car you might find. For instance, if you were at a Wal-Mart parking lot Narc That Car would pay you for every car you reported on their website however many people in the company complained of not getting paid.
Narc That Car seems to have been completely scraped from the web as there is no more information about this company coming from an official company source.
Tags: Address Location, Automobile Owners, Business Dallas, Car Concept, Car Dealer, Car License Plate, Car Payments, Car Photos, Car Website, Car Work, Cars, Cell Phone, Database Companies, Database Company, Eyeballs, Home Business, Houston Phone, Informational Questions, Lien Holders, Narc, narc that car, People, Photis, Plate Database, Profits, Tyler Houston, Tyler Texas, wal-mart
Posted in Tyler Texas Used Cars, Work From Home | No Comments »
January 24th, 2010
Autohouse Used Cars
Cars Trucks & Suvs
12980 HWY 155 South
Tyler, Texas 75703
Phone: 903-581-5103
Cell: 903-570-2885
http://www.autohouseonline.com
If you need a recommendation on a good place to go to find a wide selection of used cars at fair prices then I would like to point out the used car dealership on HWY 155. Autohouse Used Cars is managed by Johnny E. Watkins and I have a high level of confidence and comfort-ability in recommending his used car dealership to Tyler Texas car shoppers.
I have not personally used him for buying a car myself only because I have not been in the market for a used car. I do know the man which is why I want to recommend him and add his business to our site.
Without question you will get an honest deal and will not be handed a lemon. There is no used car dealer that has left me with a good impression, such as integrity, honesty, and quality used cars without hidden faults you discover later. I have not had the chance to buy a car from Johnny but what I know about the man gives me plenty to be able to recommend his used car business, Autohouse, to those who visit TylerTXdirectory.com
Johnny with Autohouse cars trucks and Suvs offers that level of confidence most people want before ever stepping on to a used car dealership. I personally spoke with some friends from my church that bought vehicles from Johnny and they vouched for him as a straight up guy that delivers exceptional service with integrity. We have attempted to provide a business referral in the Tyler used car business that truly meets are requirements for honesty, integrity, and a good variety of cars and trucks.
Tags: Amp, Autohouse, Car Business, Car Dealer, Car Dealership, Car Shoppers, car warranty tyler tx, Cars Cars, Cars Trucks, Confidence, Hidden Faults, Honest Deal, Honesty Integrity, Quality Used Cars, Referal, Suvs, Texas Cars, Tyler Texas, Tyler TX, used cars, Watkins
Posted in Tyler Texas Used Cars | No Comments »
December 15th, 2009
Learning About Better Online Classifieds Than The Thrifty Nickel
Like many in East Texas I have used the Thrifty Nickel for years. From what I hear they may have changed their name to the American Classifieds but I will always know it as the Thrifty Nickel. I moved away from Tyler back in 1999 and lived in Colorado for a season. While there I started using an online service called Ebay. The Thrifty Nickel lost a lot of appeal for me when I came back to Tyler TX because I was now familiar with just how well a service like Ebay worked for me. I sold a lot of ski and snowboard equipment I no longer needed while back in Tyler and I did it all on Ebay. In the past I would have used the Thrifty Nickel because there was no such thing as Ebay.
Classifieds East Texas
I used the Thrifty Nickel to find things I now find on Craigslist like motorcycles, furniture, personally owned used cars, odds and ends you would find at a garage sell, and the back bumper for a Ford F150. These larger items are too expensive for people using Ebay to ship but the Thrifty Nickel was full of stuff like this. These days the jobs section is full of work from home ops like the envelope stuffing scheme, MLM businesses and such. The merchandise area where I used to find personally owned cars has much less to select from and the Nickel is full of car dealer ads everywhere. Blah! I don’t use the Nickel for car dealers. I would just go to the dealer and cruise around the lot if that is what I wanted. I am looking for good deals and I get more frustration from the Nickel than satisfaction. Back in the good ole days the Nickel was something I always grabbed along with Autotrader but those days are over. Autotrader is still a good magazine but what happened to the Nickel?
Order Of Greatness
1. Amazon.com
2. Craigslist.com
3. Ebay.com
101. American Classifieds (Thrifty Nickel) blah!
Differences Between Popular Online Classifieds Like Ebay and The Thrifty Nickel
The difference between Ebay and the Thrifty Nickel back in 2000 was night and day. I was able to sell really obscure items every time I listed them and many times at retail prices on Ebay. Many of my ski gloves were old used retro gloves but people in Europe loved them. They would buy old used ski gloves for $40 a pair and higher. Many Europeans were buying my ski goggles and other ski equipment for nice sums of money on Ebay. After selling a bunch of ski junk on Ebay I managed to make about $3,000 on unwanted ski items my friends gave me to sell. The Thrifty Nickel back in 2000 was good for unloading a used car or selling an old refrigerator for a decent sum. Because these larger items can’t be shipped affordably you had to sell this stuff using the Nickel to someone local. So Ebay remained an online place for selling smaller items to anyone in the world in order to make a handsome profit and the Nickel got you about what you deserved for an old used car. The Nickel remained your local marketplace to sell and buy items that were not easy to ship. Now I use Craigslist to buy and sell most of those larger used items.
10 Years Later The Thrifty Nickel Is A Much Different Animal
Now it is the year 2009 and we are almost approaching 2010. 10 years later after using Ebay for the first time my interests have changed a bit. I will still pick up the Thrifty Nickel from time to to time but what I have noticed is that the magazine has way too many national spammy advertisements in it. They may have changed things since a few months ago but I saw a lot of car dealer ads that were not from local people selling their automobiles. I also noticed that the jobs in Tyler Texas that were posted in the classifieds section were spam type junk job ads selling opportunities and get rich quick schemes. Some of these ads resembled envelope stuffing work from home schemes and other related waste of time job classifieds.
Giving The Nickel A Few More Chances
After picking up the Thrifty Nickel in different cities throughout East Texas while on my way out of a gas station or other convenience store I finally began to see that there was not much appeal to the Thrifty Nickel anymore. The classifieds magazine has way too many car dealers and national job seeker ads. The few and far between real ads are sparse and you really don’t get the selection that you used to. I would think that the reason the Thrifty Nickel has lost a lot of its quality may have to do with Craigslist.com website and Amazon.com taking over this market in a large part. Ebay still competes as well but for large local items like cars and furniture you will find that Craigslist.com has many local Tyler Texas residents selling anything from a filing cabinet, office conference table, to a used Volkswagon Rabbit. Ebay is also a very good website for finding local automobiles but as far as furniture and other large local items I would stick with Craigslist.
What Is So Great About Ebay?
Ebay remains a great way to pick up some unique antiques, home accesories, gadgets, and replacement parts but I would be wary of power sellers selling you something used you can get new for cheaper elsewhere. Amazon.com is a much less frustrating Ebay with no auctions only competing prices on new and used items. I consistently get a less hassle free experience at a cheaper price when buying merchandise from Amazon.com. Craigslist.com is the king of cheap prices on large items you couldn’t possibly have shipped to you. I have bought cars, filing cabinets, desks, and you name it on Craigslist. You can also get some good deals on used engagement rings on there from awkward local break ups but I imagine it would be weird buying a used ring from someone who just broke an engagement. Anyway this gives you an idea about how online services compare to the Thrifty Nickel. The Thrifty Nickel is online also but they don’t have the type of things you see on Craigslist so I don’t see the point.
If You Like The Thrifty Nickel Or American Classifieds Let Us Know
I challenge local Tyler Thrifty Nickel enthusiasts like I once was to look at a recent addition and see if it has changed for the better. I would love to write up a positive review about a paper that used to be one of my favorites but I have been disappointed just one too many times. Maybe I have missed some of the great positive aspects of The Thrifty Nickel. If I have missed something please tell me. There is a comment section at the bottom of this article for providing your two cents about the Thrifty Nickel. Feel free to leave a response.
Tags: Amazon, American Classifieds Thrifty Nickel, American Classifieds Tyler Texas, Autotrader, Car Dealer, Craigslist, Dealer Ads, East Texas, Ebay, Ford F150, Frustration, Garage Sell, Good Deals, Good Ole Days, Greatness, Merchandise Area, Nickel Back, Odds And Ends, Ops, Thrifty Nickel Wat Ads Tyler Texas, Tyler Texas, Tyler Texas Amazon.com, Tyler Texas Thrifty Nickel, Tyler TX, Tyler TX Craigslist, Tyler TX Ebay, Tyler TX Thrifty Nickel
Posted in Classifieds | No Comments »
