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Old school tech offers new way to sell cars

Technology

A NEW digital platform changing the way people buy cars is primed for international success.

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MMSme is a customer-direct messaging system developed by Blackgate Pty Ltd in South Australia, which provides product information through text messages.

The program has been implemented in more than a dozen leading car brands in Queensland such as Toyota, Mercedes Benz and Subaru and has also been used by a number of South Australian real estate companies.

Blackgate Managing Director Jason Williams said MMSme enabled businesses to save a lot of money compared to QR codes and other customer interfaces.

“Other programs make people manually visit various sites and have to look up information themselves – this just gets done straight away through text,” he said.

Interested businesses that subscribe to Blackgate’s program then register a phone number and enter in product information.

The service is then free for its customers to use apart from the text cost and can also be done after hours.

Using a stock number found on each car, users are able to text the single-word code to the business number and receive a list of information including model type, mileage, engine, build year, price and a photo.

Blackgate has found a 50 per cent increase in growth month-to-month with popular dealerships receiving up to 80 leads per month.

MMSme has about a 50 per cent conversion-to-sale rate, where almost 90 per cent of leads are received from customers when a dealership is closed.

It’s payment structure also means a dealership with at least 50 leads only pays about AU$100 per month including a subscription fee, whereas online providers can charge up to $1750 for the same service.

“We are doing similar things with houses in Adelaide where we send floor plans and building information by text,” Williams said.

“The other side of the coin is that the business gets an email notification when a code is used and you are able to deliver more personalised service.”

Williams said the platform was also highly suited to the retail industry.

Blackgate was established in South Australia’s capital Adelaide in 2014 and launched MMSme last year.

He said the company aimed to expand internationally in the next couple of years and planned to target the American real estate industry.

“We are seeing continued growth and usage every month here in Australia but we have always viewed this as something that could be used anywhere in the world,” he said.

“We are already in talks to begin taking this into other areas as well.”

This is a Creative Commons story from The Lead South Australia, a news service providing stories about innovation in South Australia. Please feel free to use the story in any form of media. The story sources are linked in with the copy and all contacts are willing to talk further about the story. Copied to Clipboard

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