Almost from the start in the 1930s, vehicle manufacturers began encouraging dealers to provide sales figures and other data to NADA Used Car Guides. Time, the goal was to keep the pricing unbiased and accurate.Īn inaccurate guidebook, of course, is of little value. During its early years, the effort relied heavily on data provided by car dealerships, but at the same NADA Guides information was typically kept within the dealer, finance, insurance, and government communities. The guides were founded to answer an industry need, not a consumer need. The history of NADA Guides is in many ways similar to that of Kelley Blue Book. That is essentially the Kelley Blue Book's business model today, though currently it is owned by the conglomerate Cox Automotive. To offer the information for free and sell advertising to brands that wanted to reach car-buying consumers who wanted the price information. At first, the still-small company attempted to sell the values to individual consumers, but it soon discovered that a better business model was In the 1990s, a member of the Kelley family persuaded the rest to experiment by putting used vehicle values online for the public to see. But about 25 years ago, the guidebook business - and the entire auto industry - changed radically on the whim of one man. Of course, that wouldn't be of much use if the figures were kept behind the closed doors of car dealerships, banks, and finance institutions. "Third-party values provide a neutral, unbiased platform to assist with a consumer's buying and selling experience for their desired vehicle and unique market area." "When it comes time to purchase a used vehicle, consumers want to ensure they are getting the best price possible on the car they want," Janice Yoell, Kelley Blue Book's senior manager of valuation, told us. What no one denies is that price guidance in the buying and selling of cars is valuable and, in many ways, necessary for successful commerce. Each book had - and still has - its adherents and detractors. Changing Business Modelsįrom that start as business-to-business publications almost 100 years ago, the two price guidebooks - Kelley Blue Book and NADA Guides - grew to prominence. As its name would suggest, the NADA Guides were not intended for consumer consumption either but instead to help dealers do business with consumers. NADA Guides, which came along less than a decade later, was the National Auto Dealers Association's answer to Kelley Blue Book. The idea was to capture in print the current vehicle values in the market so that business people could leverage that knowledge in their dealings. Instead, he marketed his Kelley Blue Book Used Car Price Guide to other car dealers, plus banks and insurance companies. But he didn't intend for the information to be made available to consumers. In 1926, he and his family decided to publish the first Kelley Blue Book vehicle price guide. That he had previously kept for himself to run his burgeoning business. Always looking for a good business idea, Kelley realized that he could make money by selling the pricing information It is how his successful dealership made much of its money. Les Kelley, a Los Angeles-area auto dealer, was in the business of knowing what vehicles were worth.
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