Car dealership website case study
Dealer Forecourt: car dealership websites built around live stock
A UK vehicle marketplace combining branded dealer websites, flexible stock management, direct buyer leads and measurable digital marketing in one Laravel application.
The challenge
More than another classified advertising website
Independent vehicle dealers often maintain the same stock across their own website, third-party portals, spreadsheets and social channels. That repeated work makes listings harder to keep current, while a fully bespoke car dealership website can be costly to build and maintain.
Dealer Forecourt needed to offer each business a credible branded presence without separating it from the wider marketplace. Dealers also needed straightforward ways to add or import vehicles, promote their forecourt, capture buyer enquiries and understand which adverts were performing.
Behind the public experience, the platform team required secure control over users, subscriptions, stock migrations, recurring feeds and marketplace activity from one administration area.
- Public experience
- Marketplace and dealer sites
- Stock entry
- Manual, bulk or automated
- Commercial model
- Dealer subscriptions
Vehicle discovery
A searchable marketplace with a local focus
Buyers can browse cars, vans, campers, motorhomes and caravans without creating an account. Filters cover vehicle type, make, model, gearbox, price and location, with specialist berth and layout options for leisure vehicles.
Postcode searches calculate approximate distance and rank relevant stock nearby. Every advert has a readable, search-friendly URL and brings photographs, video, specifications, dealer branding and a protected enquiry form into one clear journey.
- Location-based searches across cars, vans, motorhomes and caravans
- Rich vehicle adverts with galleries, video and detailed specifications
- Branded dealer pages with custom URLs, contact options and Feefo reviews
- Protected buyer enquiries delivered directly to the vehicle owner
Branded dealer websites
A manageable online forecourt for every dealership
Each business account receives a memorable public URL and a lightweight car dealer website within the platform. The dealer controls its name, banner, logo, address and visible telephone, email or WhatsApp details, with optional Feefo ratings adding customer reassurance.
The branded page includes its own searchable, paginated stock list. Visitors can move between the dealer's complete forecourt and individual adverts without losing the dealership identity or contact journey.
Location-aware titles and descriptions, clean vehicle addresses, XML sitemap support and appropriate search-engine rules help dealer and vehicle pages remain discoverable.
Stock management
From one advert to a synchronised forecourt
A structured form supports individual adverts, with DVLA registration lookups reducing repetitive data entry. Dealers can upload and reorder up to 20 photographs, choose a lead image, add YouTube or hosted walkaround video, and manage the full listing lifecycle.
- DVLA-assisted manual vehicle entry
- Validated CSV and image bulk imports
- Spreadsheet-style stock editing
- One-off migrations from existing dealer websites
- Daily Dragon2000 and Dealer 5 stock feeds
- Draft, active, reserved, sold and withdrawn states
Automated feeds
Less duplicate data entry
A one-off scraper helps migrate dealers that already advertise elsewhere, extracting vehicle data and images for review before a Dealer Forecourt import.
Recurring feeds can then synchronise stock daily from supported providers. Stable source identities and content hashes prevent unnecessary updates, while missing vehicles can automatically become sold or withdrawn according to the dealer's rules.
Queued processing, subscription limits, image safeguards and detailed run logs make large or recurring imports manageable for the platform team.
Dealer dashboard
Stock, promotion and results in one place
The dashboard gives dealers a practical operating centre for adverts, drafts, profile settings, subscription usage and public-page sharing. Stripe manages recurring business plans, while personal sellers can purchase a one-off listing credit.
- Stripe subscriptions and listing allowances
- Vehicle and dealer-page performance analytics
- Buyer enquiries and per-vehicle reporting
- Social sharing, video downloads and ready-made captions
- Downloadable QR codes for print and premises
- Private-seller buying alerts
Platform administration
Commercial and operational control behind the marketplace
Administrators can manage dealer and personal accounts, subscriptions, listing payments, vehicles and engagement from a secure platform-wide dashboard. Account suspension, restoration and audited user impersonation support day-to-day customer service.
Reporting covers users, stock, page views, enquiries and recent activity, with ranked tables highlighting the dealers and vehicles receiving the most attention. Stripe webhooks and daily reconciliation keep advertising access aligned with payment status.
Technical delivery
- Application
- Laravel 12 · PHP 8.2
- Frontend
- Blade · Tailwind · Alpine.js
- Payments
- Stripe
- Vehicle data
- DVLA · stock feeds
- Media and reviews
- Mux · YouTube · Feefo
The outcome
A complete digital forecourt, not just a listings page
Dealer Forecourt turns vehicle advertising into one connected workflow. A listing can be entered manually, imported in bulk or synchronised from an existing website, then published across the marketplace and dealer's branded page before being shared through social and offline marketing tools.
- A professional car dealership website without a separate bespoke build
- One place to manage stock, branding, leads and promotion
- Less repeated administration through imports and automated feeds
- Clear reporting on which vehicles attract views and enquiries
- A platform-wide admin area for users, payments, stock and support
Planning a car dealership website?
Build a searchable, manageable vehicle website around your stock, customer enquiries and day-to-day dealership workflow.