Here at Friday-Ad Motors we’ve randomly selected a winner for our ‘WIN a camera!’ competition. The competition was open to all our dealers.

The prize was a high-quality, touch screen, 14.1 MP Panasonic Lumix camera, and the lucky winner chosen from all the dealers who entered was Mr Robin Kennedy!

Mr Kennedy is the Dealer Principal at Kennedy Brothers, which is an Authorised Ford Repairer Service Dealer in East Sussex.

Kennedy Brothers is a family business which has been going for 65 years, and today’s winner, Mr Kennedy is second generation and was delighted to hear that he had won the prize.

In fact it seems that this couldn’t have come at a better time for Mr Kennedy, who said: “My camera has just packed in and I had been thinking about which one to get, but it seems you have made the decision for me.”

The £300 camera will be put to good use taking photos of cars for sale although Mr Kennedy did say that he may have to lend it to his wife from time to time for the odd holiday snap.

Mr Kennedy went on to say: “This is must be my lucky week, it is the second competition I have won recently, maybe I should play the lottery.”

All there is to do now is send Mr Kennedy his prize and wish him happy snapping!

Attention everyone!

Here at Friday-Ad Motors, we’re running a fantastic incentive which will benefit car buyers and motor dealers.

Anyone who purchases a car which has been advertised by a motor dealer on our site will receive a £20 Amazon voucher. How good is that?

Benefits for Dealers
So how does this benefit us? I hear all of you dealers asking. Well, the good news is that this £20 voucher is only redeemable from your motor dealership, which means we are driving more users to your content first.

Another piece of good news for all of you dealers out there is the fact that you won’t have to pay anything to become a part of this promotion as it is already included in your current package. Also, only ‘trade’ ads will carry this promotion which means more users will be browsing your stock.

The promotion will also drive much more traffic to our site, meaning more potential leads for you and it will also provide you with another measure of the response we are generating on your behalf.

Wondering how this promotion will work? Well there is no need to worry, simply email us at motorsales@friday-ad.co.uk or call us on 01273 837946, providing us with the details of any sales you have made where this promotion has been mentioned and we will arrange the rest.

Benefits for Customers
The benefits for all you customers out there is obvious, you get a money off voucher when you purchase a car which has been advertised by a motor dealer. You can spend that £20 on a bunch of books, DVDs, CDs, or you could even put it towards a larger purchase, it really is up to you!

Peugeot and Citroën are both reducing the price of their pure electric cars to try and stimulate the sales of the models. The models in question are the Citroën C-Zero and the Peugeot iOn, which have been slashed in price dramatically from £33,155 to £26,216.

This new price is a whopping £6,939 cheaper than the original price, and once you take into account the government’s Plug-in Car Grant Scheme, which can save you up to £5,000 extra, people will now be able to purchase either of these models for just £21,216.

The Plug-in Car Grant Scheme is a fantastic initiative set up by the government where motorists who purchase a qualifying ultra-low emission car can receive a grant of up to £5,000. As of December last year (2011), over 800 claims had been made using the scheme, with Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) data showing that 1,052 cars eligible for the Grant were registered over the same period.

Another vehicle which is eligible for the Plug-In Car Grant is the Renault Zoe, which costs £13,650 once you have received the subsidy, however, this car does not include the cost of the vital battery pack. Whereas the iOn and the C-Zero do include this in their £21,216 figure.

To go with the new price of its C-Zero model Citroën is also set to increase the size and coverage of its electric vehicle (EV) specialist dealer network. The number of specialist dealerships will almost double from 11 to 21 dealers and the newer sites will be located in UK cities which are not already covered by the original Citroën EV network.

Peugeot will be looking to their new pricing to hopefully increase the number of iOns they sell this year. In 2011, they only managed to sell 125 of them and out of this number, virtually none of them were sold to private individuals, with local government or business organisations buying the majority of the models. Citroën were even less successful last year as, in the same period, they only managed to sell 46 of their C-Zero models.

Both Peugeot and Citroën will be expanding their EV range in 2013 when they will both be releasing electric vans. Citroën will be releasing their Berlingo van and Peugeot will be releasing their Partner van and both models will qualify for the government’s Plug-in Car Grant Scheme, with a maximum amount of £8,000 towards the purchase price of electric commercial vehicles.

The government began the Plug-in Car Grant in order to help make the whole-life cost of a qualifying car more comparable with petrol or diesel equivalents. The Department for Transport website states that ‘Over time, as manufacturers begin to make these cars in greater volumes, the costs of production should begin to fall. This will help to make an ultra-low carbon car a realistic option for anyone looking to buy a car’.

Picture: FaceMePLS 

Browse cars for sale or place an ad now.

Last week Nissan announced that it will be reviving the much loved Datsun brand in a bid to target drivers in emerging markets around the world.

The good news is that the car manufacturer says that it plans to invest $400 million (£251 million) into Indonesia over the next two years and that it will also be targeting sales in India and Russia.

The huge cash injection will enable them to double hiring and production by 2014, and they will also plan plant expansions and new car dealerships in Southeast Asia.

The bad news is that it’s unlikely the Datsun will return to the UK.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn spoke about the Datsun saying: “It’s a green car, affordable car, small displacement, high local content. It’s going to be a generous car.”

The car manufacturer stopped making Datsuns in 1981, however, earlier this month rumours began to spread that they were planning to revive the brand in emerging markets.

Nissan is aiming to be the number three car manufacturer in Indonesia by increasing sales of a cheaper, multipurpose vehicle, which is perfect for city travel and is tailored to the market. The current top selling vehicle in Indonesia is its minivan, the Grand Livina.

Recently Nissan has been aggressively targeting emerging markets. They teamed up with Ashok Leyland Ltd in India, and they also recently announced plans to try and triple their market share in Brazil by 2016 with the aid of a brand new factory.

Source: elephant.co.uk

Picture: Hugo90 

Browse cars for sale or place an ad now.

BMW, the German car manufacturer, is recalling around 1.3 million cars around the globe because of potential battery problems which could, in extreme cases, result in a fire.

According to the BBC, the cars involved are 5 and 6 Series models which were built between 2003 and 2010.

The car company has received nine reports of the defect, however, it has said that it was not aware of any injuries resulting from the fault.

Anyone who owns the car in question or any car dealers with these models on their forecourt should take them to an authorised dealer for repair.

It is thought that the battery cable cover could potentially be incorrectly mounted.

A company statement said: “In order to carry out a quality measure, BMW is recalling all BMW 5 and 6 Series models of the previous generation, built between 2003 and 2010 and still on the market, for repair at authorised dealers.

“This can result in the electrical system malfunctioning, the vehicle failing to start and, in some cases, to charring or fire.”

The company also said that they would write to all owners and that checks would take around 30 minutes and be free of charge.

Picture: Carcomparing.eu 

Browse cars for sale or place an ad now.

If you are a car dealer and need to take some pictures of your stock, or you are looking to sell your family car in order to buy a newer model, then hopefully this guide will help you. You don’t need to be a professional photographer, nor do you have to own a flashy expensive camera and tripod to make your car look good.

You can buy a perfectly good camera for around £120 rather than splashing out on a model with all the bells and whistles attached. It is not the camera that makes the car look good, it is the way you use it.

The first piece of advice is that you should always photograph your cars in a designated area. If all of your stock is photographed in the same setting, then you will have some consistency which your potential buyers will appreciate. Firstly you need to make sure you can always park your car there and be sure that the designated area will have the sun shining on it (but not in front of you) for most of the day. You should also ensure that there aren’t any unwanted items in shot.

You should leave some sort of marker on the floor which will enable you to ensure that you are always parking your car in exactly the same spot.

The first thing to ensure once you have switched your camera on is that you get the zoom right. I would advise that you set it to max optical, and walk away from the car until the car fills the screen. You do not want a picture with plenty of background and a tiny car.

You should always remove the price when taking photographs of your cars. If you don’t and then you decide to change the price, you are going to need to take a brand new set of pictures.

With regards to the quality setting on your camera, you should set it to around 1 or 2 million pixels depending on the camera. Then you should switch OFF the flash and ensure that when you are taking the front and rear ¾ shots, the camera is on max optical zoom.

So, you are all set up, here is a list of the photographs you should be looking to take…

Photo 1 – Front 3/4 shot
Camera set to max optical zoom. This is the photo that we think shows the car off to its best. If you turn the steering wheel 1 turn it shows off the wheels really well.

Photo 2 – Front shot
Straighten the steering wheel, take shot from the front of the car.

Photo 3 – Interior shot
Raise the height of the tripod and set the zoom on the camera to the widest angle setting so you can get as much information in the photo.

Photos 4 and 7 – Side shots
Now turn the car around and park in the same place Take this from the middle of the car, set the zoom on the camera so that the car is filling the frame.

Photo 5 – Rear 3/4 shot
Use the same mark on the ground as you did for the first photo, max zoom on camera.

Photo 6 – Rear shot
Go to the middle of the back of the car and take the shot, this shows off rear spoilers, exhausts and so on.

Photos 8-20 – Feature shots
These can be of attractive or unique parts of the car, such as the wheels, badges or further interior shots.

For more information on taking photos of cars head on over to the Spidersnet Facebook page.

Car boot sales, or ‘trunk fairs’ as the Americans call them, are a wonderful sign that the sunnier side of the year is getting ever closer. Some people love to see the flowers in bloom or baby lambs prancing around fields as a sign that spring is here and summer is on the way. For me, however, there is nothing that signals the start of Spring better than being able to walk around a field buying trinkets from the back of a Ford Cortina.

As a child I used to love scampering around, in a badly knitted ‘jumper’, looking for appropriate items for which I could spend my pocket money. As a wee boy, there was always a certain sense of excitement and apprehension about heading to a car boot sale. You could come back with a brilliant find like an action man or a half decent football, but on the other hand, you could end up spending all of your pennies on a colouring book just to find it has already been completed (this happened more than once).

Car boot sales are not only great for people who are looking for a bargain. If you have unwanted items across the house, maybe some old DVDs you never watch or a bundle of unused Christmas presents from an aunt you never see, then a car boot sale is a great way to make some money. Selling your belongings at a car boot sale is also more fun than you would think. Get up early and load the car up, fill a thermos flask with tea and make yourself a packed lunch before setting off to the venue. Then you just need to find a spot, set up your ‘stall’ and sit back waiting for the cash to flow.

You will have to be prepared, if you are selling, to deal with hagglers. Most people will not offer you the original amount at a car boot sale and they will try and force you down on your asking price. This is fine, and I would advise you not to set your prices too high and also be prepared to sell for less than you originally wanted.

If you are on the buyer’s side at a boot fair, don’t be afraid to haggle the price of an item down. More often than not the seller will initially be opposed to your demands, but eventually they tend to come round. Stick to your guns, and if you think they are being stubborn or the price is too high, then simply walk away.

I would also advise you, when buying anything second hand, to check the item, thoroughly before you make the purchase. There is no guarantee or warranty when you are buying from a car boot sale, so it is always wise to make sure you are not buying a faulty object.

Well, I hope I have helped slightly in advising you on heading to car boot sales and I also hope that I have whetted your appetite for a bargain.

To find out about car boot sales in your area head over to Friday Ad today.

Picture: David 

Whether you refer to them as kidney beans or chilli beans, use them in your chilli con carne or as part of a light salad, there is no denying the health benefits these legumes possess. Kidney beans, named after the organ with which they share a unique resemblance, are grown and cooked in countries all over the world. Despite this commonality, the way in which they are utilized varies around the globe. In India for example they are used for curry, the Chinese crush them into a paste and in Japan they opt to use them as part of a popular dessert dish. However, there benefits extend far beyond that of any old versatile cooking ingredient. As well as the obvious benefit of tasting great, here are some other tangible health benefits they offer.

Great Source of Fiber

Kidney beans contain high levels of fibre (around 12.4 g per 400g tin), which plays a big part in helping to reduce your cholesterol, and of course  subsequently lowering the risk of heart disease. Similarly, kidney beans provide both the soluble and insoluble forms of fiber. Soluble fiber helps reduce the amount of cholesterol you absorb from food, and prevents blood sugar levels rising too rapidly after a meal, whilst insoluble fiber provides enough bulk to help aid your digestive system.

Help Your Brain to Help Yourself

Thiamine (or Vitamin B1) is key to both the function and creation of brain cells, and kidney beans contain 18% of your RDA. Similarly present in kidney beans is Vitamin K, which is great for the brain and nervous system. It is Vitamin K that is responsible for the synthesis of sphingolipids (which is a fat, needed by the outer wrapping of the nerve to form properly). Subsequently, it plays a crucial part in the development of your brain and nervous function.

Lower the Risk of Heart Disease  

Kidney beans’ ability to lower the risk of heart disease stretches beyond merely the source of fiber they provide. They also contain high levels of folate, which helps lower homocysteine levels in the body. Homocysteine is an amino acid which has been scientifically proven to be connected to developing heart problems. As well as folate, kidney beans also provide a good source of magnesium, which is essential for keeping your veins and arteries happy. Magnesium prevents the hardening of arteries, and subsequently improves the flow of blood, oxygen and nutrients around the body.

High in Protein

When you think of high protein foods, most people would immediately think of meat or dairy. Less people would tend to think of kidney beans, however the levels of protein they provide is comparable to any form of meat or dairy. Additionally, when they are combined with whole grain protein such as wheat, rice or barley they become a complete protein.

 Look Younger for Longer

Well perhaps it’s not as simple as that. However, kidney beans possess have high antioxidant health properties. One of the most widely believed benefits of antioxidants is that they have strong anti-aging properties relating to skin problems caused by environmental factors and unhealthy foods. Antioxidants are also extremely effective at building up your immune system, and consequently help to fight off those pesky colds and flu.

Let’s face it, when it comes to the biggest day of your life, your day job matters little. Whether you’re a traffic warden, CEO or indeed a photographer, engaging in holy matrimony is supposed to be one of the most special days of your lives. The problem with such a pinnacle event as a wedding is that they have a tendency to fly by in a blur of emotion. Luckily for professionals such as us, that’s why people hire wedding photographers. But what exactly do prospective love birds look for in a photographer? In a world where wedding photographers are seemingly as common as lawyers, how do you stand out from the crowd? Here are some top tips:

Ask lots of questions

Question them on venue and itinerary. Obviously they will have enough to worry about without you harassing them for every little detail, but it’s imperative to know exactly what they expect from you. After all, there really are no second chances. Find out what style of photos they want. They may not be aware of the options they have, black and white? How about color or sepia? Have they thought about whether they want either staged or spontaneous photos?

It’s also a good idea to discuss the packages you offer. Do they require your services for the entire day, including the reception? Who keep the negatives?

Try to avoid jargon

Try and avoid using too much jargon when meeting your clients, and be sure to look out for that bemused face as a sign of when you’ve gone too far. Try to avoid explaining how you’re going to use a telephoto lens to capture intimate moments from afar, or how they could use candid pictures to capture the apparent naturalness of the day.

Reassure your client

Sounds obvious, but make sure you reassure your client of your experience in wedding photography, and convince them you truly are the best person for the job. Champion your work by showing them your portfolio or website.

Be sure to meet them before the day of the actual event. They will want to ensure they feel completely comfortable around you, and similarly be sure to convince them you can go unnoticed.

It’s all about personality (as well as talent)

OK, so obviously this is not something you can change to fit requirements. However, any blushing bride will be aware of the fact that a photographer’s personality can make or break a wedding. It takes a special kind of person to be able to be able intrude on such a special occasion, and be able to utilize their photographic skills without becoming intrusive.  Similarly, be open and honest. Advise them that, regardless of the fact it may not line your pockets as much, it’s better to spend out on less pictures with a higher image quality, rather than ending up with an album full of mediocre pictures.

Advertising

So long as you are careful, and know who you want to target, advertising can be a great help in generating new business. Try putting signs on your car and leaving business cards in selective cafes and venues which would make suitable wedding venues. Similarly, do not be afraid to get out there and promote yourself via networking events and bridal features.

Final Word

Just remember that this is most probably the biggest and most important day of your clients lives (certainly the bride anyway!). Whilst weddings can be stressful and wedding photography challenging, it can also be very rewarding. It can be a real privilege to be asked into such a close group of family and friends, and so long as you carry out the job you are paid to do you will receive a real sense of gratification. Let’s face it, not every job can provide such a sense of gratification.

A survey has revealed that more than half of automotive dealers have positive expectations for their used car sales and aftersales activities in 2012.

The survey from Experian, the global information services company, revealed that 62% of dealerships predicted that their used car sales activities would grow in 2012.

The survey also revealed that many car dealers are planning to place more of an effort in their aftersales care and products. About 55% of automotive dealers surveyed believed that they would grow their aftersales activity during 2012.

Dealers also revealed that customer loyalty was far greater amongst those who had previously purchased new cars from them: 70% of new car customers returned to the dealership for servicing or repair. In contrast, the survey revealed that only 14% of used car buyers.

Increasing customer loyalty from used car buyers is not the only challenge faced by automotive dealers. 22% of dealers surveyed stated that a shortage of good quality used cars was the biggest challenge facing their business this year, whilst 23% of dealers stated that selling vehicles profitably was the key challenge facing their business. A further 17% stated that identifying and reaching suitable customers was their biggest problem.

Alistair Scullion, Managing Director for Experian’s Automotive business in the UK and Ireland, commented: “Our survey suggests that the sales environment for new cars continues to be a significant challenge and dealers are adapting their businesses accordingly.”

“Optimism around used car sales and aftersales activities is encouraging. It is clear that dealerships recognise that there are growth opportunities for those of them that can react quickly to changing market dynamics, while reaching customers with the right offer and fostering customer loyalty to keep them coming back to the dealership.”