Putting your forecourt online: a stock list, enquiries and test drive requests on your own website
What Auto Trader costs and does, the rules for describing used cars and promoting finance, and how an independent dealer runs a stock list with enquiries, test drive requests and part exchange leads on its own site. Checked 8 November 2026.
This guide is for the independent used car dealer with 10 to 80 cars, an Auto Trader bill and a web agency that charges to add each car. By the end you will know what Auto Trader costs and does, what the law expects of a listing, why a dealer without FCA authorisation carries no finance copy on its site, and how a stock list with enquiries, test drive requests and part exchange leads runs on a hosted platform. Disclosure: we build Orbit Commerce, so weigh the Orbit sections accordingly. Every figure and rule was checked against its source on 8 November 2026.
In short
- Auto Trader publishes no dealer price list. The average retailer paid £3,037 a month in the six months to September 2026 (Motor Trader, checked 8 November 2026), an average that includes the national groups.
- A portal rents you an audience. Your own site owns the enquiry, the part exchange lead, your reviews and your name in Google.
- The Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 decide what a listing must say and must not leave out. Promoting finance needs FCA authorisation or appointed representative status, so a dealer with neither shows no finance copy.
- On Orbit each car is a product with a cash price, a specification table, a gallery, filters, search and an enquiry form where the buy button would be; cars go in by hand or from a spreadsheet, and the site runs beside Auto Trader.
- Solo at £25 a month covers the whole site; the 14-day trial needs no card.
What does Auto Trader cost a used car dealer, and what do you get?
Auto Trader does not publish a dealer price list. Its retailer pages (checked 8 November 2026) describe four contracted packages, Standard, Enhanced, Super and Ultra, each buying more search prominence, plus Advertising Basics for smaller independents, an Economy package for stock priced from £2,500 to £7,000, and Pay As You Go for anyone stocking fewer than five vehicles a month. Prices come from an account manager; the retailer overview gives a 30-day cancellation period and puts the audience at 10.1 million consumers a month. Every package, the packages page says, includes a Retailer Store page, lead management, part exchange and finance leads, valuations and market data.
What the trade pays shows up in the results. Average revenue per retailer was £3,037 a month in the six months to 30 September 2026, across 13,762 forecourts (Motor Trader, 5 November 2026, checked 8 November 2026), an average spanning ten-car pitches and national groups, so read it as scale, not a quote. Car Dealer Magazine’s report on the full-year results (21 May 2026, checked 8 November 2026) noted dealer numbers slipping from 14,013 to 13,942 and protests over Deal Builder, which lets a buyer add a part exchange, finance preferences and a reservation request from the advert.
What does your own website own that a portal never will?
On a portal the advert is yours but the page is theirs, and the rules can change. Your own site builds its audience over time and keeps everything it earns.
| What | On Auto Trader | On your own site |
|---|---|---|
| The enquiry | Through Auto Trader’s contact methods and lead tools | In your inbox with the buyer’s name, phone and email |
| The part exchange | Added inside Deal Builder, on Auto Trader’s pages | A valuation request you price yourself |
| Reviews and your name | Left on the portal; your store page is one result among many | Your Google reviews beside your stock, on a domain you keep |
| The monthly cost | Depends on the package and your stock level | On Orbit, a plan price that does not move with the number of cars |
Run the two as a pair: Auto Trader for reach, the site as the place the advert points at and the buyer checks before ringing. The 25 shops in our round-up of the best UK online shops share one habit worth copying: trust signals on every page.
What are the rules for advertising a used car online?
Two Acts do most of the work; the Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s government-backed Business Companion guide for car traders (checked 8 November 2026) turns both into a checklist.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires a car sold to a consumer to be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. Satisfactory quality excludes anything “specifically drawn to the consumer’s attention before the contract is made” (section 9), so an advisory written on the listing is a fault pointed out and one left off is not. The buyer can reject a faulty car in the first 30 days (section 22). A fault in the first six months is presumed present at delivery unless you show otherwise (section 19). For motor vehicles alone, a refund on a final rejection in those six months can carry a deduction for use (section 24). The Business Companion checklist adds: finish history and mileage checks before the sale, keep the records, and never use “sold as seen” with a consumer.
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 on 6 April 2025 (CMA guidance on gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). A listing is a misleading action if it gives false information or its presentation deceives even when every word is true, and a misleading omission if it leaves out material information or gives it unclearly or too late. Schedule 20 bans 32 practices outright, among them fake reviews and displaying a trust mark without authorisation. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) can fine a business directly, up to 10% of global turnover or £300,000, whichever is greater (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026).
| Rule | What it covers | On your listing |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer Rights Act 2015 | Quality, description and fitness; 30 days to reject; the six-month presumption | Describe the car exactly, list known advisories, drop “sold as seen” |
| Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 | Misleading actions and omissions; 32 banned practices | History, mileage, former use and write-off status checked and stated; genuine reviews and trust marks only |
| Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, section 21, and FCA rules | Who may promote finance and what the advert must contain | No finance copy unless authorised or an appointed representative; a representative example beside any rate or monthly figure |
The finance rule
Arranging finance for a customer is credit broking, a regulated activity. Section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 bars a business from communicating “an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity”, which takes in consumer credit, unless it is an authorised person or the content is approved by one (legislation.gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). The FCA’s guide for credit brokers lists motor dealers among firms that may hold limited permission; the other route is to be an appointed representative of an authorised principal.
A website or a social post that offers finance is a financial promotion and must be “clear, fair and not misleading regardless of the media type” (FCA, checked 8 November 2026), and the FCA’s 2019 notice to a Warrington dealer shows how literally: monthly repayment figures need a representative example beside them. If you are neither authorised nor an appointed representative, your site shows cash prices and no finance copy at all: no monthly figures, no APR, no calculator and no “finance available” line. If you are, your principal or compliance adviser signs off the wording first.
How does a stock list work on Orbit?
On Orbit a stock list is a catalogue with the buy button swapped for an enquiry form.
Each car is a product: the cash price, a compare-at price for a reduced car, and the stock reference in the SKU field. The facts (make, model, year, mileage, fuel, gearbox, MOT expiry, owners) are custom fields, set up once with a type each and shown on the car’s page as a specification table. Exterior and interior photos go in the gallery. Tags and collections (hybrid, automatic, Just arrived, Under £10,000) give the list its filters, and search works across it. Cars go in by hand or from a CSV or Excel file, and a later price list keyed by stock reference updates the cars you already have.
The car page is laid out once in the page builder as the product template: gallery, price, specification table, description, and the enquiry form where a buy button would sit. The form takes a name, email, phone, subject and message; each enquiry is emailed to you and kept in the dashboard’s contact inbox. Three buttons lead to it, “Enquire about this car”, “Book a test drive” and “Value my part exchange”, and all three come in as enquiries, because a test drive and a valuation are free. For the part exchange, ask for the registration and mileage in the message, or add the Form Builder plugin for a form with its own fields and photo uploads. When a car sells, set its stock to zero and a display condition shows a sold banner; archive it later and it leaves the storefront.
Auto Trader keeps its own copy of your stock, so a sold car is marked sold in both places. The car page ends in an enquiry and the sale happens with you, so the deal, the part exchange and any finance conversation stay in your hands; a holding deposit agreed on the phone is taken by hand with a draft order and payment link from the dashboard. The site sits beside Auto Trader: one brings the audience, the other takes the enquiry, shows the reviews and carries your name.
How do you make a dealer website people trust?
A used car is a big purchase from a stranger. Four things shorten the distance.
- Your Google reviews, on your pages. The Google Reviews plugin (a paid add-on, priced on its listing) connects your listing by business name and town and shows your rating and reviews as a badge, carousel or grid, refreshed nightly.
- Membership, in words. If you are accredited to The Motor Ombudsman’s Vehicle Sales Code, which the Chartered Trading Standards Institute approves (CTSI, checked 8 November 2026), or a member of the Independent Motor Dealers Association, which is free to join, say so on the About page and in the footer, and show a logo only under the body’s rules.
- The dealership’s story. Who started it, when, and what every car gets before it goes on sale (history check, service, fresh MOT, valet), only if it is true of every car.
- A live chat button. The Live Chat add-on, which has a free plan and paid plans, puts a chat button on every page with an inbox in your dashboard; outside your opening hours it takes a message, opens a ticket and emails you.
Photos do the other half: shoot every car the same way, the same angles in the same order. Our guide to product photography with a phone covers light and consistency.
Can the same site sell mats, servicing and gift cards?
Yes. Mats and care kits are ordinary physical products with a buy button, and a display condition on a product tag decides which box a page shows: the enquiry form for a car, the buy box for goods.
If you run a workshop, jobs with a fixed price can be booked and paid online as service products: an MOT at the DVSA maximum of £54.85 for a car (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026), a service, a valet. Each has a length, places per slot and the notice you need; the customer picks a date and time, pays the full price at checkout, and the job lands in your Bookings calendar and in their account, where they can reschedule or cancel. A free health check comes in as an enquiry through the form.
Gift cards work for the workshop too: sold in set amounts, emailed to the recipient and redeemed at checkout, where a card that covers the order pays for it and the rest stays on the card, so a £60 card pays for a £54.85 MOT and keeps £5.15. A gift card smaller than the order pays part of it and the rest goes on the customer’s bank card.
Where Orbit fits
A dealer site like this runs on the Solo plan at £25 a month, or £19 a month billed yearly, before VAT: unlimited products, one staff account, 100GB of storage, the page builder with free and premium themes, a blog, hosting on AWS in London with SSL and two-factor sign-in. The pieces above are products, the page builder, reviews, live chat and bookings; Google Reviews, Live Chat and Form Builder are add-ons from the plugin store: Google Reviews is priced on its listing, and Live Chat and Form Builder each have a free plan and paid plans. The theme store lists free and premium themes by industry; pick one for a dealer and change its colours, fonts and logo in the dashboard. If you already have a site Google knows, keep the addresses: Orbit adds a redirect when an address changes and imports a redirect map from a spreadsheet; our guide to moving without losing your rankings covers the rest.
Read next: Auto Trader fees against your own stock list, selling car parts online with fitment notes and what an estate agent’s own website should do.
Questions people ask about putting a used car stock list online
Do used car dealers need their own website if they are on Auto Trader?
Yes, alongside it. Keep Auto Trader for its audience and add a site for what the portal cannot own: the enquiry in your inbox, the part exchange lead, your Google reviews beside your stock and a search result for your name. Run them as a pair.
How much does Auto Trader cost a used car dealer?
Auto Trader does not publish dealer prices; packages are quoted by an account manager. Its results give the scale: average revenue per retailer was £3,037 a month in the six months to 30 September 2026 (Motor Trader, checked 8 November 2026), an average that includes the national groups.
Can I put finance offers on my dealer website?
Only if you are FCA-authorised for credit broking or an appointed representative of an authorised firm, because finance copy on a website is a financial promotion under section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. If you are, any rate or monthly figure needs a representative example; if you are not, show cash prices and no finance copy at all.
How do I take a holding deposit on a car?
The car’s page ends in an enquiry and the sale happens with you. A holding deposit agreed on the phone is taken by hand with a draft order and a payment link from the dashboard that works for 7 days, and the balance is a second order or a payment-due invoice when the buyer collects.
How do I get my stock onto my own website?
Each car is added by hand or imported from a CSV or Excel file, a later price list keyed by stock reference updates the cars you already have, and a sold car is marked sold or archived by you; Auto Trader keeps its own copy. For 10 to 80 cars that is a few minutes per car.
Start in the trial: set up the custom fields, add three cars, lay out the car template with its enquiry form and send yourself a test enquiry. The 14-day free trial, no card required, is long enough to build the site while Auto Trader keeps selling.