Why can't I properly format my vehicle description in my listing?

220

Asked by AerioSX Dec 03, 2020 at 03:27 PM

Question type: Car Selling & Trading In

CarGurus: It's embarrassing that someone who's paid to try to sell their car on
your site, maybe a $5,000 car, maybe a $50,000 car, CAN'T properly format
their listing. I can't space things. No line breaks. It's just one giant clump of
words. It's unreadable. It's amateurish and frankly it wouldn't take but a few
lines of code on your webmaster's part to rectify this glaring fault. Dealers
seem to have no problem with formatting. What gives? It's 2020 and you aren't
Craigslist! (Pardon me if I sound rude, but I'm trying to sell my vehicle and my
description looks like the Declaration of Independence. Hell, even apostrophes
aren't properly coded. Jeeeez.)

8 Answers

You certainly can't format questions and answers on this forum. Why should ads be any different?

1 people found this helpful.
220

"F_O_R", I'm not sure if your response is a serious one, but I'm pretty sure when you pay money to sell a vehicle worth many thousands of dollars, creating a legible, well organized ad is a fairly simple ask of a company as reputable and capable as CarGurus. Forums are places for informal discussion; ads are for selling millions of dollars worth of motor vehicles on a daily basis. Thank you for you input.

6 people found this helpful.

My point is CG's is lacking in many ways and they do not seem to care.

2 people found this helpful.
220

Ok, that's def a helpful answer. I'm on board now F_O_R, thanks for the clarification. And now I see you've got thousands and thousands of Reputation Points. I salute you. Back to the issue--- It's such a glaring oversight. BOoOoOOooooo... boooo, CG. I thought maybe some forum admin would see a disgruntled PAYING customer and be like, "Whoa, we're dropping the ball... let's be better." And then, "Mission Accomplished!" Maybe it'll happen? I think I'm gonna let them know that Autotrader is where it's at... or anywhere that let's you format content that's 1000% relevant to the entire purpose of using their site. Double jeeeez.

3 people found this helpful.
40

I agree, For sellers who choose to provide a potential buyer with enough information to make an educated decision on their next car purchase, I am very surprised that CarGurus has not enabled sellers to use text formatting tools or implement HTML code (for simple breaks and lists) within a description text box. Even Craigslist allows formatting of descrition text. I hate to say this but this is commonly due to programmers (or their supervisors) not fully understating or caring about the final use-case. Hopefully CarGurus considers updating their framework to a more contemporary and user-friendly UI.

4 people found this helpful.
10

It's now November of 2023 and it's still the same - no matter what I enter for a description, it's melted down into a single string of text, with absolutely no formatting whatsoever. It looks unprofessional to buyers because IT IS UNPROFESSIONAL. My car is not a product on the shelf in the supermarket, and my car description is not a Government-mandated ingredients list that I'm required to include but I really don't want anyone to read; I'm trying to convey information to potential buyers, and make it easy for them to digest.

1 people found this helpful.

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