Justgoodcars.com, the used car website, is offering dealers the opportunity to advertise their used stock for free in reaction to the economic downturn.

Dealers can use the site but have to arrange upload of their stock before it is advertised across the Justgoodcars.com network of 1,105 make and model specific websites within 48 hours.

Colin Mathieson, commercial director for Justgoodcars.com, conceded that the offer does sound suspicious and expects the first reaction to be that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

He said: “In times of recession often the first cutback to be made is marketing, which is a hugely difficult decision for any dealer, how else does he let potential buyers that are out there know about his stock?

“Our offer of free advertising is completely genuine - we may not have the biggest audience in the market, just shy of 250,000 in the UK in October, but that audience is growing and certainly has a value.

“If we bring an advertiser and a buyer together then we will have achieved our goal – in time our name and standing in the market will grow and we’ll build revenues through display advertising, affiliations and sales of enhanced packages to dealers, but in the current climate anyone demanding high rates for online advertising is going to be very disappointed.”

Mathieson also believes that software providers could play their part and help dealers by waiving any upload fees for at least a trial period.

He said: “Some of the biggest names in the software market continue to insist on a fee for sending data to websites like ours – in more buoyant times perhaps dealers could afford that but times are very tough, sending data is as simple as sending an email, and none of us charge for that, so I’d appeal to all software providers to do what they can to help.”