Find My Next Ride

Find My Next Ride is a socially interactive website for buying and selling all things automotive.

Think Facebook and Trademe combined. Users can interact with each other, ask questions, post pictures, update their status and watch videos.

Users can follow and be followed by other users or use the private messaging function to communicate with each other.

The website is targeted at young men under 30 who have an interest in cars, are socially active online and spend a lot of their time browsing for, upgrading and modifying cars.

Nicky Primrose, Find My Next Ride director, says she started the website because she saw a need for an alternative to other auction sites whose listing prices were unaffordable for young people.

"With fees of at least $85 to sell a motocross bike and $59 to list a car with a value of $4000, I felt it wasn't value for money", she says.

Launching next week on 24 October, Find My Next Ride aims to be New Zealand's first socially interactive automotive website.

"I soon realised that a simple automotive auction website just wasn't going to work. I knew I had to create something with a difference. This is when the social media side of the site evolved. No one had combined these two elements before".

Not unlike Trademe, users can sell, buy or swap vehicles with classified listings as well as auctions.

Nicky says that apart from selling cars, the comparisons with Trademe end. The site is solely focused on the automotive industry, and while you can sell cars on Trademe Motors, Find My Next Ride users can have a social profile, allowing them to interact with other users in a variety of different ways.

Users can upload their current car to their profile so it may attract offers from other buyers who are specifically looking for that make and model of vehicle. Users also have the ability to share a listing to their own 'Highway' (social wall), or to other friend's Highways.

They can give a listing the 'thumbs up' (like) or leave a comment (including photos if they have items to swap). Users can also message each other as individuals or in bulk and they can share posts on their Facebook account.

More features of the new site include the Ask a Mate function, where users can share knowledge on specific cars they know a lot about with other users.

It works by allowing any user to ask for advice or post a question about a specific listing to other members and businesses that have indicated they know something about the make of car being looked at.

Business users can also participate in the Ask a Mate programme by selecting relevant brands of vehicles in their business profiles. Businesses can provide advice and create goodwill that could in turn generate new business leads.

The Find an Expert function is specifically designed for businesses. The Find an Expert questions are filtered out to businesses depending on their region and the categories of expertise they have specified (such as tyres, panel and paint, mechanical repairs). Users can ask questions, seek advice or get quotes from participating businesses, while businesses can attract users and promote their products and services.

Find My Next Ride is currently in beta and will go live here on 24 October 2014. As part of the Find My Next Ride launch all listings are free until 2015.