A variety of people and companies visit my website, there is impossible to make everyone happy by offering a single vehicle database, or to predict the needs of future customers and develop suitable databases in advance.
If you think that these vehicle databases are stolen from somewhere and sold “as it is” like on other data providers, you’re WRONG. Being the developer of database and having BIG experience in automobiles, I can customize the database for individual cases.
Tell me what are you looking for, I may customize a database or create a new database according your requirements, and for future customers who may want same thing, you can help me to make database usable for applications that it was not originally planned.
Note: please don’t treat me like your own personal full-time employee, with unlimited time available for YOU in defavor of other customers. I am an independent businessman who likes serving as many customers is possible. So I have the right to NOT do projects that takes more than ~5 hours of manual work and more than ~50 hours of web scraping, if you are the only person who want that particular database. Large projects can be done only in the fields of my personal interest OR if there is demand from multiple people.
Custom packages
I sell each database in several standard packages, for example Year-Make-Model-Trim-Specs have packages Trims, Basic Specs, Full Specs, also all cars (1990-2018) and new cars only (2016-2018). But you can ask me to create a custom package if:
- You need more than 2016-2018, but also don’t want to pay big price for 1990-2018. For example you need 2010-2018.
- You need an additional column that is not included in Basic Specs package, but don’t want to pay big price of Full Specs package.
- You need only SUVs and trucks, or only vehicles made by General Motors (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Geo, GMC, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn).
Note: if you buy custom packages you will NOT be notified automatically when updates are available and you will not be able to download them. If you need updates you need to contact me and I will email you.
Customization of existing data
FREE customization: rearranging the existing data, deleting the “bonus” cars not sold in Europe, translating technical terms, etc. Do not lose a FREE offer like this FUNNY customer!
Paid customization: if new data need to be added, but if your idea is great and makes the database better thus can be sold to more people, price will be LOWER.
I have developed the databases initially as stand-alone products intended for visualization in Excel, not expecting that people will want to integrate them in websites or other applications.
Until december 2012 I had only 2 databases with specs for sale: Car Database LITE (renamed Car Models Database) and Car Database BIG (renamed Car Models & Engines Database), plus the Car Models List offered FREE in Word format because I was in doubt that someone will ever pay for a simple list of models without technical specs…
… without realizing that there is audience of people looking for a car database to integrate in a website, so they do not need technical specs, they need just a list of models… but in Excel rather than Word!
– As soon as one customer (from Turkey) told me this (30 December 2012), I offered conversion of Car Models List.DOC (offered FREE) to .XLS for €20 but he did not agreed to pay, however I DONE IT and put it for sale for other people, for $29.60 – 2960 models / 103 brands. Surprisingly, in just one month 4 people bought such XLS list of models without specs, outselling the other 2 products. Many thanks to anonymous from Turkey.
– One American did not liked the just-launched Car Models List.XLS and told me to recompile it by making separate row for each year (5 February 2013), after a little talk and confusion, I DONE IT!
This format of database was very WEIRD for me as European, but later I realized that this is the standard format for North America market so I put it on sale for everyone as Car Models List US and it became a best-seller! Later renamed to Year-Make-Model.
Now I think that this guy from one month ago wanted the same thing, but instead of explaining me, he quitted like an idiot.
– An insurance company intending to buy Car Models & Engines Database suggested to add two extra columns for make and model beside full model name. DONE! (December 2012), this boosted sales a lot.
– Someone who purchased Car Models & Engines Database complained that cannot filter the table by fuel type (January 2013). DONE! I added an extra column for Fuel type without charging extra cost (it was originally not included because any reader can realize which is gasoline and which diesel, by model name). Now I am sad by thinking that I lost potential buyers who were needing Fuel type column too, they went away instead of telling me to add it?
– The BIGGEST job ever done by customer request (opposite of the original database made as personal interest), is the Car Tire Database. Initially I said NO to first customers, because takes over 100 hours, but during 2013 I has been contacted by 4 customers demanding a Car Tire Database, so I decided to start adding tires in the Car Models Engines & Dimensions database. After completing 20% my website was hit by Google Penalty, lost 90% of traffic, lost interest in making new databases because potential of new customers was too low. Penalty ended in March 2014, traffic recovered.
A new customer wanted transmission, other customer wanted something else. I put Car tires on hold to decide what is best thing to do, and in mid-2014 I decided to add not just tires but ALL 40+ data fields from AutoKatalog.
I published a SAMPLE of the 40+ fields database, as marketing experiment, to see if anyone is interested in such big amount of data, and in 6 months found only 1 customer interested in 40+ columns (which in this case I would have abandoned the project) but numerous customers interested in specific data (mostly interested in tires, few in transmission, etc) encouraged me to continue.
I launched for sale Car Models, Engines, Tires in May 2015 with 60% completion for tires, and finalized the 40+ fields database for 1990-present in October 2015.
CONCLUSION: many people are looking for things that I did not expected, but I could offer them IF they would not be lazy to contact me and request them. What are YOU looking for?
Creating totally new databases
Learning web scraping in 2015 opened a new era, now I can create totally new databases with minimum of effort, not limited automobiles or other fields of personal interests, by writing scripts that visit a certain website and extract specific data and put it into an Excel database.
Do not just tell me what data do you need and expect me to do research on the web to find that particular data. You need to provide URL of a website containing the data you need and I will make the scraping script. The resulted database will match the original website, which may be or may be not the format you need.
Do not expect me to create databases with data that you cannot find yourself in any form, for example:
- Do not ask me to make database with dimensions of car lights, bumpers, windows, etc. Such dimensions are not provided in car manuals or anywhere in the web. If you sell such car parts, measuring yourself your own parts is the only solution.
- Do not think that I can compile a table with number of cars sold in your country, breakdown by model, if your government is not tracking sales and making them public on the internet. Data needs to be available somewhere in order to scrap it and put into a database.
Examples of things that I cannot do
- Someone was looking for VIN database (Vehicle identification number), I answered that if he have the VIN data can give me and I will see if I can add it in my table, but he did not had (February 2013). A second customer asked me for VIN database, but our chat gone wrong. He told me that VINs are unique per each car and NOT per model/trim… so in this case how a VIN database should look like????
If do you want a VIN database, please provide me a feasible format, otherwise I consider it an impossible project. - During 2013 3 people asked me if I can compile a motorcycle database too. I have over 10 years experience in cars, while the experience in motorcycles is ZERO because I was never interested in them. I CAN start it by compiling a list of models with production years using Wikipedia, but without experience I may be not able to spot and fix errors to produce a quality database. Sorry, I will say NO, let’s stick on CARS only. Update: after learning web scraping I was able to quickly create a motorcycle database in 2016.
- Someone asked if I can add oil viscosity in my database. He said that this info is available in car service manuals. OK, but does have time to look on Google, and read every car manual to copy this info in Excel? Sorry, NO for such high-effort jobs!
- One of the weirdest requests was from a manufacturer of mosquito nets for 4-door cars, requesting a database with rear door window dimensions. No car manufacturer provide such info that is not on general interest… it needs to be measured manually on cars of his own customers.
Vehicle database for other markets than Europe and United States
During 2014, 2 customers from Australia asked if I can make a database for their market. Australia population of 22 million people send me 1% of total website traffic and will make my job unprofitable. Sorry, I am NOT interested to build an Australian Car Database that will have estimated 5 sales per year.
Special mention for India, with 1+ billion population and booming car industry, it sent me about 8% of website traffic … after I serve every possible customer in Europe and America, next market to go will be India.
But making an Indian database pose 3 problems:
- Lack of reliable data source comparable with AutoKatalog magazine (Europe) and Edmunds.com website (America).
- The poverty of a third-world country (some customers offered me sums of money that makes me crying).
- The bad experience with some indians, their rude attitude and attempts to get work done for free and pay after that, made me undecided if I should serve them with an Indian Car Database.
Because daily traffic on Car Database sub-website was rising, and because I learned web scraping, I almost quit my other job (AutoCAD & architecture design) to focus my life on databases, created a car database for India in August 2015, followed by Middle East in 2016, both of these selling so poorly so did not created databases for more continents, until Australia in 2017, which surprisingly sold to 5 people in first month, higher sale volume that India and Middle East together despite of smaller population.
Can you make a database for our exclusive use, and not sell to anyone else?
In 3 years, 2 people asked me to make a database of buildings for their exclusive use.
One of reasons for which I LIKE this job, is that once I complete a database required by a customer, I can publish it on website and other people will purchase it too, generating a lifetime income with a small amount of time needed for regular updates.
BUT if you want to be exclusive user of a database, I will no longer like this job. You need to pay a price equivalent with the estimated sales for one year.
However there is a BIG problem: what I should do if someone else ask me to compile similar database? Would be NOT NICE to say NO to the second customer and not compile the data requested (how I can “compile” again? I just need to sell the database compiled for you), even if I say NO, he will pay someone else to compile data, as long the data is about cars, buildings, and other real life objects, he is likely to get anyway from someone else a database similar with the one sold exclusively to you. So…? Exclusive use is probably impossible. If you want I can avoid publishing your database on website, but I reserve right to sell to other people if they ask for same kind of database.
Is possible instead, to offer small customization to existing database to make it slightly unique for each customer.