EZ Autos is an easy-to-use motor vehicle listing component for the Mambo/Joomla content management systems.  Also, just because something is easy to use doesn't mean you have to settle for little in the way of features or a low-quality presentation that requires hours of custom modifications.  EZ Autos was designed with presentation in mind - to make your sales listings look great!  It also doesn't matter what sort of site you want to run - EZ Autos has the flexibility to run a site for your own listings, multi-dealer listings or a community sales portal offering free and/or paid listings - EZ Autos is PayPal IPN enabled to do it all!

For example - to run a sales portal - start your site off in "free listings mode" to establish a membership base of listings with quality information, progress on to the "combined mode of operation" where you offer free listings with the option to pay for upgrades - and suddenly you've got a money-making site.  As the success of your site grows - you can then progress onto a "paid listings only" basis if you want - and now you've got the opportunity for some serious income.

EZ Autos can be used by:-

• A single dealer wanting to list his/her own business listings
• Multiple dealers employed by a single business to list their individual listing responsibilities
• Multi-dealer co-operatives wanting to list on a shared site
• Online entrepreneurs wanting to run a FSBO motor vehicle sales portal
• A new sales dealership wanting a display library for their stock
• An automotive club wanting a way for members to display their cars - eg. restoration or customization projects

Features

Quick Install

It takes a minute to install EZ Autos on your web server - and another couple to install the multitude of modules available. Yes, it's that quick.

Multiple Business Models

EZ Autos is designed to meet the needs of multiple business models - from the single dealer listing their motor vehicles for sale online, multi-dealer cooperatives, and community sales portals offering FSBO listing services.  Simply configure it to meet the needs of your business model.

Profiling System

EZ Autos allows your sellers to promote their business, and share their contact details.  Supports multiple contact methods, including direct contact, snail mail, email, telephone, SMS via Clickatell, and 3 online messaging systems.  New in version 5.2.0 are profile privileges - enabling your members to manage more aspects of their listings such as publish/unpublish, skip the paid listings process, reset the expiry date and more.  Profiling privileges are an excellent way to keep employees out of the backend - yet allow them certain privileges normally only accessible via the admin area.

PayPal IPN Enabled

Turn your EZ Autos-powered site into a money-maker with the paid listings functionality.  Two sales levels allow you to charge for upgrades from free listings to "premium" and "featured" listings - or run in paid listings only mode.

Expiry Management System

Limit your listings based on page impressions or time - eg. 30 day listings.  Easy to use "clean listings" function to remove expired listings, and email notification for expired listings.

SEO

EZ Autos comes with support for SEF Advance, and also works on the core Mambo/Joomla SEF system - so you've got two SEF-friendly URL choices for your vehicle listings.  Also, add a meta description and meta keywords to your description, and the meta title is generated from existing data.

Easy Layouts

Front-end templating system makes changing the layout of data on listing pages and the full details page. Four different layouts are currently available for the listings pages, and 10 different layouts are available for the full details page - including tabbed pages, and a variety of image layouts/systems including javascript rollovers, slimbox and javascript slideshows.

Professional Image Presentation

In an industry where looks are everything, EZ Autos gives you a choice of top-quality image display systems.  Templates come with Javascript rollover images, Javascript slideshows, or the slimbox image system.

VIP Buyer's Register

Don't miss sales opportunities just because you don't have a listing people want.  The VIP Buyer's Register allows you to collect details of purchaser requirements, and display those on the front-end as a "wanted vehicles" listing page.  Auto-matching of VIP buyers to vehicle listings via a single-button email function.  Emails sent to people on the VIP Buyer's Register contain a summary of key vehicle information, an image and the seller details - as well as a link to the vehicle listing and an unsubscribe link.

Mapping Support

Comes with Google and Yahoo mapping support built-in - your choice for your needs - or turn it off.  EZ Autos mapping system displays both the property address of the vehicle seller - and supports driving directions.  If you want to use the Google decimal coordinates system - then you can also display a map of where the vehicle is for sale.

RSS 2.0 Feed

RSS 2.0 feed of new vehicle listings enables you to get your listings out to subscribers and other web sites easily.

External Feeds

Two feeds to the Google and Vast vehicle listing sites will enable you to get broader exposure for your listings without much additional effort.

Cross-component integration

Seamlessly tap into other components such as MyPMS for personal messaging, save newsletter subscribers directly to  the Letterman newsletter component and promote user interactivity with the jReviews commenting and ratings system.

Customer Tools

Cross-browser "add to favourites" bookmarking function, recommend to friend email, print vehicle details, contact seller/dealer, add to mailing list request.  Add to mailing list requests are now saved to database, and can be exported in XML format for import into a mailing list manager.

Multi-Lingual

EZ Autos has multi-lingual support - meaning it is coded with language tags and has a language file system to enable the translation of embedded page text, and it comes with a set of JoomFish content element files to enable you to translate the database content.

Out-of-the-box functionality

As of version 5.2.0 - EZ Autos has a new system mambot to insert custom code into your template header, and a new module to insert custom code into the debug module position.  Joomla 1.5x users will have two system plugins to handle the same work.  This means you no longer need to worry about modifying your template with special code needed by EZ Autos special features and addons.  It's all handled via the automatic installer.

Bonus Addons

Comes with a range of modules to extend your site, including:- new vehicle listings, random vehicle listings, single featured vehicle listing, multiple featured vehicle listings, vehicle Makes list, loan calculator, featured seller, latest sellers, large search filter, dealer/seller search by locality, image slideshow and a Community Builder plugin.  Also included is the AutosMap component - a Google mapping component that displays your vehicle listings on a single map.

System Requirements

EZ Autos is not a "stand-alone" script - it's a component developed for use with the Mambo/Joomla! content management systems.  As a "database-driven" PHP script, EZ Autos requires:-

• Either the Mambo or Joomla! content management system - tested on Mambo 4.6x, Joomla 1.0x and Joomla 1.5x
• PayPal account if wanting to offer paid member's listings
• MySQL database - tested on servers running versions 3.23.54  - 5.0.27-standard.
• PHP scripting support - tested on servers running versions 4.2.2 - 5.2.0
• IonCube encryption support.  Most servers have this available, or you can download the free IonCube loaders from IonCube if it isn't installed on your web hosting.  You can also download our IonCube test file to ensure you've got the correct encryption support prior to purchase.
• Your server settings must also allow communication by EZ Autos with the Raptor Services licensing server.  This is done via fsock by default, and we have a curl system available as a secondary option.  We also have an alternative licensing option for clients who lack the necessary server settings for connections to the licensing server.