Ask a builder to design you a website and tell it "we sell used cars", and you will get back a site that could belong to any of the fourteen thousand businesses in the country that also sell used cars. That is not the tool failing. That is the tool doing exactly what it was told.
The brief is the lever. Everything downstream of it, the colours, the typeface, the weight of the layout, how much room the photography gets, follows from what you said about the business. Spend four minutes on it rather than forty seconds and you get back something you recognise.
Here is what to put in one.
One thing to know before you start writing. This guide is about the bespoke route, where you describe the business and a theme is designed around it, and that is a paid feature from £49 a month. Choosing one of the eighteen core themes and putting your own colours and logo on it is on every plan, the free one included, and needs no brief at all.
The three things that actually matter
The AI theme builder asks for three things, and they are the three that carry the most information about how a dealership should look.
What you sell. Marques, age, price bracket, and anything that makes your stock unusual. "German prestige, three to six years old" produces a different site from "sub-£6,000 hatchbacks" and a different one again from "air-cooled classics and the occasional oddity". Be specific about the segment even if your stock wanders outside it sometimes. The site should be built for what you mostly do.
How you want to come across. This is the one dealers skip, and it does more work than the other two combined. Approachable or authoritative. Local and familiar or national and polished. Quiet and restrained or loud and busy. You already know the answer, because you already know which kind of dealer annoys you.
What your buyers care about. A first-time buyer on a £4,000 car cares about whether they are being had. A buyer on a £40,000 car cares about provenance and condition. A van buyer cares about payload, availability and how fast they can be back at work. Whichever it is, that is what the site should lead with.
Say it in plain sentences
There is no form full of design jargon here, and you are not expected to have opinions about typefaces. Write the way you would explain the business to someone who asked what you do.
Weak brief:
We are a used car dealership in Leeds. We have a good range of stock and excellent customer service.
Everything in that is true of everyone. There is nothing in it to design around.
Strong brief:
We are a family dealership in Leeds selling German prestige saloons and estates, mostly three to six years old, between fifteen and thirty-five grand. Our buyers have already done their research and hate being sold to, so we want to look calm and serious rather than salesy. Most of them come to us because of the pre-delivery inspection we do and the fact that we are honest about what needs doing.
Same business. One of those briefs contains a website and the other does not.
What to leave out
A few things people put in briefs that do nothing, and one that actively hurts.
Do not list features. You do not need to ask for a search filter, a finance calculator or an enquiry form. Every site comes with the pages and tools a car buyer expects, because a dealership website that lacks them is not finished. Spend the words on the business instead.
Do not describe layouts. "Hero image at the top, three columns underneath" constrains the design to what you can already picture. You will get a better answer by describing the feeling and letting the layout follow.
Do not pad it with superlatives. Excellent service, unbeatable prices and huge selection are in every dealer's brief in the country, which means they carry no signal at all. If everybody says it, it cannot distinguish you.
Four briefs you can adapt
Lift whichever is nearest and change the details.
Prestige and performance. "We sell performance and prestige, mostly five to forty thousand miles, thirty grand and up. Buyers are enthusiasts who know the market better than most salespeople. We want it to feel restrained and confident, dark rather than bright, with the photography doing the talking. What they care about most is specification and history."
Budget and family. "Family cars and small hatchbacks between two and eight thousand pounds, in Coventry. Most of our buyers are on a budget and a lot of them are nervous, first cars and second cars for growing families. We want it to look friendly, clear and local, nothing flashy. They care about total cost, warranty and whether they can trust us."
Commercial vehicles. "Panel vans and tippers for tradespeople, ex-fleet, mostly under five years old. Our buyers are busy and want the details fast: payload, load length, ply lining, MOT, how soon they can drive it away. Make it practical and no-nonsense. Big clear specification, easy to scan on a phone on site."
Specialist and classic. "Classics and modern classics, sold to collectors and enthusiasts across the country. Every car has a story and a file of history. We want it to feel editorial and unhurried, closer to a catalogue than a forecourt, with room for long descriptions and a lot of photographs."
Notice that none of those mention a colour, a font or a page layout, and all four would produce visibly different websites.
Point it at something, if you have something to point at
The brief is not the only input. You can also give the builder a starting place.
If you are migrating from an existing site, hand it that. It reads your current pages for tone, services and the selling points you worked out years ago, so the wording you have already proved works comes across with you. That path is covered properly in moving your dealer website without losing what works.
Or name a site you admire and let it take its cue from that. It is often easier to point at something than to describe it.
Treat version one as a draft
The single most common mistake is accepting the first result or rejecting it, when the useful move is to argue with it.
You get a working site in minutes, not a mockup. So look at it the way a buyer would, on your phone, and then say what is wrong in the same plain language you used for the brief. "Too corporate." "The stock is too far down the page." "Make the headings smaller and give the photos more room." Each round gives you a new version, and nothing goes live until you say so, so there is no cost to asking.
Dealers who end up with sites they are proud of almost always went three or four rounds. Dealers who settle went one.
A last word on honesty
One thing no builder can supply is the substance. If the brief says you are known for thorough preparation, the site will say so, and then a buyer will turn up and find out whether it is true.
Write the brief about the dealership you actually run. The site is a shopfront, not a costume.
Ready to try it? The bespoke route starts at the AI theme builder on any paid plan, and the launch post covers what it does end to end. If you would rather see the platform first, the free plan gives you five vehicles on a core theme.
