When do you release your dealers inventory?

would also like to hear from some atc and cars reps on this as well!

We recently started using HomeNet to poll from our DMS. I have it set up so that it does not export the vehicles until I upload the photos and have added any after-market or Dealer Installed options (all photos get done the same day the car goes on our lot). I found this to be the best way because it sometimes takes third party vendors more than 24 hours to update an existing vehicle. Also, this way our sales reps are aware of the vehicle and have all the information at thier fingertips.

We post every vehicle ASAP when it hits the inventory. We do not use the DMS feed to populate, choosing to manually input the vehicles into our eBizAutos system which then feeds everything else. We find that getting the inventory online quickly and without pictures actually generates a good flow of emails and phone calls. We then monitor the vehicles as they go through the make ready.recon process and photo them right after the detail so the car is as clean as it will ever be.

@Robin
Like the tire pictures! I would ask how you do that but Joe Pistol might yell at me
How much time do you all spend on prepping the pics?

We automate as much as possible.

- Vehicles booked in DMS using proper status codes (service, in-stock, transit, etc)
- In-stock vehices are feed to CDM
- Only front-line ready vehicles are shot; uploaded same day
- Once loaded to the site, CDM pushes feed to 3rd party channels
- B/C of the # of cars fed out daily, vehicle descriptions are left in tact. No add'l editing is done in the listings as that cuts the feed. (ie: autotrader.com)
- Once sold/booked out of DMS, vehicle pulled from CDM; 3rd party listings follow...

All listings have full descriptions, prices, #'s, etc...

If an online shopper has made it to one of your vehicles, why not make it even easier for them by providing all of the info they set out to find in the first place? Make the first impression as strong as possible...

My dilemma would be this:
1) Send the inventory as quickly as possible and place a icon such as ”Coming soon”
Benefits of this strategy:

Inventory circulates third party listing sites and makes consumers aware you have this inventory and also confirms that your dealership updates information vs stock images that might project an image of not caring about the www audience. I also know from personal experience that I have sold leads that originated from incomplete listings and I am sure that other folks that visit this board would “tru dat”

2) Wait until service and cleanup has finished their process and take pictures in the best possible condition using the (UCI) Used Car Inspection to validate the personal story of the car.

Benefits of this strategy:

The story of the vehicle can be more precise all while building value using information available from the used car inspection. The pictures will be shot in the best possible conditions and you will maintain a strong, reputable online presence.

My suggestion for “Best Practice” would be to use a combination of 1 and 2 if I could convince others in the dealership chain of command that we would not damage our online reputation and that we could possibly be missing sales by not releasing our inventory as quickly as possible, in a perfect world it would be nice to have inventory ready for pictures and custom comments the day we trade for it. Does anybody know where I can buy real estate in this mythical “Perfect World”?

Our inventory gets pulled by Homenet out of our DMS and then distributed to the various third party sites we use. I like to get the cars out asap even if I don't have pictures yet. We try to get our cars through the shop and on the lot with pictures within 10 days of receiving them because we employ a 60-70 day turn policy. My feeling is that if the car is not listed, it won't get exposure. Since the days a car has to get sold are numbered, we want them out there as quick as possible even if it is without actually pictures initially. At least a customer can see the color, mileage, trim level etc. and maybe call us or email for more info.

Our inventory also gets pulled by Homenet out of our DMS. There are MANY times when I get a call on a car that I am not even aware of that is found through a third-party. Thus the value is presented as the prospect is browsing and browsing and my vehicle caught their eye for one reason or another. The pitch rolls forward as while on the call and that is the time to close on the appointment. If photos are still needed, I shoot it after a quick clean up and send the photos directly to the prospect. I call the prospect immediately and do a presentation while they are browsing the photos. When the appointment is set, I get it bumped into service. When the photos are uploaded, so are the comments. This has seemed to be successful with our program.

As a car buyer, a listing without photos won't get a view from me. I don't know if it has to do with not getting my hopes up, or that I think maybe the car doesn't exist on the lot anymore, but I definitely tend to view ads with REAL photos of the car over listings without photos.

I don't think stock photos necessarily hurt in selling a car, but they don't help me out. I'd rather have a place holder image called "New Arrival" or something similar, and bookmark the page.

From a vendor perspective, managing feeds is the worst implementation of data transfer I have ever encountered. There is NO standardization and so we have to deal with everything from CSV to horribly thought out XML. It hinders the frequency of updates and it lengthens the amount of time to initial roll out.
/rant

Chip-

managing the feeds would be one of the questions I have for the third party vendors. If I release the inventory and update the feed later with more pics and better description will it speed the process up?
For example what is the turn around time of ATC placing a fresh listing compared to updating a existing listing, IS it faster or the same? I have been watching listings and it seems the updates are quicker once the inventory is placed. I could be imagining this....can anyone back me up on this?

You're definitely on to something there Brian. I'd update our third-party listings much more often if they'd accept a feed more often. I can't say exactly where ATC is in updates, but I constantly come across cars that have been sold for days still showing on that site. I don't see that happening with other sites.

We list anything that hits our DMS. We've got too many cars spread across too many lots to manage every single car. Things are handled at our corporate level for consistency. We could divvy-out that task to the individual stores, but that always falls apart at some point. I like the way we do it now, and our customers get to see more selection all the time. Yes, we sell more cars because we post more cars.

I agree with Chip. Inventory feed updates are another issue. It doesn't seem to matter which vendor we use, there always appears to be an issue with cars coming off more so than getting added. It annoys me when a customer calls about a car they saw on cars.com in my inventory that was sold a week ago. Telling a customer that a car is sold even though it is still showing in stock only builds distrust and damages our credibility even if it is only a little bit and that is too much in my opinion. Plus it is unprofessional. As an industry, we have enough challenges to overcome to have to deal with this problem. Having a standardized method of inventory distribution that would operate in real time would be great. The problem is that the DMS providers, the inventory management platforms and the inventory aggregators all have to be on the same page with respect to security parameters and technology standards and that would be a nightmare to establish. Hopefully they will all get their act together one day and solve this problem. Perhaps this is an agenda item for AAISP or NADA from a business process recommendation standpoint.

A couple things to keep in mind, even if the third party vendors update multiple times a day, your data is probably only pushed out to them once a day, so any updates you make won't appear until that happens.

The other thing regards the removal of inventory on these sites, in my experience, just because a car is marked sold doesn't always mean the deal is capped imediatley and pulled out of your DMS system, we are all familair with these deals, the ones that need extra work in F&I or is held up on stips. So if the deal gets stuck in F&I a few days, gets sent to the officethen gets held up another day there, it could be three to four days before this deal is pulled from you DMS, and depending on your system it could be another two days before it is off you third party sites.

I'm not trying to side with trader or cars, I've just seen reasons why it seems to take so long for inventory to get offline and it is probably the reason I update the sold information to my export feed manually on a daily basis. Any time I update information I usually see the changes the next day on my third party providers

Jon - your DMS should have a series of status codes to help mark the path of a completed sale. If you have ADP, then those are Pending, Booked, and Finalized. If you have something sitting in the finance office, mark it Pending. If a car is busting bugs, mark it Booked. If a deal is funded and completely clean, mark it finalized. Then set your inventory feeds to show a vehicle as sold when the deal is "Booked". Pretty simple.

When you've got that setup, come join us in some frustration with ATC over how long it takes them to remove a sold vehicle.

I always am amazed by the dealers who do not want to place their inventory on line.

I recently looked at a Honda Dealer for my wife who leases a Pilot as her company car and one dealer I went to does not like to place their inventory on line.

I aksed the GSM what this was all about and he said it was too much trouble. I asked him how sales were going and he complained he was down 36% from last year.

She leased from another Honda Dealer who was more technology oriented, was able to get the same package at the same price as 3 years ago. They took all the information on line and all she had to do was bring in the vehicle for inspection, turn in the keys and sign the paper work on the new lease and was out in 28 minutes.

The other dealer called two days later and asked if we had made up our minds and I said yes she did. He wanted to know why she went to the other dealer, I did not have the heart to explain.

Lao,
Maybe that dealer will read your post and fix everything

Brian, sorry took me so long to respond...takes about 15 min ea vehicle to prep photos (now that I have a system down) and I use photoshop to do it...

I have been watching my inventory rather closely the last few weeks and I am noticing quite a few cars still listed on third party sites that should have been deleted. I am beginning to think that cars and trader have some sort of system that ensures they have x amount of cars hosted on their server.

hmmm... interesting thought Brian. I have always felt that a vehicle is an "advertising unit".

More inventory = higher search volume and greater "time on site" stats.

I always thought that this was a dealer vs dealer metric, stealing eyeballs with larger inventory. hmmm... WTG Brian, I think you've caught the marketing guys at ATC and Cars with their fingers in the cookie jar!

I have always suspected AutoTrader.com of this. Ask any of our reps over the years, I've had major issues with vehicles never coming off their site....especially those cheap cars that generate the most phone calls and makes ATC's reporting look phenomenal. I have never had this type of issue with Cars.com.

My company uses the iDealer Network for our Data Collection and Dealer Photos. We manage over 40 franchised dealerships here in Southern California and no this is not a plug. I can confirm Alex's suspicion that they do not want to delete inventory. More cars = more eyeballs. In my ten years of working with and for 3rd party portals, many have an antiquated system for updating information and each one has their own format for accepting data. Our system updates our dealers website instantly, but when I push the dealerships inventory to the third-parties, it may take up to 24 hours before it is updated. My best suggestion is to be proactive in the management of your 3rd party advertisers. Familiarize yourself with their tools and delete the sold inventory from them directly. Don't be afraid to beat up your 3rd party Reps. Ask to speak with their managers or territory directors and voice your concerns. You are investing alot of time and advertising dollars in their systems. They should be reciprocating with results. I know here in Los Angeles, Trader and Cars have trainers that drive around and show you how to use their online tools. Ask your rep if this training is available to you.

I have turned over a new leaf....I just want my vendors to increase my DGI!

There are pills for that Brian.

I guess a vendor I talked with awhile back had those pills because he estimated a 8.9% increase in my DGI. I wonder if he has figured out why I haven't called him back?

I am having the same problem with my sold inventory not coming off of cars.com. I don't do business with Autotrader because I can't afford it. That is an interesting theory about cars being left on for search purposes. Although I must say that this problem has only surfaced for us in the last 120 days and before that it wasn't an issue.

I checked the cars that were not coming off and it appears they would be some of my most searched ...... one just happens to be in my top ten list on atc.

Uh oh...the conspiracy theorists are on the loose again. Let's see, ATC has 3 letters and NOT has 3 letters. So there you have it; proof positive that ATC does NOT take sold listings off in order to boost listing numbers. Wait...OFF has 3 letters too so now it's indisputable. Gimme a break.

Think about it: at the huge volume level involved, automated data transfer/handling is a given. That's true of cars.com, ATC, Vast, AOL, Yahoo, manufacturer sites, Dealer Specialties, Auto Exact, HomeNet, PimpMyUpload, etc., etc.. When new data is pushed in, it is added to the database. If that data is missing from a subsequent push, it is removed. No conspiracies, no under-handed schemes. BUT (oh look, another word with 3 letters, this must be getting really spooky for all you grassy knoll types), because there are so many different ways of formatting data - and most are incompatible with each other - and so many "hand-offs" of data from one 3rd party company to another, the opportunities for snafus are everywhere.

Here are two "You're not taking my sold cars off" scenarios I had this week. The first one...the dealer's 3rd party inventory vendor was not recognizing sold vehicles in the dealer's DMS. So sold units were still being pushed every day to ATC. The dealer then remembered that he had agreed to manually remove sold cars from their DMS until the DMS/Inventory Vendor problem could be resolved, but he wasn't doing it. ATC not at fault, but first to be blamed.

Second dealer (and this happens a lot)...the manufacturer continues to include vehicles in the Certified feed that is sent to ATC directly from the manufacturer, even though the dealer has reported those vehicles to the manufacturer as sold. ATC not at fault, but first to be blamed. I recommended to the dealer that they have their certified feed from the manufacturer turned off to avoid the problem.

Brian and Alex, rather than accusing your 3rd party vendors of nefarious activities, why don't you provide your ATC rep with specific VIN numbers of vehicles that are still listed which you think should have been removed and have them research why they are still on site. I'll be interested to see the findings posted here on DR.

@lightnup
who can I check with besides my rep and dealer concierge?
I am only having the issue with a few cars (they happen to be in my top ten) and I checked if they were capped in the system correctly. I also made sure that I had not touched it within the atc control panel.
I would also like some feedback or suggestions on placing inventory with atc. Not bashing just trying to get some answers. What happens to above theory if I spell it at.c? Would the . count as a letter? So now we have to look for four letter words? hmmmmmm......

damm... Lightnup spoiled the grassy knoll tread just when it was getting good.

Lightnup, "fuzzy logic" or not, you carry the burden of proof. This topic would make good ATC Newsletter back page content, possibly a side bar.

Joe

Lightnup - I've been providing my reps with that for years. It is always ATC, and never anyone else. I don't have this issue on Cars.com, I don't have this issue with my local newspaper's website, I don't have this issue with our website, I don't have this issue with any of our inventory companies either....in fact, they help me research the ATC problems too and find ATC to be at fault everytime.

following up on inventory issue with at.c:
I spoke with a dealer concierge today and they informed me my inventory was bouncing to another dealers inventory??? I gave them several examples with vin's.
Thanks for the advice Lightnup!

I help over 150 stores in Southern CA distribute their inventory to 3rd party destinations.... In my experience, it's a waste of time to use 3rd party advertising sites' tools to manage inventory. You are duplicating efforts without increasing results .... you should be using ONE system that pushes inventory updates to ALL destinations.

When you use programs such as "AdManager" or Cars.com's tool to manage your listings, you 'lock' the inventory and can freeze specific vehicles, thereby preventing price updates or automated removal from CDMData/HomeNet/eBiz/DealerFusion or whichever vendor you're using to manage inventory marketing. Keeping inventory consistent across ALL destinations should be your main priority.

Brian - and did they find the source of the problem and correct it? And if so, what caused the problem?

Alex - Not sure how one can say "I don't believe it" without sounding rude, but let's just say that I'm skeptical that for years your cars weren't coming off in a timely manner, it was always ATC's fault and no one could ever get it fixed. Are you perhaps lumping the AutoTrader magazine folks in with AutoTrader.com? We're different companies. They send a basic 1-photo listing to ATC for every car you put in the magazine and are notorious for not removing them from their subsequent feeds. I have a dealer with multiple instances of 4 and 5 listings of the exact same car. One is always the correct listing with VIN from the dealer's 3rd party vendor that gets removed when the car sells, the other ones are always from the magazine feed but they have no VIN so it's impossible for an automated system to ferret out duplicates. I only mention it because I see where you turned your magazine feed off. Did that resolve your problem? If not, you have a rep with a manager and a dealer concierge with a manager. I'd be all over them until the root of the problem was found. I still have trouble believing that it has been strictly an ATC problem that couldn't be fixed "for years." Technology isn't perfect, problems occur and ATC makes mistakes, but the accusation of intentionally failing to remove vehicles so the inventory would be larger is what I took exception to.

Alex, how come less than half your Toyota inventory listed on ATC have photos? Shoppers will scroll right by the ones that don't have pictures to find the ones that do. (Let me guess, it's ATC's fault.)

...and I agree completely with Jerome. Dealers using a 3rd party inventory vendor should absolutely use that company's interface for inventory uploads and updates, not ATC's.

Lightnup - we have some work to do on photos.....and I also have some work to do on Pivec about where they decide to put our Toyota inventory.

The account reps we've had for AutoTrader.com have been decent lately. Our last one received a well deserved promotion - he really did work hard for us. The two new ones we have are coming in when we feel like we wasted a lot of money on another trial with ATC and we're bitter. We have tried ATC numerous times for long lengths of time ever since ATC came into existence. What you're seeing right now, is our inventory being placed on ATC for free and I'm not paying full attention to it. My concentration is in other areas that are giving us incredible ROI and increase. I don't have time for the non-performers.

Despite how it may look on Dealer Refresh, I have always left the check book open for ATC in case they make some changes that cater better to our market place and Checkered Flag. I don't know exactly what those changes are, but I'm ready to be a customer again when they do happen. In the meantime, I will continue being the nail in your boot until you guys make those changes. I don't gripe because I want to see ATC die - I gripe because I want to see ATC become something we can use. I wouldn't gripe if I didn't care.

Great question. I thought I was the only one who struggles with this. I had a customer Sat. that had to see a van we listed as it came in, Once they got there and saw some minor stains on the seats and dirt around the console, it burned into their brains, and it was all over. With out a doubt, you only get one 1st impression.

As a 3rd party site owner, (EasyAutoSales.com) I can say that we assume data from the management systems are right until a dealer calls in with problems. Many times, it can be attributed to some piece of data not updating when it reaches us.

I know in one particular case a dealer had switched their inventory management company but their old feed provider was still sending us the last snapshot of the vehicles from the dealer and that caused some problems.

On the other hand, I have also seen dealers not filling out their website and email fields in their management systems accurately and leads for the cars from those dealerships are probably lost on the web somewhere.

BTW, EasyAutoSales.com is accepting feeds from all dealerships for free for any of you that are interested. I know a number of dealers here are already on the system through Dealer Specialties, Diamondlot and a couple of others. If you're with eBiz, just request them to add you to our website - everything is already setup.

- Wei

Another question I'd like to throw out there since I'm unfamiliar with the ATC and Cars platform. Are there costs associate with those sites that are directly related to the number of times you publish new/used cars?

The reason I ask is because we accept feeds and feed updates w/o any costs to the dealer so I'm wondering if the posed question is still a concern when individual pushes are no longer taxed.

@Wei
would you be talking about a fee such as what ebay charges when you list a individual car for sale? If so no it is based more off how many cars you generally have in stock and what type franchise you have.....sites such as autotrader charge more for premium placement sorta like a newspaper ad.

Robin,

Are you using homenet to push your photos? Who takes them? You or do you use a college or high school punk? I considering dumping Dealer Specialties. Not that they don't do a good job, its just too expensive and they're not consistent. I think I could do better with more control.

What software do you use for comments?

What do you show on the gas cap on HUGE SUV's? "Poor Gas Mileage" or "Wow, look how much it takes to fill me up" ???

Thanks!

I have been toying with the idea of checking into Homenet, instead of using Diamond lot, does anyone have any first hand experience, or pro's or cons?
Thanks
J

Jeff, I have been using Homenet for several years now and have no complaints. The system is very robust and does one of the best jobs of returning accurate VIN data.

The question is; are you bringing your photo process in-house?

There are other companies out there to consider as well and I believe you should look at several before making a decision. Other to possibly consider - Autorevo, ebizauto, ecarlist, auction123. I'm sure there are others I'm missing so do your homework.

Once you have the right tool and assuming you are bringing your inventory photos and data process in house, when will you release your inventory?

Will you release your inventory to the web before you have all the data and photos OR will you wait until you have all the correct data, pricing and photos?

Jeff,

I have used Homenet before and was very impressd. At my last store used dealer specialties with Homenet and it worked well. We later switched to Auction123 and they worked great with Homenet. I believe that Auction123 does a better job taking inventory photos then Dealerspecialties. However, I think it all depends on the person that takes your picture and how detailed they are. Anyone can take a picture but the importance is quality of the picture. There are other companies like vauto which I am starting to see come around.

My compliment to Auction123 is that they have one of the best support staff team members that I have ever worked with and the same goes for Homenet.

I do agree with Jeff that you need to consider what your plan is when it comes to releasing inventory.