How do you get your Used Inventory on your site?

[Key Olds]

Do you input each car after you have physically booked it out? Do you let a 3rd party enter your R&R or ADP to pull your inventory? (ever had a problem there?)
Do you pay a service to book your cars, upload your database, snap the images, print out the stickers? Or do you have another system to handle this "daily" task?

What kinds of problems have you had dealing with your inventories...new and used?

[IntManager]

Check out supersale.com's digital lot. it is the only tool i know of and it works great! it saves a lot of money and is the only accurate way to put inventory up on the web.

[kconsidine]

Web site building firms like cars.com and Cobalt can auto load your inventory direct;ly from R&R or ADP. Cars.com will do that for you 5 days per week and also upload your invetory to their consumer site, #2 in overall traffic. Go to http://dealers.cars.com for information

[halcyon]

www.earthcars.com

you should see the services they offer. a complete and *local* online solution!

[jimmuntz]

I would like some input from other forum users- Is this discussion string just becoming a place for every service to promote themselves? Should the string be terminated?

I want to guard the integrity of the forum, but at the same time I do not want to close off useful exchanges of information.

Your opinions please-


------------------
Jim Muntz
Publisher WD&S Publishing
jimmuntz@dealersedge.com
Phone 800-321-5312
FAX 800-314-4770

[Rocky Sanders]

Drop it.

[stcrim]

Jim,

Some of the self serving stuff can be helpful, but perhaps the forum would benefit from starting a "List your service" forum where people can tell what service that have that may benefit a dealer. This might help keep in out of the other parts of the forum. And if not you can always lock a thread down and redirect it to the proper forum.

I would guess many of your viewers are looking for things to help improve their own web sites - manage leads - generate traffic, etc.

Just a thought
Steve
stcrim@prodigy.net

[ARadtke]

To answer the original question re: getting used inventory online. I am an Internet Consultant for AutoTrader.com. We poll inventory through ADP & Reynolds and with the full Vin we are posting a stock photo on our site. As long as the information in the Dealer Management System is accurate the info online is accurate when it is polled once a week.
The window sticker companies: Rolling Maronie and Dealer Specialities can manage your inventory and upload the information and actual images.
Some of the dealers I work with use Dealer Specialities "autolink", an additional page on their site..that is actually a re-direct from the dealer specialities: getauto.com site. Which means the attention can be on turning units instead of managing & updating information on their site. I am not 100% on the cost but some dealers tell me it's $50.00 a month. Good Luck

[bassador]

We have a lot of automotive clients, and most of them use either Dealer Specialities or Rolling Maronie for used. Both companies take photos, which is *very* important for used inventory. Both work well with our company, who designs the overall dealer site and "plug in" to the used inventory database.

[virtuallotmanager]

A software product aimed strictly at the used dealer can be found at www.lotmanager.com.

[This message has been edited by jimmuntz (edited 08-20-2000).]