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Do you take your own photos?

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mattwatson81

mattwatson81

Getting Refreshed
Apr 10, 2009
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Matt
#1
Thought I would start a poll to see who takes their own photos versus paying a 3rd party provider to do it.

In these tough economic times I would think more and more dealerships would take their own photos to cut costs.

Anyone have any tips on how to better take your own photos?
 
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#2
We started taking our own about 2 years ago, and hired the person who worked for the 3rd party company to work in our parts department - she was fantastic! It works out better when the person is an employee and doing it full time - you get a bit more done, and that person is not afraid to point out where a Used Car Manager might be dropping the ball.
 
#3
Question? We currently take our own pictures and upload them to our Cobalt site. Cobalt then takes that information and feeds all the other providers. I have been tracking how long it takes for a vehicle once uploaded to Cobalt to show up in cars.com, autotrader.com, etc....3 days. I've gone through all the usual step and no one claims responsibility.

So my question is, how many of you use a company such as Dealer Specialties to host and send your inventory?
 
#4
I hate to say it Blake, but I have yet to find an inventory tool that makes this process any faster. Dealer.com is very good about accepting a new feed and we have them pushing to AutoTrader. I can watch a car be 100% complete on our website and take 3 days to show on AutoTrader.com. iMagicLab uploads to Dealer.com and Cars.com and I'll see Dealer.com have things days before Cars.com does.

I experienced the same thing when we were on HomeNet. So, even though I can't stand to say a nice thing about CoBalt, I don't think it is their fault. The large inventory sites just seem to be behind.
 
#5
Alex Snyder said:
I hate to say it Blake, but I have yet to find an inventory tool that makes this process any faster. Dealer.com is very good about accepting a new feed and we have them pushing to AutoTrader. I can watch a car be 100% complete on our website and take 3 days to show on AutoTrader.com. iMagicLab uploads to Dealer.com and Cars.com and I'll see Dealer.com have things days before Cars.com does.

I experienced the same thing when we were on HomeNet. So, even though I can't stand to say a nice thing about CoBalt, I don't think it is their fault. The large inventory sites just seem to be behind.
Click to expand...

It is usually all timing issues. For example last I knew Cars.com only updates the site in the afternoon, so we send them files at say midnight and it doesn't update till mid afternoon the next day. AutoTrader though takes multiple feeds daily so it can be kept more up to date.

It's all timing issues.
 
#6
Blake,

I love it. GM BASHES YOU for not answering an email in minutes, yet endorses cobalt. hahaha....

ahem. sorry about that. That's as bright as flying AirForce1 past NYC skyscrapers.
custom_1240929643448_newsday.jpg
 
#9
We shoot inventory photos in-house at 4 of our stores using Homenet as our tool, and we use Dealer Specialties at our other stores. Without question, we get better quality pics and data doing it in-house, but it ultimately depends on who you have taking the pics and doing the work. For many of our GMs, this is one more thing to worry about, so they use Dealer Specialties, while our others that are more aggressive, or have more available manpower, do it themselves.
 
#10
Everyone at our dealership wears multiple hats, but I have managed to keep our photo taking hat off my head.

We use AutoUplinkUSA for our photos. The guy who takes the pix pays very close attention and takes pride in his result.
 
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