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kathikruse · Jan 21, 2011

Great post, I totally agree. The signs of fear around review sites are already starting to show. Waking up and taking the lead is required.

Jan 21, 2011

Very Funny! But I won't be clicking the "Like" button.

Jan 21, 2011

hahaha, holy Viral Batman!

Jan 21, 2011

When you "Like" this article on facebook it says "Alex likes You got a STD...?" ....hilarious.

Jan 21, 2011

Wait...where is Joe's line about when he asks the social media fairies for their ROI data and they just give him a puzzled look, hop on their magic unicorns, and fly away?

Jan 21, 2011

Most leaders of dealerships are firefighters, not visionaries, and certainly not risk takers (read: entrepreneurial). Like lemmings, these leaders follow what others do, blaming the handcuffs they wear on circumstances that surround them.

It's this sea of morons (aka leaders) that mindlessly "follow the pack" into Social Media because everyone else is doing it. To these players, their entire Social Media business model lives on 5 minutes of research and 34 seconds of planning. They don't get it and they wont get it...ever.

Oh...and just wait until the evil twin of Social Media comes out and WACKS them. Dealer Reviews has the potential to be the single greatest threat to Dealer Leadership since Al Gore invented the internet. By this time next year, I see droves of GMs and GSM's in the fetal position, sucking their thumbs wondering how this all got away from them.

I am well known for my dis-taste of Social Media. It's not Social Media that irritates me, it's...us. Every where I look I see lackadaisical leadership that is so unprepared for the "Bright Light of Social Media".

I swear the Franchise System (Manufacturer to Dealer) has sucked the balls out of decision makers. It has rewarded GM's that defend it's turf, not those that conquer new ground. Boys..I hate to tell you...new ground is coming your way!

Is your dealership READY?

bpulseadmin · Jan 20, 2011

Dallas, TX and Centreville, VA, January 19, 2011 –eCarList, one of the fastest-growing automotive software companies, has teamed with Carfax to provide free access to eCarList’s innovative TrueTarget Mobile app. TrueTarget Mobile makes it easy for automotive dealers to appraise, price and merchandise vehicles directly from their mobile phone. Dealers better understand the market when acquiring vehicles and price their inventory to sell faster and more effectively.

TrueTarget Mobile, which was recently named the most innovative dealership solution of the year, includes integration of retail pricing and vehicle history information from Carfax. Access to the mobile app was previously limited to dealers who subscribe to eCarList’s inventory management solution, but is now available to all automotive dealers and provided at no additional cost to dealers who have an active Carfax account.

“Dealers want anytime access to Carfax Vehicle History Reports,” said Dick Raines, president of Carfax. “Having this information at your fingertips during acquisition and retail helps our customers maximize profitability. TrueTarget Mobile is a convenient tool that broadens access to Carfax information and makes a dealer’s job simpler.”

With TrueTarget Mobile, dealerships can accurately appraise and price vehicles utilizing Carfax Vehicle History Reports, current pricing data from online vehicle marketing websites, and optionally access integrated pricing data from wholesale books. The app allows dealers to filter, organize and view the data geographically and flag pricing from competitive dealerships for the most relevant pricing assessment of each vehicle.

“Carfax Vehicle History Reports are critical to an accurate vehicle appraisal and without this trusted information, dealers cannot effectively appraise, price and merchandise vehicles. We are proud that TrueTarget Mobile is not only being offered for free to Carfax subscribers, but that it is also the first and only mobile product to provide users with free access to the most valuable data from leading retail marketing websites,” said Len Critcher, CEO of eCarList. “Our mission is to make it easy and cost-effective for dealerships to fully own and control the vehicle merchandising process. We are pleased that we can now provide this tool at no cost to Carfax-subscribing dealers.”

About eCarList

Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, eCarList (www.ecarlist.com) provides a full suite of inventory management and online marketing tools for the retail automotive industry enabling dealers to appraise, price and merchandise vehicle inventory online in real-time. Services include inventory management, inventory distribution, vehicle appraisal and pricing tools, mobile software, dealership health reporting, dealer CRM, custom web design, and digital marketing solutions via a fully integrated software as a service platform. eCarList improves dealership productivity, inventory turn, sales, and profits for its clients by improving and simplifying the way in which inventory is managed, distributed, and viewed by consumers. One of the fastest-growing companies in the industry, eCarList has award-winning products for each category in which it competes. eCarList’s revolutionary TrueTarget Mobile was recently named the Most Innovative Dealership Solution of 2010. For more information about eCarList, visit www.ecarlist.com.

About Carfax (www.carfax.com)

Millions of used car buyers and sellers each year rely on Carfax, the most trusted provider of vehicle history information. Using the unique 17-character vehicle identification number (VIN) found on vehicle dashboards and title documents, Carfax instantly generates a detailed Vehicle History Report on any used car or light truck. Carfax Vehicle History Reports™ provide valuable information that helps used car buyers and sellers make better decisions. For more information or to become a Carfax-subscribing dealer, visit www.carfaxonline.com.

Brian Pasch · Apr 6, 2011

Alex, great post and obviously you hit a nerve here. It's great posts and passion for the dealer community that makes DealerRefresh a great resource for the industry.

I'm very blessed that you and Jeff are conducting a series of workshops at the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp, April 16-18th. I hope that other DealerRefresh members take advantage of being part of the live education process for your workshops.

Feb 11, 2011

Very nicely put Alex, it's like you were standing in my shoes trying to explain to the powers to be why I do the things I do to do my job, now, where did I put my camera?

Jan 22, 2011

Glen,

Great feedback. There are a number of issues at play here. In my opinion there are a few large vendors that think their size excludes them from accountability. Our dealers don't have time to deal with these headaches. Eventually the vendors that don't work with each other will lose their customers because of the culture within the company that allows it to happen in the first place.

Jan 22, 2011

Hey Alex,

Do you guys have a real-time API like DealerOn? I'd be all over this...

Jan 21, 2011

Jeff - from my understanding, DealerOn does have an API with Homenet and it runs every 15 minutes. You may have to get in touch with DealerOn support to get it in place, but it's worth it. We have several clients using DealerOn sites and we operate our business on Homenet, so it's a great fit and damn near "real time". Good Luck - Paul.

Jan 21, 2011

Software development. Resources. Time. Our API doesn't work with their API, their API doesn't work with ours, one side doesn't have an API, but they're working on it, we can't get it to work until we get done with this other project, etc. are all common problems in this arena.

The good news is that it will eventually happen and everyone seems headed in that direction.

Jan 21, 2011

I completely agree with this bandaid. Our top dealers keep their fresh inventory from being digitally naked by giving all trades they plan on putting on the front line a quick wash, taking a few real pictures, and adding what options the vehicle actually has as opposed to the ones that come with an automated VIN decode.

This has been shown to turn inventory faster (having real photos, real options, and having the vehicle online sooner), which also means less interest is paid on the vehicle by the dealer. It doesn't remove the problem of why the vehicle isn't appearing in the right places, but it's something that more dealers should try to take advantage of.

mattwatson81 · Jan 21, 2011

One of the biggest problems is photos. Updating photos and trying to send them to vendors that don't have anything in place to automatically accept the new photos.

Inventory will not become more real time until all the DMS providers can provide updates that quick as well. Most of them are still limited to once a day updates.

And then there are the dealers that WANT to show sold vehicles on their websites so they continue getting leads on the vehicles....

I do remember the days when dealers would cancel on the lot service providers (I won't point fingers) and they would threaten to sue if the dealer took the photos to a new provider.

Jan 21, 2011

I made that scenario up, but it is based on a whole lot of issues I've experienced in the past. I do recall dropping some brain cells once and forgetting that we switched our Cars.com and Autotrader feeds from our inventory tool to our website provider. A few months after making the switch I did have a problem with the Cars.com feed. We still had our inventory tool sending a feed to them too, but Cars.com wasn't picking it up (that was the right thing to do). It only took me about 2 days to remember we were sending through Dealer.com and not HomeNet - I felt bad for HomeNet having to work through my stupidity. Once I remembered a quick call to Dealer.com cleared it all up.

There are so many people involved and so many steps it is amazing any of us can really keep up with the whole process.

Jan 21, 2011

Hi Eric!

Although AT and Cars update overnight, HomeNet hits our DMS hourly and updates our site. My experience has found that the closer to real time you get the more scrutiny your system gets. We have 40 reps under 3 roofs in the same market. Almost real-time updates changes your sales processes. All reps consider a car seen on our site means its not sold and they take deposits with conviction. What a train wreck we have when the hourly updates break (and they do break!).

Jan 20, 2011

@AxSnyder So, in the end, was it the website provider or the feed provider? My guess is the website since the feed host said all was good everywhere else?

Eric Miltsch · Jan 20, 2011

Nice one Alex.

You've hit a real pain point for everyone...

Has anyone else experimented with increasing the number of times the export file, including images, is sent to your host? (I've recently upped this to 4 times/day)

Jan 20, 2011

Ah the joys of being an ecommerce director. This is one of the biggest nightmares we have dealt. I remember the pressure and the finger point. Yes I was that pin cushion in the past. I love how the blame goes to the Internet manager all of the time. But you my friend wrote a nice article.

Jan 20, 2011

3. Broken image URL's will often prevent vehicle to load or all images to load on 3rd party sites or your own website - big issue with BZ sites (aka DMi). We've chased this issue for days until someone decided to start clicking on image URL's

4. Other 3rd party import has not run. This is a common occurence with certain website companies. Even if data collection companies do real time uploads...if the 3rd party companies don't run the inventory and photo processors, the inventory will not update.

Goal for 2011, get more companies (Cobalt, BZ, DDC...) to run inventory AND photo processors multiple times per day, or build API's with the inventory companies - this will reduce countless hours of conference calls - just my .02

Jan 20, 2011

Alex, yes, brilliant and very simplified approach. We do it every day, but to see it graphically and explained adds multiple dimensions.

Here are a few other "problems" that we have come across that prevents vehicles/prices/images from posting:

1. Vehicle(s) still in another dealers inventory and will not post to ATC, CARS...have them run the VIN if it will not post. You have to ask when you conference their support, they will not always think of this.

2. Price changes not going through even though you changed them in vauto or your DMS could be a "locked vehicle" or "locked price field" in your inventory management system

Jan 19, 2011

I definitely remember watching you struggle with Omnigraffle Jeff - lol. Your exercise helped me come up with the flow chart for Checkered Flag's before I left.

Some other programs you can build these in:
Powerpoint
Keynote
Word
Omnigraffle (my favorite)
Quite a few "mind-mapping" iPad apps out there as well
You could even do one in Excel, but Powerpoint is easier

Thanks for all the comments folks. I had no idea that flow chart would be so exciting. I'm adding it to my presentation at the Pre-NADA Napa Valley PCG event.

Walt Kustra · Jan 19, 2011

"Allow me to make a suggestion as you are building out this cart. Add the exact time that each feed gets processed and low long on average it takes to post."

Great suggestion Jeff, I really liked this flow chart. Alex, this could be like the periodic table of elements for the car business!

Jan 19, 2011

vAuto and Dealer Specialties are a great example of two competitive companies working together with real time updates of pricing changes for distribution.

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