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.

...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.

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.)

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.

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!

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.

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
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......

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.

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.

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 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?

There are pills for that Brian.

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

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 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.

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 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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.