LOL -- just click the "Agency" button, will get you right to the scheduler. Your a multi-store dealer anyways .. should apply.
HomeNet vs vAuto as an Inventory Provider
- Thread starter BillKVMotorCo
- Start date
LOL -- just click the "Agency" button, will get you right to the scheduler. Your a multi-store dealer anyways .. should apply.
- Dec 19, 2018
- 528
- 471
- Awards
- 6
- First Name
- Bill
- Oct 12, 2018
- 3
- 2
- Awards
- 2
- First Name
- Laz
We use vauto now for pricing only -- vAuto has an extra charge ($500) if you want them to host and syndicate inventory.
We have been with eBizAutos for 10+ years and no problems.
We have been with eBizAutos for 10+ years and no problems.
you could give JD Powers ICC a try, they have a strong syndication product along with a valuation piece
Is there a price difference between HomeNet and VAuto? I know they are both owned by Cox. Right now our inventory feed comes from DDC and we have unlimited exports at 199/mo.
- Oct 29, 2009
- 730
- 833
- Awards
- 8
- First Name
- Rick
Bill, I've been a little tied up with a few things here lately. Sorry for the late reply. From my experience if you're simply looking to get the data from one place to another, alot of these providers will do that. I've worked with a few of them. Dominion (SelectQu and DataCube), Vauto, DMI, eBizAutos, homenet, Dealerdotcom (I tried to replace homenet with them) and AutoBase. After all of these, I've pretty much gone back to Homenet.
Chances are the root issue you're having with Intransit vehicles (I've ran into this alot) being syndicated out to your external accounts is coming from your DMS. More than likely the vehicle status is whats triggering it. Of course Homenet can filter the inbound feed for this. I'm sure they can see the field. They're just not doing anything with it.
How I would go about this (I've done this exact same thing in the past) is import the DMS status into your homenet account. You can easily have almost any rep there at Homenet to map this over to a field. I recommend mapping it to a "Misc Price" field. Normally they show 5 but theres actually a total of 20 that you can utilize or you can use the Misc Comments field as well. Once they map it in to whatever field you choose, you're good. Now, you don't need any assistance from their support once this is done for this issue. Now you can work with their Data Conversions tool ( Settings > Data Conversion Dashboard ). This is an awesome tool and very powerful if you know how to use it properly. In about 45 secs you can easily set up a data conversion like this and do a manual recache of the inventory and your done.
Ex: If Misc Price 15 contains (Your Intransit Flag) set that vehicle to a prep status.
(In case any of you are wondering, to put the car in prep status place a 1 in the "State" field. That will change it to prep status and essentially remove it from being syndicated out.)
You will prob need to double check with your site provider and see if they are getting a dedicated feed from the OEM. If you're on a OEM digital program, chances are your site is getting the primary feed (insert and delete) from them for both Ground and Intransit status and using your homenet feed for pricing, comments and maybe photos on new and using homenet as the primary feed for used cars (Insert, delete, comments, pricing and photos).
Something else thats not really talked about much is Homenets API. You can pull data from the API. Posting data back into the account via API is a diff story. HomeNet Developer Portal
Homenet has Data Export Conversions. Just the before the data gets exported out to whatever vendor you can have a data conversion happen. Move a price, Rename a field, insert a value, etc...
How many times a day is your inventory being syndicated out? They can push every 2 - 4 hours if you want.
I guess my question is, are you utilizing alot of these features now?
Changing syndication providers isn't fun at all. Lots of room for mapping errors and essentially tying up your time with chasing down the issue.
Chances are the root issue you're having with Intransit vehicles (I've ran into this alot) being syndicated out to your external accounts is coming from your DMS. More than likely the vehicle status is whats triggering it. Of course Homenet can filter the inbound feed for this. I'm sure they can see the field. They're just not doing anything with it.
How I would go about this (I've done this exact same thing in the past) is import the DMS status into your homenet account. You can easily have almost any rep there at Homenet to map this over to a field. I recommend mapping it to a "Misc Price" field. Normally they show 5 but theres actually a total of 20 that you can utilize or you can use the Misc Comments field as well. Once they map it in to whatever field you choose, you're good. Now, you don't need any assistance from their support once this is done for this issue. Now you can work with their Data Conversions tool ( Settings > Data Conversion Dashboard ). This is an awesome tool and very powerful if you know how to use it properly. In about 45 secs you can easily set up a data conversion like this and do a manual recache of the inventory and your done.
Ex: If Misc Price 15 contains (Your Intransit Flag) set that vehicle to a prep status.
(In case any of you are wondering, to put the car in prep status place a 1 in the "State" field. That will change it to prep status and essentially remove it from being syndicated out.)
You will prob need to double check with your site provider and see if they are getting a dedicated feed from the OEM. If you're on a OEM digital program, chances are your site is getting the primary feed (insert and delete) from them for both Ground and Intransit status and using your homenet feed for pricing, comments and maybe photos on new and using homenet as the primary feed for used cars (Insert, delete, comments, pricing and photos).
Something else thats not really talked about much is Homenets API. You can pull data from the API. Posting data back into the account via API is a diff story. HomeNet Developer Portal
Homenet has Data Export Conversions. Just the before the data gets exported out to whatever vendor you can have a data conversion happen. Move a price, Rename a field, insert a value, etc...
How many times a day is your inventory being syndicated out? They can push every 2 - 4 hours if you want.
I guess my question is, are you utilizing alot of these features now?
Changing syndication providers isn't fun at all. Lots of room for mapping errors and essentially tying up your time with chasing down the issue.
Un named Cox Employee: Homenet and vAuto are owned by Cox. There is a lot of over lap but in many Cox employee's view Homenet should be dissolved into vAuto and VIN Solutions, but remain on it's own for dealers that maybe use Dealer Socket and Inventory Plus or some other solutions including Homenet alone. Bottom line is Homenet is a tech company whose core competancey is to move data around,. To accept feeds and push feeds of data. Homenet for example, always pulls data from the DMS and hands it to vAuto. Then a dealer needs to decide who will be their "syndicator" (the company that houes the photos of the online ads that appear on 3rd party websites and their websites). A dealer cannot have or pay for both. They can have vAuto and use Homenet for syndication, but they cannot have vAuto syndication and Homenet syndication. This is not a money grab. You can only have one syndicator. Homenet does not charge to pull data from the DMS to give to vAuto or anyone. As for customer service, we are well aware that our dealers don't want finger pointing, they don't want to hear a vAuto rep say call Homenet support or vice versa. They would like any Cox Employee take down the customer's issue much like a service writer and get it to the right tech and see it through completion. That being said - we hear you. We are doing our best in a hot jobs market to find and retain more support techs. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Our main recommendation has been to the vAuto PMs to see all of their dealer's open cases and help ensure these problems are seen through to resolution. If you have vAuto please don't call support - contact your PM for faster service. Thank you.
- Mar 21, 2012
- 880
- 1,157
- Awards
- 8
- First Name
- Ryan
Yeah we've been using them for a few years now so are grandfathered into an older plan, they were recently acquired by a larger company so I'm sure that's why they have a sales gatekeeper now.
Fairly typical lead qualification process that most larger SaaS companies follow to weed out leads and allow their top sales reps to focus on the most qualified hot leads. But I agree, annoying to waste 30 mins getting through a gatekeeper to be able to actually schedule a call to talk with someone.
- Dec 19, 2018
- 528
- 471
- Awards
- 6
- First Name
- Bill
Yeah, I totally get it. And I can understand how a smaller dealer like us might not be worth the time.
- Dec 19, 2018
- 528
- 471
- Awards
- 6
- First Name
- Bill
You. Are. The. Man. We are not utilizing many features other than import and backgrounding. I will need to look into how often it is pushed because I have always been under the impression that the once a day I've been getting was all they did. That's a big deal to us because we do a few things that I hate seeing sitting for a long period that is inaccurate.
