I am trying to get an idea of which Inventory Management Software I should use. Any suggestions?
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Homenet vs Firstlook
- Thread starter mkeesee
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- Apr 10, 2009
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- Matt
I'm not sure but I don't think either Firstlook or homenet do what each other does to pick one or the other. So you may need both?
I would suggest looking at vAuto as well. They are by far the market leader for inventory pricing and stocking tools.
I would suggest looking at vAuto as well. They are by far the market leader for inventory pricing and stocking tools.
- Dec 30, 2009
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- Yago
For the inventory management part, Homenet has the advantage. FirstLook main biz is to market price vehicles, so their focus will be on that. Homenet has years of experience on inventory management and that comes in handy if you have issues or need help.
To key on mattwatson81's comment, vAuto will have the same problem as above when comparing Homenet Vs Firstlook.
One of my dealers uses us to do the photos and then we send a feed to vAuto (usually we get a feed back from vAuto and we distribute) then in this case vAuto distributes the data. We tried to integrate videos and they said that they can't. All other data management companies integrated videos to their feeds years ago.
We are also experimenting with having condition reports for used cars so the dealer can provide a PDF to the client if they want with the work done in the car, that will be easily done for our data software (or Homenet, etc) but I will bet vAuto will probalby prefer to focus on their pricing tool develpment.
Purely speculating, Autotrader owns Homenet, vAuto, and Vinsolutions, and all 3 have a data collection distribution system. Sooner or later they will merge them, combine them, or simply eliminate 2 of the 3. My vote is that they will keep Homenet alive.
To key on mattwatson81's comment, vAuto will have the same problem as above when comparing Homenet Vs Firstlook.
One of my dealers uses us to do the photos and then we send a feed to vAuto (usually we get a feed back from vAuto and we distribute) then in this case vAuto distributes the data. We tried to integrate videos and they said that they can't. All other data management companies integrated videos to their feeds years ago.
We are also experimenting with having condition reports for used cars so the dealer can provide a PDF to the client if they want with the work done in the car, that will be easily done for our data software (or Homenet, etc) but I will bet vAuto will probalby prefer to focus on their pricing tool develpment.
Purely speculating, Autotrader owns Homenet, vAuto, and Vinsolutions, and all 3 have a data collection distribution system. Sooner or later they will merge them, combine them, or simply eliminate 2 of the 3. My vote is that they will keep Homenet alive.
I am currently trying to determine if we should hire an internal person to do our photos, if we go that direction Firstlook says they have an inventory tool for that. Homenet has just about everything we need, but I am not sure how thier inventory pricing product is compared to first look. I am currently taking webinars on both products, we are a 6 rooftop auto group. I want 1 tool, simple.
- May 1, 2005
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- Jeff
Let us know how it goes.
I've been using HomeNet for managing and merchandising my dealers inventory for years. I have used other tools such as vAuto and AAX for pricing analysis. Homenet does offer a pricing analysis feature, and I do use it for guidelines when pricing. It's not as robust and visual as other other programs. It all depends on what you want.
I do know - when it comes to merchandising, HomeNet is my choice.
I've been using HomeNet for managing and merchandising my dealers inventory for years. I have used other tools such as vAuto and AAX for pricing analysis. Homenet does offer a pricing analysis feature, and I do use it for guidelines when pricing. It's not as robust and visual as other other programs. It all depends on what you want.
I do know - when it comes to merchandising, HomeNet is my choice.
- May 1, 2006
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- Alex
Would you be saying that if Autotrader hadn't bought both VinSolutions and vAuto recently? I recall you not speaking about vAuto this nicely in the past. And isn't HomeNet a sister company of yours now too?
Anyway, Mike, I just wanted to put a little transparency around Matt Watson.
He is technically correct about one point: FirstLook and HomeNet do not do the same thing. HomeNet is what I would call an inventory merchandising tool and FirstLook is an inventory pricing/stocking tool. It isn't a bad idea to look for both solutions, but not try to compare the two. You're going to have a hard time finding a single tool that does both of these things well.
- Dec 30, 2009
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- Yago
Also-- depending on your market -- I start to see a big problem with vAuto First Look: They don't pull data from Craigslist.
We recently did a short study in the Seattle market and Craigslist has 80% more inventory than cars.com and in many cases (depending on the model, etc) as much as 50% more than autotrader. Since these tools pull from the auction, autotrader, cars.com, etc they are not giving the best overlook of the market.
Because Craigslist also has private party cars it will tell you how many people want ot get rid of a particular model (so don't but that one yourself for the lot!).
While it takes a bit longer I strongly suggested to my dealers to do searches on CL to understand the market.
On a different note... if you have 6 dealerships and I will assume different rooftops... hire a company to do the photos.
We recently did a short study in the Seattle market and Craigslist has 80% more inventory than cars.com and in many cases (depending on the model, etc) as much as 50% more than autotrader. Since these tools pull from the auction, autotrader, cars.com, etc they are not giving the best overlook of the market.
Because Craigslist also has private party cars it will tell you how many people want ot get rid of a particular model (so don't but that one yourself for the lot!).
While it takes a bit longer I strongly suggested to my dealers to do searches on CL to understand the market.
On a different note... if you have 6 dealerships and I will assume different rooftops... hire a company to do the photos.
- Apr 10, 2009
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- Matt
vAuto has always had a better market pricing tool than VinSolutions. They also have a stocking tool, advanced reporting, auction integration and other things that we don't have at all. I would have never said ours was better. We provide a basic bookout and market pricing tool, which is enough for some dealers but not nearly as sophisticated as vAuto.
- Dec 30, 2009
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- Yago
Matt,
Are you saying that Vinsol is not as good on its secondary tools (anything beyond the CRM) than other companies?
Yagode
vAuto is clearly the leader in market based pricing and vehicle stocking. The VinSolutions market pricing tool offers dealers an integrated lower cost alternative that contains a number of features that the above mentioned tools do not (customer value, service history, current wish lists). There are a lot of dealers that use vAuto and the VinSolutions pricing tools together to gain the advantages that both have to offer. We have had high level integration with both vAuto and Firstlook for quite some time and our dealers have the CHOICE to use the tool that best suits them. That is not saying that one tool is better than another, that is saying that we want to offer our dealers options. Remember VinSolutions started as an inventory management tool and we do not believe that any of our tools are "secondary" rather they are all part of the "full solution" that we offer our dealer partners.
vAuto is clearly the leader in market based pricing and vehicle stocking. The VinSolutions market pricing tool offers dealers an integrated lower cost alternative that contains a number of features that the above mentioned tools do not (customer value, service history, current wish lists). There are a lot of dealers that use vAuto and the VinSolutions pricing tools together to gain the advantages that both have to offer. We have had high level integration with both vAuto and Firstlook for quite some time and our dealers have the CHOICE to use the tool that best suits them. That is not saying that one tool is better than another, that is saying that we want to offer our dealers options. Remember VinSolutions started as an inventory management tool and we do not believe that any of our tools are "secondary" rather they are all part of the "full solution" that we offer our dealer partners.
✨ AI Highlights
A dealer seeking a single inventory management solution asks whether to choose HomeNet or FirstLook, and the discussion reveals these are fundamentally different tools: HomeNet excels at inventory merchandising while FirstLook focuses on pricing and stocking analysis. Participants emphasize that dealers often need both tools plus potentially a third pricing solution like vAuto, and that finding one platform doing both functions equally well is unrealistic. The thread also surfaces practical concerns like vAuto's inability to integrate video feeds and its limitation to traditional market data sources (excluding Craigslist), which can skew market analysis.
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