HomeNet vs vAuto as an Inventory Provider

[DrewAment]

On our portal site, our Toyota inventory is showing in stock when it's still in-transit.

Are you inputting your in-transit to early into your DMS and they are being pulled in HomeNet from the DMS?

Most OEM feeds, Toyota included, can come from the OEM - but the second your website provider sees the vehicle in the syndication feed from provider they remove the "in-transit" vehicle from the OEM and use the syndication data == it "overrides" the OEM feed.

 

[joe.pistell]

Waaaaa?????

My former dealership

Rick, wow! WTF is going on... my mind just short circuited. hahaha
#OpentoWork? Hell, you're a genius in Auto! Start a specialists' boutique like I did: AutoMagicLabs.ai I'm in the lab with my son James and we're building some awesome merchandising sauce that sells cars and loving every minute! Hell, right now, I could use some help with automating IMS upload feeds! Yesterday, during a first upload for a new client, I found HN's Image Naming Convention is diff than vauto. grrr.

Love to chat and swap stories, DM me here or at [email protected]

 

[joe.pistell]

As @joe.pistell says about behemoths' products, "please don't suck too much."

haha, a fav quote! "All an innovative decision maker wants from their legacy vendors is... 'I can't fire you, just please don't suck'"*


* That was from Geoffrey Moore who wrote a killer marketplace strategy book "Crossing the Chasm". I'll paraphrase:
Innovative decision makers KNOW that true innovation comes from small companies, they know the legacy vendors can't be fired nor can't be expected to lead innovation.

 

[craigh]

I don't know exactly where you are needing your inventory sent. My website provider can send our feed to Cars . Com, Car Gurus, Auto Trader, Dealers Link (inventory tool), and pretty much anyone else that I need the information sent to. They provide this service for free. 100% Discount, they said that's the best they could do.

As a website provider, we've been doing this for years. I have clients where I am parsing 6 inbound feeds for them, combining them and then syndicating back out to all the classifieds, plus our own website solution.

Depending on how complex the setup is, syndicating inventory is pretty straightforward.
The big problem (as I'm sure @joe.pistell can attest) is trying to get good data in the first place - features, build sheets, etc.
Sending that data to other partners is the easy part.

 

[Ryan Everson]

We use DataFeedWatch to manage our group's inventory feeds and syndication internally. Super powerful and allows us to make our own customizations on the fly - merge feeds, if/then rules, Google Sheet normalization lookups, custom fields, etc.

We were live with Facebook Vehicle Catalogs and Google VLA feeds before Homenet even knew what they were. lol

 

[Tallcool1]

As a website provider, we've been doing this for years. I have clients where I am parsing 6 inbound feeds for them, combining them and then syndicating back out to all the classifieds, plus our own website solution.

Depending on how complex the setup is, syndicating inventory is pretty straightforward.
The big problem (as I'm sure @joe.pistell can attest) is trying to get good data in the first place - features, build sheets, etc.
Sending that data to other partners is the easy part.

In essence, that is what my Website Provider told me. This is a great feature.

 

[Dan Sayer]

I don't know if anyone else is experiencing this, but HomeNet's customer service has gone in the toilet over the last few years (probably since Covid, which I know is a problem many vendors are having), but I am considering pursuing a new inventory provider. My easiest decision would just be to go with vAuto. I wondered if anyone has used both and had an idea of the benefits of one over the other. I do think it is interesting that Cox owns both. Any other inventory provider recommendations would be helpful as well.

Sorry, late to the party. The single reason we are still using Homenet IOL is for their overlay and framing customization and SnapLot tools. That is the only reason. If we started using vAuto for syndication, they'd still he using "Homenet" to do so. If we decided to use another overlay tool like the amazing one @joe.pistell is working on, and we just went back to uploading photos vs an app, Homenet IOL would be bye-bye. Oh, and we would also have units syndicating and dropping off closer to real-time instead of waiting for a feed hand-off between another company.

 

[joe.pistell]

Ryan, I want to take a moment and send you a TY for your shares. You and your team are truly pioneers.

We use DataFeedWatch to manage our group's inventory feeds and syndication internally. Super powerful and allows us to make our own customizations on the fly - merge feeds, if/then rules, Google Sheet normalization lookups, custom fields, etc.

We were live with Facebook Vehicle Catalogs and Google VLA feeds before Homenet even knew what they were. lol

Refresh Lurkers! We need you to step up and stirr up some good Q&A

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

We use DataFeedWatch to manage our group's inventory feeds and syndication internally. Super powerful and allows us to make our own customizations on the fly - merge feeds, if/then rules, Google Sheet normalization lookups, custom fields, etc.

We were live with Facebook Vehicle Catalogs and Google VLA feeds before Homenet even knew what they were. lol

A little annoyed that I tried to request a demo online and when I said I had less than 5000 products I just get kicked to a video with no option for scheduling a real demo. Once I get over it I'll take another look.

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

Sorry, late to the party. The single reason we are still using Homenet IOL is for their overlay and framing customization and SnapLot tools. That is the only reason. If we started using vAuto for syndication, they'd still he using "Homenet" to do so. If we decided to use another overlay tool like the amazing one @joe.pistell is working on, and we just went back to uploading photos vs an app, Homenet IOL would be bye-bye. Oh, and we would also have units syndicating and dropping off closer to real-time instead of waiting for a feed hand-off between another company.

Preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeach!