Yagoparmo,
There’s many ways to interpret what you wrote so I’ll try to break it down. First, I’ll take your comments with a grain of salt because you offer a competing product and maybe you would never want to see your competition with an advantage. You mention some of the reasons why a dealer would need to change a vehicle's sale price because they spent too much at auction for it or that the recon cost was too expensive, is that the only reasons why a dealer needs to update price? Do your dealerships only advertise their vehicles with the one sale price and never need to update it? I think not.
Second, there’s no denying ATC is one of the largest vehicle websites offering vehicles for sale. Great photos, accurate and descriptive vehicle options, and having the right price is keying to turning an online shopper into a buyer. So if an online shopper views several websites before making a decision, I need to ask what other websites does ATC provide the inventory for? KBB.com? Maybe More? And of the 4 other website companies part of the HomeNet Near-Time Network, maybe your shopper might visit include some of them? Such as CarsDirect, Showroom Logic, Dealer E-Process, and Social Dealer. What if HomeNet is successfully in adding more website companies to that network? Does that change your mind?
Third, you say "to know the biz and your market" and that buying the vehicles at the right price and keeping recon cost low is the best way to be a successful dealer? Your comments almost turn back the clock to when a big blue ape on top of the dealership was the best advertising for a dealership. Are you saying that vAuto shouldn’t have a customer base? What about the other pricing tool companies? I know enough about these pricing tools to understand their need in the market place. These companies offer tools do some much more than just update sale prices.
It seems very basic, updating faster is best. It’s like a race to be online first. Regardless if a dealership chooses to update prices every minute, hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly; getting it there now is important. To make this product even better, I think HomeNet needs to expand their product to near-real time updates on freshly added vehicles and vehicle deletions. HomeNet has done a good job with managing to reduced their upload times to some of the best times I’ve seen for a data management company, for example, it only takes hours to update Cars.com and ATC and with a manual force feed, updates to Dealer.com can be realized within an hour and the same is true for many other websites hosted by HomeNet. It’s not for everyone, but my customers enjoy the convenience of knowing their cars are online fast.
The ability to go “near-real time” with price and vehicle comments is a huge advantage over the competition. Hopefully the folks at vAuto can expand on their plans to effectively use this tool to give its dealers the edge.
Lastly, I researched your website and it says that PGI Auto and Dealer E-Process bagged 6 DS awards and when I researched Dealer E-Process’ website it says it received 6 DS awards with no mention of PGI Autos. So, is that the same Dealer E-Process company that HomeNet claims to have as its Near-Time Network? If so, how’s that? Why’s that? Are you part of that company? If so, then why is it updating prices in near-real time with HomeNet when you don't think it's an advantage per you? I'm not attacking you, just seems very interesting.
