Inventory Management tool to replace V-auto

[Brian Tucker]

I love vauto and they do a great job. Our Performance Manager is top notch and we have been a customer since 2007. Why am I looking for a replacement? Cost. We are reviewing every invoice from website vendors down to how many shredder boxes we need in a store. I have looked at Max Digital several times and they have been the least expensive platform that has similar functionality to vauto. I have also been encouraged to look at other products such as inventroy+ and Dealerslink. Would love to hear feedback if you have worked with any of these providers or if you have left vauto and decided on another vendor.

 

[ChrisR]

I used MaxDigital previously, it was good, not quite as robust as vAuto (when I used it) - same upsells, if you want to market new vehicles, it costs extra. Our rep was good, and I stay in touch with them still (granted they are no longer at Max). At the time I used Max, it was a bit limited versus vAuto. Our UCM wanted to change to vAuto, Red Bumper, or one of the others that were available at the time - we had to use it per corporate guidelines, so we stuck with it.

Not a bad program at all, if they have added improvements, it could do the job, once you learn the workflow.

 

[Patrick O]

We've stuck with vAuto for now, mostly for the Stockwave integration and tbh, inconvenience of training our buyers on a new system and untangling integrations with our other Cox products. I've spent a lot of time looking at Max Digital and was impressed. They provide pretty much the same data, but their reports looked awesome, far more detailed than anything I could build on vAuto, I literally spent over 2 hours going through them on my last demo lol. They had some nice add-ons for sales & BDC too, mostly stuff to make it easier to sort through inventory and identify features easily.

 

[ryan.leslie]

Hey Brian,

We are not a direct competitor to vAuto. There are things that they do that we do not and things that we do that they do not, but we do many similar things at CarStory in a unique way to the automotive industry. I'd be happy to walk you through our tools if you're interested.

Ryan

 

[Brian Tucker]

DealerRefresh is awesome!!! Thank you for the quick feedback.
@Patrick O I thought you could keep stockwave if you switched?
@ChrisR They include new cars now
@ryan.leslie I need to save money, publish descriptions, photos and price cars. Does your software do that?

 

[ChrisR]

DealerRefresh is awesome!!! Thank you for the quick feedback.
@Patrick O I thought you could keep stockwave if you switched?
@ChrisR They include new cars now
@ryan.leslie I need to save money, publish descriptions, photos and price cars. Does your software do that?

That's good to hear!

When I changed stores at one point, because I had been doing all photo uploads through Max at the store I was at last, we dropped Homenet as a duplicate expense. I didn't think to ask whether we would have to upgrade our Max account to get new cars as well, which (at that time) we did have to.

 

[ryan.leslie]

@ryan.leslie I need to save money, publish descriptions, photos and price cars. Does your software do that?

In the immortal words of Meat Loaf, "two out of three ain't bad."

CarStory is an Inventory Intelligence tool rather than an inventory management tool.

I can:

• help you price in all phases by predicting what YOU will sell the vehicle for and in how long. It is very different than a simple market-based average that doesn't account for the most important factor, the dealership.
• help you realize full value by making sure that you don't have merchandising errors that cost gross, loan value etc.. We alert you when you have an incorrect trim, transmission, or missing feature. We are the technology provider behind Cars.com's Autocorrected.
• help you augment vehicle descriptions with market-based analysis that consumers actually find engaging.
• likely help you save money. I can build a strong case that correcting a single incorrect trim will pay you, but I know every vendor has an ROI story and that isn't what you are asking for here. That said, I do think you could pair CarStory with a lot of less expensive inventory management tools and see a savings over your current spend.

I can't:

• help you push a feed to marketplaces or upload photos. There are a TON of companies that do this, some of them are very inexpensive, but we are not one of them.

I hope that helps and REALLY hope it didn't read "salesy," truly just trying to answer your question. If you've been on Refresh a while you'll know that is not my jam. If I can help you in any way, even if it has nothing to do with CarStory, please don't hesitate to ask.

 

[Brian Tucker]

@ryan.leslie Thanks for the detailed explanation but not really interested in setting up and paying separate vendors. I really want something that is similar to vauto that is less money per month.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Brian Tucker, do you use or have you looked at Homenet? They have a pricing analysis tool. It's not robust like VAuto but it may work for what you need. Everything else they do.

 

[Alex Snyder]

with @Rick Buffkin and since you're using FRIKINtech, I can show you your inventory inside HomeNet's IOL Pro.