Thanksgiving. I feel like I have a lot to be thankful for today. I share some of these things with many of you: a great family, a job I love, good friends... and one thing that is probably unique to me. I'm thankful I waited most of the day before I wrote and posted this reply. Had I posted first thing in the morning, the response you're reading would have been much different.
First off, Yago, man I respect your passion. It shows in everything you write. I do fear that sometimes your passion leads you to post before you have all the facts. A few posts above, rather than argue point by point with you, I chose one as an example - the WRX you mentioned. It seems you had a passion to prove me wrong and did so by posting a link to an AutoBase inventory. You felt that the AutoBase database had a more precise inventory than Autotrader and Cars.com and by inference my company. We don't just look to those sources, our computers look at thousands of sources. In your haste, you failed to notice that I was speaking with some level of specificity - I was looking at 2009 vehicles only. The AutoBase database was for every year - only a few were '09s. This is a small point, but it is illustrative of a larger issue. After this response, I'm going to stop responding to you. There is nothing to be gained from one vendor questioning another endlessly. I've seen too many good threads (many that you've been on) disappear down a rabbit hole from that back and forth.
So since I won't be replying to you or correcting misinformation, I ask that you please try to be factual and accurate in any future posts.
From your comments above, I think you're talking about our previous stocking tool. Provision was introduced on 11-11-11 and isn't an upgrade - it's a completely new way to look at stocking. Where you are completely correct is that our older stocking tool was under-utilized by dealers. There was a ton of good data, but it needed to be easier to understand and the tool needed to be easier to use. Some dealers made great use of the tool, but, I think, for many dealers it had too many steps, it perhaps wasn't intuitive enough and absolutely had room for improvement.
Over a year ago, we gained access to two powerful data streams - brand new information that has never been available before in the industry. So armed with triple the data previously available, Dale and the team started from scratch to develop a tool that answers 3 questions in 3 easy clicks: what to buy, what to pay, and where to find it. Multiple vehicles are suggested in every category and price point. All the suggestions are dealer-specific based on a dealer-developed Stocking Strategy. The exact auctions where these vehicles are available are a click away, complete with dates, lanes and run numbers. One more click and the dealer can have a proxy bid in place. We are very public with our innovations even with other vendors. I urge you to watch
Dale's recorded webinar introducing Provision. That way, should you choose to continue discussing another vendor and their product, you'll at least be doing it armed with accurate information.
But Yago, I'd also urge you to move back to the original, non vendor-specific question of "is stocking a marketing decision". I'm convinced it is and it seems most of the community agrees. I'm not saying that every buyer and Used Car Manager should buy my product, but I do feel they should utilize as much data as they have available to them, to HELP with their decision making process, not replace it.
