Suss Buick GMC

[Jeff Kershner]

Another Wordpress Custom Dealer Website: Hagerstown Honda - New and Used Car Dealership Maryland | Frederick | Baltimore | DC Metro Area | Chambersburg | Martinsburg | Cumberland | Winchester

Thought I'd share.

Thats my hometown Honda dealership. I know the owner quite well actually. The site is designed and maintained by a local firm that has no background in automotive whatsoever. As far as I know this is their first and only dealer website.

The site does a great job with branding the dealership and their people but it falls really short on points of conversion. But knowing the owner, he would be totally ok with that and want nothing more than people to just walk into the dealership. They do run a tight ship and the dealer has a great reputation (with little focus to online reputation, last I checked). I've consulted with them a few times (even during the decision of this website) but they seem to value other sources and personal opinions over mine, which is fine with me. They spend a lot in traditional marketing in the area (billboarrds, tv and radio with this cheesy jingle they have had for 20 years it seems) but have been for so long. Hey, their a Honda dealer.

 

[joe.pistell]

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"
Mark Twain


I went off on a "SEO is dead" rant and hadn't looked to see if I was right.

Open Mouth... Insert Foot.

 

[Chris Cachor]

Okay so this question has been bugging for the past 12 months.. Does your Wordpress site inventory pull from your DMS? Also how does that exactly work.. Are you just sending a file to your server then it deciphers it and posts it to your wordpress site.. So many questions. Also the plug-in, is that pretty much the core of the inventory portion or do you have other coding work done to get it working correctly? (I've been wanting to learn how to make a DMS work with wordpress for a very long time now)..

I've actually know someone right now who's trying to accomplish what you have done right now.. He's using wordpress and I believe he's working with a MYSLQ? Database and tables for the inventory..

Kcar, you definitely don't want to do DMS polling. Let the DMS folks take care of that and pay them a minimal fee. It's extraordinarily labor intensive and expensive up front. You'll prob have to fight with DMS companies every so often too. Listen to Joe.

Hook up with Homenet and have someone write a class for you to process inventory. It shouldn't take them more than a day to do. Then you can have that same someone, or yourself if you're skilled enough, to write the plugin. That's all there really is to it.

 

[kcar]

Kcar, you definitely don't want to do DMS polling. Let the DMS folks take care of that and pay them a minimal fee. It's extraordinarily labor intensive and expensive up front. You'll prob have to fight with DMS companies every so often too. Listen to Joe.

Hook up with Homenet and have someone write a class for you to process inventory. It shouldn't take them more than a day to do. Then you can have that same someone, or yourself if you're skilled enough, to write the plugin. That's all there really is to it.

Can you guys explain what DMS pulling exactly is? (I'm confused now) We have a DMS, plan on keeping it.. Isn't DMS pulling just where a website provider goes into your DMS and downloads a copy of your inventory file, similar to an excel sheet.. Then deciphers it and extracts it on the website..? Or did you guys think I was talking about getting ride of a DMS all together? Also what's Homenet, looking into it now, and what's the typical prices? And what does that exactly do..

My idea of this would be just to pull an inventory file from the DMS daily, have a plug-in/script for wordpress or a database in MYSQL that can decipher it and post it automatically on the wordpress site.. Isn't that the same thing? I'm most likely getting this all jumbled up, not sure if I am..

 

[john.quinn]

The DMS is your Dealer Management System. Most typically ADP or Reynolds and Reynolds, although there are several fringe systems (no offense intended by the term "fringe!").

And you are right. It's not rocket science to "poll" the DMS for a delimited file to extract the Year, Make, Model, Trim, Vin, etc. from the DMS.

And yeah, no rocket science to feed it to a plug-in or script to display that LIST on your sight.

But then what?

You need to add photos, right? How 'bout descriptions? And where are all the options and colors and trim features and packages gonna come from? None of that stuff is in the DMS.

And after you add all that, how do you get it all to Cars.com, Autotrader, OEM sites, etc?

That's what HomeNet does. Takes your list, and gives you a tool to MERCHANDIZE your inventory. They'll then export it anywhere you like.

No way a dealer can build an adequate merchandizing platform.

 

[MikeFitzpatrick]

Blake, check out CarDealerPress. I know they offer a Wordpress plugin at a very reasonable price. As far as the OEM templates, I think they would allow separate designs as long as they're in good taste, like this one

Our inventory plugin is custom built. Although, as mentioned above, DealerTrend offers a vehicle plugin for WordPress over on their CarDealerPress site. Mike Fitzpatrick from DealerTrend is on these forums every so often and I'm sure he would be glad to answer any questions about it.

Thanks for mentioning our inventory API plugin Chris & Kyle .