What actually makes you switch on a new syndication destination?

[ry_user01]

Hi Everyone,

New here and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Here's the context so this isn't abstract: I run a small used-car marketplace. Listing is free, no commission, and inventory reaches us through DealerCenter, HomeNet and Carsforsale feeds.

What I keep hitting isn't technical. On DealerCenter we're already in the destination picker — a dealer can switch us on themselves, and almost nobody does. A handful of rooftops turned us on with nobody ever contacting them.

So access is solved and discovery isn't, and I don't think more emails fix that.

For those of you running inventory at a store or a group:

Do you ever browse the destination list in your DMS, or only touch it when someone asks?
What made you say yes to the last new site you added?
Is there a point where more destinations stops helping and starts being noise?

Genuinely asking. I'd rather build what dealers want than guess.

 

[dealerdata1]

As someone who managed inventory in the dealership, I never once looked at my destination options

But I wasn't handling marketing back then, even so, not somewhere that people will casually take a gander at

 

[carguyfiles]

Ryan, I have been on the other side of this exact problem, so take it with the disclosure: I build Marketplace posting software for dealers, about 196 rooftops. We are a destination somebody has to switch on too.
Two things I had wrong for a long time.
The first is that the destination picker is not a menu, it is a settings screen, and nobody browses a settings screen. The switch gets flipped by whoever is accountable for a number that week, and at most stores that is not the person managing inventory. It is the internet director, the marketing manager, sometimes the GM on a Tuesday when used is soft. dealerdata1 is right that he never looked, and he is right for the reason that matters: nobody was asking him about lead volume. If your yes has to come through the inventory desk, you are asking someone to spend political capital on a destination that does not move his number.
The second is the noise question, which I think has a real answer rather than a taste answer. More destinations stop helping the moment each one becomes another place the price can be wrong. In our data 22.6% of dealer listings change price after they go live, so every destination is a surface that goes stale on its own schedule. A store with six destinations has six versions of the truth and one person answering the phone for all of them. That is the actual cost, not clutter.
So the thing I would build, and the thing I would lead with, is not reach. It is a report that says here is every unit of yours live on our site whose price does not match your feed today. A store that has been burned by a stale third party price hears that immediately, and you can prove it in a week instead of a quarter.
Against my own point: the handful of rooftops that turned you on cold are the best data you have and almost nobody mines it. I would call every one of them and find out which seat that person sat in and what they were trying to fix that day. An unprompted yes is rare enough to be worth a phone call each.

 

[KennySmithAutoUnite]

Joe, I think you’re right. I’ve never sat in a store thinking we need another place to send inventory. Something usually has to make me care first.

If you can show me real shoppers are there, keep the pricing and inventory accurate, and it doesn’t create more work for my team, I’ll listen.

Ryan, I’d call every one of those stores that turned it on without being asked. I’d want to know what happened that made them go looking for you in the first place.