What do you want out of your Inventory Tool?

[joe.pistell]

This topic is totally overlooked and rich with opportunities.

• the dealer' s Inventory tool should be the hub of their inventory marketing. The tool exports to:
  • Dealer's home site
  • Dealer's Sattelite sites
  • 3rd party paid classified sites
  • 3rd party free classified sites
• every vehicle a dealer has for sale is advertisement.
  • More vehicles = more ads = more marketshare.
  • The more units you have, the more leverage you'll get from the inventory tool.

PROBLEM: The options information is bought from 3rd parties and these option descriptions are just awful.

 

[Alex Snyder]

Alex, did that go live yet? I saw a demo of it and was impressed.

Still no set date

 

[Mitch Gallant]

Well if I'm bringin cheese, how can the cheeseman ---> <--- see the impressive product?

 

[Rino2009]

How do you envision personalized paragraphs working? Do you think people respond better to a rehash of the information already available or to additional information such as "one owner car and very clean?" What information do buyers respond to best?

 

[joe.pistell]

Rino2009,

You're obviously not from this industry. Please give us some back ground.

Who - are you and who commissioned you:
What - is your mission:
Where - does your effort apply to:
When - will your research project end:
Why - is E&Y interested in Inventory tools?:

 

[Brian Tucker]

Still waiting on the cheese as of May 12 - the merchandising tool has been helpful but looks like I still need to work out a few kinks with the feeds.

 

[Rino2009]

Joe,

Here are responses to you questions. I hope you find them informative.

Who - are you and who commissioned you: An Entrepreneur
What - is your mission: To learn about dealership inventory tools. What works? What doesn't?
Where - does your effort apply to: Assisting auto dealerships improve inventory management processes
When - will your research project end: October 2009
Why - is E&Y interested in Inventory tools?: E&Y is my current employer. They have no interest in this discussion.

I'd like to create a list of features that auto dealerships would find useful in an inventory management tool. If you could build a system from scratch what would it look like?

 

[joe.pistell]

I don't want any improvements to the invenotry tools out here. I like identifying & exploiting inefficiencies, all made possible, thanks to players... asleep at the wheel.

 

[Rino2009]

What metrics and features would help to exploit additional inefficiencies? Take vAuto for instance. "Sleepers" don't stand a chance because vrank will adjust the inventory pricing based on the competition. Great tool! It puts a little downward pressure on margins for everybody but if you're set up for high turnover it's great.

I'll bet there are other ways to increase inventory turnover that may not put so much pressure on margins. For instance, somebody suggested automated paragraphs. Who has time to write a snazzy blurb for each car that will draw shoppers into the showroom? Nobody. Maybe somebody out there can automate it.

There are other ideas out there. I don't think anybody out there expects trade secrets to show up here but this is a great place to aggregate ideas about improving inventory tools or using them creatively.

 

[Brian Tucker]

V-auto uses auto writer for the automated "blurbs" and you can choose how detail you want the paragraph. We recently started using a new process for listing vehicles online because v-auto is making the new process sustainable with the time constraints we have implemented. This is a example of one I did with auto writer and posted on Swopetoyota.com