Lightnup - I've been providing my reps with that for years. It is always ATC, and never anyone else. I don't have this issue on Cars.com, I don't have this issue with my local newspaper's website, I don't have this issue with our website, I don't have this issue with any of our inventory companies either....in fact, they help me research the ATC problems too and find ATC to be at fault everytime.
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When do you release your dealers inventory?
- Thread starter Alex Snyder
- Start date
following up on inventory issue with at.c:
I spoke with a dealer concierge today and they informed me my inventory was bouncing to another dealers inventory??? I gave them several examples with vin's.
Thanks for the advice Lightnup!
I spoke with a dealer concierge today and they informed me my inventory was bouncing to another dealers inventory??? I gave them several examples with vin's.
Thanks for the advice Lightnup!
I help over 150 stores in Southern CA distribute their inventory to 3rd party destinations.... In my experience, it's a waste of time to use 3rd party advertising sites' tools to manage inventory. You are duplicating efforts without increasing results .... you should be using ONE system that pushes inventory updates to ALL destinations.
When you use programs such as "AdManager" or Cars.com's tool to manage your listings, you 'lock' the inventory and can freeze specific vehicles, thereby preventing price updates or automated removal from CDMData/HomeNet/eBiz/DealerFusion or whichever vendor you're using to manage inventory marketing. Keeping inventory consistent across ALL destinations should be your main priority.
When you use programs such as "AdManager" or Cars.com's tool to manage your listings, you 'lock' the inventory and can freeze specific vehicles, thereby preventing price updates or automated removal from CDMData/HomeNet/eBiz/DealerFusion or whichever vendor you're using to manage inventory marketing. Keeping inventory consistent across ALL destinations should be your main priority.
Brian - and did they find the source of the problem and correct it? And if so, what caused the problem?
Alex - Not sure how one can say "I don't believe it" without sounding rude, but let's just say that I'm skeptical that for years your cars weren't coming off in a timely manner, it was always ATC's fault and no one could ever get it fixed. Are you perhaps lumping the AutoTrader magazine folks in with AutoTrader.com? We're different companies. They send a basic 1-photo listing to ATC for every car you put in the magazine and are notorious for not removing them from their subsequent feeds. I have a dealer with multiple instances of 4 and 5 listings of the exact same car. One is always the correct listing with VIN from the dealer's 3rd party vendor that gets removed when the car sells, the other ones are always from the magazine feed but they have no VIN so it's impossible for an automated system to ferret out duplicates. I only mention it because I see where you turned your magazine feed off. Did that resolve your problem? If not, you have a rep with a manager and a dealer concierge with a manager. I'd be all over them until the root of the problem was found. I still have trouble believing that it has been strictly an ATC problem that couldn't be fixed "for years." Technology isn't perfect, problems occur and ATC makes mistakes, but the accusation of intentionally failing to remove vehicles so the inventory would be larger is what I took exception to.
Alex, how come less than half your Toyota inventory listed on ATC have photos? Shoppers will scroll right by the ones that don't have pictures to find the ones that do. (Let me guess, it's ATC's fault.)
Alex - Not sure how one can say "I don't believe it" without sounding rude, but let's just say that I'm skeptical that for years your cars weren't coming off in a timely manner, it was always ATC's fault and no one could ever get it fixed. Are you perhaps lumping the AutoTrader magazine folks in with AutoTrader.com? We're different companies. They send a basic 1-photo listing to ATC for every car you put in the magazine and are notorious for not removing them from their subsequent feeds. I have a dealer with multiple instances of 4 and 5 listings of the exact same car. One is always the correct listing with VIN from the dealer's 3rd party vendor that gets removed when the car sells, the other ones are always from the magazine feed but they have no VIN so it's impossible for an automated system to ferret out duplicates. I only mention it because I see where you turned your magazine feed off. Did that resolve your problem? If not, you have a rep with a manager and a dealer concierge with a manager. I'd be all over them until the root of the problem was found. I still have trouble believing that it has been strictly an ATC problem that couldn't be fixed "for years." Technology isn't perfect, problems occur and ATC makes mistakes, but the accusation of intentionally failing to remove vehicles so the inventory would be larger is what I took exception to.
Alex, how come less than half your Toyota inventory listed on ATC have photos? Shoppers will scroll right by the ones that don't have pictures to find the ones that do. (Let me guess, it's ATC's fault.)
...and I agree completely with Jerome. Dealers using a 3rd party inventory vendor should absolutely use that company's interface for inventory uploads and updates, not ATC's.
Lightnup - we have some work to do on photos.....and I also have some work to do on Pivec about where they decide to put our Toyota inventory.
The account reps we've had for AutoTrader.com have been decent lately. Our last one received a well deserved promotion - he really did work hard for us. The two new ones we have are coming in when we feel like we wasted a lot of money on another trial with ATC and we're bitter. We have tried ATC numerous times for long lengths of time ever since ATC came into existence. What you're seeing right now, is our inventory being placed on ATC for free and I'm not paying full attention to it. My concentration is in other areas that are giving us incredible ROI and increase. I don't have time for the non-performers.
Despite how it may look on Dealer Refresh, I have always left the check book open for ATC in case they make some changes that cater better to our market place and Checkered Flag. I don't know exactly what those changes are, but I'm ready to be a customer again when they do happen. In the meantime, I will continue being the nail in your boot until you guys make those changes. I don't gripe because I want to see ATC die - I gripe because I want to see ATC become something we can use. I wouldn't gripe if I didn't care.
The account reps we've had for AutoTrader.com have been decent lately. Our last one received a well deserved promotion - he really did work hard for us. The two new ones we have are coming in when we feel like we wasted a lot of money on another trial with ATC and we're bitter. We have tried ATC numerous times for long lengths of time ever since ATC came into existence. What you're seeing right now, is our inventory being placed on ATC for free and I'm not paying full attention to it. My concentration is in other areas that are giving us incredible ROI and increase. I don't have time for the non-performers.
Despite how it may look on Dealer Refresh, I have always left the check book open for ATC in case they make some changes that cater better to our market place and Checkered Flag. I don't know exactly what those changes are, but I'm ready to be a customer again when they do happen. In the meantime, I will continue being the nail in your boot until you guys make those changes. I don't gripe because I want to see ATC die - I gripe because I want to see ATC become something we can use. I wouldn't gripe if I didn't care.
Great question. I thought I was the only one who struggles with this. I had a customer Sat. that had to see a van we listed as it came in, Once they got there and saw some minor stains on the seats and dirt around the console, it burned into their brains, and it was all over. With out a doubt, you only get one 1st impression.
As a 3rd party site owner, (EasyAutoSales.com) I can say that we assume data from the management systems are right until a dealer calls in with problems. Many times, it can be attributed to some piece of data not updating when it reaches us.
I know in one particular case a dealer had switched their inventory management company but their old feed provider was still sending us the last snapshot of the vehicles from the dealer and that caused some problems.
On the other hand, I have also seen dealers not filling out their website and email fields in their management systems accurately and leads for the cars from those dealerships are probably lost on the web somewhere.
BTW, EasyAutoSales.com is accepting feeds from all dealerships for free for any of you that are interested. I know a number of dealers here are already on the system through Dealer Specialties, Diamondlot and a couple of others. If you're with eBiz, just request them to add you to our website - everything is already setup.
- Wei
I know in one particular case a dealer had switched their inventory management company but their old feed provider was still sending us the last snapshot of the vehicles from the dealer and that caused some problems.
On the other hand, I have also seen dealers not filling out their website and email fields in their management systems accurately and leads for the cars from those dealerships are probably lost on the web somewhere.
BTW, EasyAutoSales.com is accepting feeds from all dealerships for free for any of you that are interested. I know a number of dealers here are already on the system through Dealer Specialties, Diamondlot and a couple of others. If you're with eBiz, just request them to add you to our website - everything is already setup.
- Wei
Another question I'd like to throw out there since I'm unfamiliar with the ATC and Cars platform. Are there costs associate with those sites that are directly related to the number of times you publish new/used cars?
The reason I ask is because we accept feeds and feed updates w/o any costs to the dealer so I'm wondering if the posed question is still a concern when individual pushes are no longer taxed.
The reason I ask is because we accept feeds and feed updates w/o any costs to the dealer so I'm wondering if the posed question is still a concern when individual pushes are no longer taxed.
@Wei
would you be talking about a fee such as what ebay charges when you list a individual car for sale? If so no it is based more off how many cars you generally have in stock and what type franchise you have.....sites such as autotrader charge more for premium placement sorta like a newspaper ad.
would you be talking about a fee such as what ebay charges when you list a individual car for sale? If so no it is based more off how many cars you generally have in stock and what type franchise you have.....sites such as autotrader charge more for premium placement sorta like a newspaper ad.
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