Reduce Vehicle Listing Time to Minutes (Dealers Guide)

You've just added a new vehicle into your stock; you're excited about getting this prepped and in a condition that represents the professionalism and standard of your dealership - but you're also dreading the laborious process of advertising it to your sales channels. Having to carefully enter the vehicle details, triple-checking you haven't made a single typo or mistake, taking and uploading photos for the vehicle, setting an appropriate price and then finally publishing it. All to do this over and over again for each of your sales channels and then on top of that, having to manage multiple different platforms until the vehicle is sold.

Surely there is a simpler and more efficient way? How are big dealerships managing this? And how can I do it as well?

The Importance Of Online Sales Channels

With reports that 30% of buyers are looking to buy their next vehicle completely online, this highlights the growing importance of ensuring your vehicles are listed on as many different online sales channels as possible.

The caveat is that you'll end up spending even more time entering the same vehicle data and managing additional services. You'll also need to keep a closer eye on each platform to ensure their listings remain error-free.

Let's do some simple maths that can make you quickly realise how overwhelming this can easily become:

• You have 10 vehicles in stock to sell.
• You have 5 sales channels you want to advertise your vehicles to.
• This means you will have 50 different listings across 5 different sales channels that you'll have to keep an eye on and manage.

This isn't a productive use of your time. You might even feel you need to hire someone solely to handle these tasks so you can stay focused on what actually matters - developing your dealership's growth strategy and moving it to the next level.

Listing a Vehicle to your Sales Channel: The Manual Process

Each sales channels is different in the process it takes to get your vehicle listing live and available for viewing, however they all follow the same format:

Initial Listing 

• Enter registration. (est.1 minute)
• Enter your vehicles details. (est. 5 minutes)
• Set the mileage & price. (est. 2-3 minutes)
• Write vehicle descriptions & advertising content. (est. 8-10 minutes)
• Upload photos (select, resize, order). (est. 5-8 minutes)
• Add your contact details. (est.1 minute)
• Review & publish. (est. 2-3 minutes)

Estimated time to publish one vehicle: 25-33 minutes

Ongoing Management until sale 

• Price adjustments & edits. (est. 5-10 minutes)
• Responding to platform prompts or refreshes. (est. 5-10 minutes)
• Updating status at sale. (2-4 minutes)

Estimated ongoing management time for each vehicle: 12-24 minutes

On average, manually listing and managing a single vehicle on one sales channel takes approximately 37-57 minutes from initial listing through to sale. When vehicles are listed across multiple sales channels, this time increases proportionally, as each platform must be updated and managed separately, platforms are all slightly different as well, adding a further complexity.

Reduce Vehicle Listing Time with MotorDesk

With MotorDesk car dealership software, vehicle details are entered once and automatically published across all connected sales channels. Descriptions, pricing, imagery, and updates are centrally managed, removing the need to repeat manual steps on each platform and reducing the process from hours to just minutes, allowing vehicles to be displayed to potential buyers far more quickly.

• Enter the vehicles registration - MotorDesk automatically retrieves and populates the vehicle's core details, removing the need for manual data entry and reducing the risk of errors or inconsistencies across listings.
• Set the mileage - Mileage is entered once and applied consistently across all connected sales channels, ensuring accurate listings.
• Upload photos - Photos are uploaded a single time and reused across every sales channel, eliminating repetitive uploads.
• Set the price - Integrated valuations and profit margin calculator support informed pricing decisions by clearly showing market valuations, costs, expected margin, and profitability, before the vehicle is advertised.
• Vehicle descriptions & advertising content - MotorDesk's AI content generator produces optimised vehicle descriptions and advertising copy, saving time while improving consistency and visibility across platforms.
• Review & publish to multiple sales channels - Listings are reviewed once and published simultaneously to all connected sales channels, significantly reducing time to market.
• Manage all adverts from one place - All live vehicle adverts can be viewed, updated, and managed from a single page, simplifying ongoing management until the vehicle is sold.

Using the earlier example, if a dealer operates across five sales channels and manually enters data, the process can take approximately 37–57 minutes per channel. Resulting in a total of around 3–5 hours per vehicle from initial listing through to sale for one car, as each platform must be updated individually. Using MotorDesk reduces this to just 10–16 minutes in total per vehicle, regardless of the number of channels. MotorDesk therefore is able to save car dealers approximately 91%-96% of time per vehicle.

Vehicle Descriptions & Advertising Content

MotorDesk's AI content generator uses advanced natural language processing and artificial intelligence to create clear, accurate, and engaging vehicle descriptions automatically. This removes the need to write listings from scratch, helping eliminate typos, save time, and keep wording consistent across all sales channels.

Each vehicle description is structured to support how listings are displayed across different platforms. MotorDesk provides Short and Long Attention Grabbers, a Website Description, and a Sales Channel Description, giving you full control while maintaining compatibility with marketplace requirements. Next to each section is 'auto-describe' buttons which use AI to generate detailed descriptions based on the vehicle data already held in MotorDesk. While the AI is highly accurate, you remain in control and can review or amend the content before publishing. All AI-generated text is formatted to meet each sales channel's character limits, with options to control case, punctuation, and spacing.

MotorDesk also supports Quick Inserts, allowing you to save reusable snippets of text, such as dealership background information or warranty details and apply them across multiple vehicle descriptions. These can be managed easily via the Quick Insert menu, making it simple to maintain consistency at scale.

Together, these tools ensure fast, reliable, and professional vehicle descriptions that remain consistent, compliant, and optimised across every sales channel, but still giving you ultimate control.

Benefits of Automated Listing Management for Car Dealers

With car buyers averaging more than 18 online touchpoints while researching cars, it is essential for dealerships to be visible across as many online sales channels as possible. Dealers who advertise across multiple sales channels generally perform better than those relying on just on one single channel. Research shows that Businesses operating across three or more sales channels can see order rates rise by up to 494%. Greater exposure to a wider pool of buyers drives higher enquiry volumes and, ultimately, more sales. Maintaining consistent pricing, images, and descriptions across channels also builds trust and makes a dealership appear more professional and reliable, this is valued by more than 50% of customers. The combined affect is quicker stock turnover, lower overheads per vehicle, and improved cash flow.

Get Started

If you're interested in trying the MotorDesk car dealer software we offer a full 30-day free trial! Watch our short demonstration video or book a personalised demo via video call and get 5% discount for 3 months.