The Situation
Reece helps run a family dealer group across three sites, holding around 150 cars between them. Each site kept its own stock on its own spreadsheet. A car that moved between sites dropped out of view; two sites sometimes advertised the same vehicle; and no one could say, at a glance, what the group as a whole was actually holding.
Adding a car meant typing the make, model, year and spec by hand, and a sold car often stayed live on a portal for days because the site that sold it and the site that advertised it were not the same place.
The Trigger
That drive was the moment. A buyer travelled forty minutes for a specific car, only to be told it had sold at another site two days before and the advert had never been pulled. It was avoidable, it was embarrassing, and it was the third time that month something like it had happened.
What Changed — One Live Stock List
All 150 cars now sit in one live list. A registration lookup pulls make, model, year, fuel and MOT from the DVLA record so a car is added in seconds, every vehicle carries a site field, and a status stops a sold car staying advertised anywhere. The group runs on a car stock management system that shows stock age and margin across all three forecourts in one view.
Group Visibility — Before and After
Vehicles visible in a single group view
Once all three sites were on one list, a car was never in two places and never in none. Staff at any site could see the whole group's stock, and moving a car between forecourts was a field change, not a re-key.
Where the leaks were
Duplicate and ghost adverts — before vs after
Before and After
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock records | 3 spreadsheets | 1 live list | |
| Duplicate or ghost adverts | common | none | |
| Time to add a vehicle | manual typing | reg lookup, seconds | |
| Cross-site stock visibility | none | full group view | |
| Sold cars left advertised | routine | prevented |
Key Takeaways
- Three lists never agree. The moment stock lives in more than one place, duplicates and ghosts are a question of when, not if.
- One shared status ends wasted journeys. A sold car that drops off everywhere at once is worth more than any advert.
- Reg lookup removes the re-key. Adding a car in seconds means the list actually stays current across every site.
- A group view is a buying tool. Seeing age and margin across all forecourts at once changes what the group stocks next.
