Inventory Page - What's Important:
Lay out of the inventory page is very important. The inventory should be sorted on the make of the vehicle, not the stock number or the year. If the customer is looking for a Ford he shouldn't have to go through all the vehicles and try to pick out the Fords.
He should be able to go down where the F's start and there are all the Fords. The customer should be able to see quickly the make, model, year, mileage and price. This is the most important data that needs to be put before the customer's eyes.
Next, when the customer finds the vehicle he is interested in, he should be able to click on that vehicle and another web page opens up. This second page gives him all the information he needs to determine if he is interested in this one or do they need to keep on looking.
Such things as options, sound system, color of the vehicle and other items that you don't have enough room on one line in the first page go on this additional page.
The picture is something else that needs to be on the second page. The customer knows what a Ford F150 looks like. What a customer needs to determine if they are interested is usually not a picture of the vehicle.
If you include a picture on the general inventory page for each vehicle, that takes up 3 or 4 lines and it makes it much harder for the customer to get a general overview of what vehicles are available. It is best to keep the inventory items down to 1 line. That way the customer can very quickly scan through 50 to 100 vehicles and will be able to quickly find the vehicles that interest them.
Better But Not Quite There Yet:
The next 8 dealers all have inventory items that either take up 3 or 4 lines, or the layout of the inventory is rough. They are rated from 4 to 5. These dealers were rated based on the items just discussed.