Dealer listings that get found: data over prose

A filtered search compares fields, not sentences. Tick “automatic” and “four-wheel drive” and you get the cars that have exactly those values in the gearbox and drivetrain fields. A car whose four-wheel drive is mentioned only in the description is missing from that list, however good the text.

The same applies to searching in your own words. Type “estate with four-wheel drive and automatic under 30,000” and you get not a text match but filters: the sentence becomes body type, drivetrain, gearbox and a price limit, which are again checked against the fields. Only the free search box also reads the description and equipment list — and there, every word entered has to appear.

And it applies to everything that keeps working after the visit. Saved searches and price alerts report new cars using the same filters as the search. A field left empty when you list a car therefore costs not only hits in the list but also the email to someone who had subscribed to exactly that car — and the moment a listing is new does not come round again.

Besides make, model, price, year and mileage, the search offers a number of fields that often stay empty on dealer listings because they have different names in the dealer's own system or are not kept at all. The option lists for them are fixed, and that is exactly their purpose. A value called something else in your system has to match Carvexia's option — “manual”, say — for the filter to find it. Where fields are free, the opposite rule applies: better empty than guessed.

Accident-free and service history deserve particular attention, because they are more than search criteria. Both are statements about the car's condition that a buyer is entitled to rely on. A box that is ticked only because it was already ticked when the listing was created is still your statement in a dispute.

For each of the following fields there are buyers who filter on it deliberately:

The editor has a separate section for technical data: engine capacity, cylinders, gears, consumption, CO₂, efficiency and emissions class, weight, towing capacity, battery capacity, range, interior colour, upholstery, the date of the next inspection and a link to a walk-around video. Most of these are not filterable, but they appear in the data table on the vehicle page — and anything left empty simply does not show.

These fields answer the questions that otherwise arrive by email. Someone who wants to tow a caravan asks about towing capacity, someone who drives into cities with access restrictions asks about the emissions class, someone buying an electric car asks about battery and range. The details are in the registration document and the certificate of conformity; copied across once, they save a question from every interested buyer.

The VIN has a special role. It appears in the data table, and buyers can use it to check things themselves — with the manufacturer, for instance, whether a recall is outstanding. It is also the basis of the live proof: when a buyer requests one, the VIN in the shot is compared with the one in the listing, and without a complete VIN in the listing that comparison stays empty. For a dealer listing there is little reason not to enter it from the start.

For larger stocks, the dashboard offers import from a spreadsheet. You export your stock from your own system as a CSV or tab-separated file, map the columns to Carvexia's fields once, and before importing you see the first rows exactly as they would arrive. At a minimum, make, model, year, price, currency, mileage, fuel, gearbox, condition and country have to be mapped. Rows that cannot be imported come back with their row number and the reason; the rest go through.

Everything is created as a draft, not published. That is deliberate: putting eighty cars online with one click would mean publishing eighty possible mistakes at once. You can release the drafts in bulk afterwards — and the real work happens in between.

Because a spreadsheet does not bring everything with it. Drivetrain, warranty, reclaimable VAT, equipment and technical data are not carried over by the import; they need to be added or checked in the draft. Accident-free status and service history only come across if the file has a column for them — without one, the listing shows “Not stated” until you change it in the draft. If a row's cell for fuel, gearbox, currency, condition or country is empty, that row is not imported and comes back with the reason; the import does not fill in a default value that would be wrong for part of your stock. And values from your system that do not match the fixed options will appear in the listing but will not be found by the filter.

This order has proven itself: first go through the drafts grouped by make or model and fill in the missing fields, then check photos and cover image, then release in bulk. For single cars there are two more routes: copy an existing listing as a draft when an almost identical car comes in, or import by link from a listing that is already online elsewhere. There, too, anything not clearly stated on the source stays empty.

With a large stock, what counts is not the single great photo but consistency. A fixed photo set — the same shots in the same order, in the same place — makes every listing complete without anyone having to think about it, and it can be handed on to staff. Buyers learn the order quickly and find the evidence where they expect it. The number of photos per listing depends on your plan — one more reason to use the slots for evidence rather than for ten views of the same side.

The editor shows you which evidence is still missing from a car's photos: the saved photos can be matched automatically, with the instrument cluster, service book, keys, interior and a few other items each matched to individual photos. Whatever you approve appears on the vehicle page under “Visible in the photos”, with a jump to the photo. The matching is automatic and can be wrong — which is why you approve it yourself.

A workable set starts with the cover shot from the front three-quarter angle, goes once round the car, then inside, and ends with the shots buyers would otherwise request through the enquiry form — supply them from the start and those requests do not come:

Two areas of the editor are not data fields in the strict sense but work the same way: the seller's statements and the net price and export details. The seller's statements answer fixed buyer questions — number of keys, cambelt or timing chain, last service with a receipt, certificate of conformity, outstanding finance, hail or water damage, warning lights, known defects and more. The answers appear on the vehicle page as “Dealer's statements, not checked”, in the visitor's language.

For a dealer it pays to fill in the seller's statements when listing rather than waiting to be asked. Many answers follow from taking the car in anyway: you counted the keys, saw the service book and know whether the inspection will be redone before handover. What you do not know stays “Don't know” — and every answer belongs to this particular car, not to a template for all of them.

The export details are only available on listings with reclaimable VAT. You enter a net price, choose how the tax is handled on export and state who declares the export. The car then appears under the “Export possible” filter, and your terms are shown on the vehicle page as stated by the dealer. Keep these fields up to date across your whole stock and the enquiries from abroad come from buyers who already know where they stand.