Switching inventory providers, or adding a new inventory feed

For dealership staff changing inventory management systems, and for the incoming provider's implementation team.

Switching the system that feeds your inventory to your website — vAuto, HomeNet, DealerCenter, dealr.cloud, Goxee and others — is routine, and it does not need to put your website at risk. The whole approach rests on one rule: the new feed is proven before the old one is switched off. Nothing is ever deleted first.

How the cutover runs

1. Your new provider sends us test files. One file per store, active inventory only. They also tell us which filename belongs to which rooftop.
2. We confirm three things before anything is visible: the files are arriving, they're in a format we can read, and each file is mapped to the correct store.
3. We stage the feed without displaying it. It's configured and parsing, but your live site is still running on the old source. Nothing your shoppers see has changed.
4. We go live on your signal — or your new provider's — once everyone agrees the data looks right.
5. The old feed keeps running. We verify the new one is pulling properly: the active vehicle count is what you expect, and the data is fresh.
6. Only then do we disable the old source.

Steps 5 and 6 are the ones people want to skip to save a day. Don't — switching off the old feed before the new one is confirmed is the one path to an inventory blackout on your live site.

Tell us this before the cutover, not after

⚠️ Do you hand-edit anything? If your team types prices, descriptions, or any other field directly into the Overfuel IMS rather than letting the feed set them, say so before we switch. We can lock those specific fields so the incoming feed doesn't overwrite your work. Discovering this afterwards means a day of re-keying.

Also worth flagging up front:

• Cross-listing. If you show one store's inventory on another store's website today, tell us — it's supported, and it's handled on our display side rather than in the feed, but we need to know to preserve it.
• Manually created vehicles. Units added by hand in the IMS aren't managed by any feed and will survive the switch untouched.
• Photos. If photos come from a different source than vehicle data, tell us — those are often separate feeds.

What doesn't change

This is an inventory-only change. Your leads, CRM routing, credit application setup and marketplace feeds all keep working exactly as they are. If you want any of those changed too, raise it separately so it doesn't get tangled up in the cutover.

What we need to get started

• The new provider's name, and a technical contact there
• Which rooftops are moving, and when
• Confirmation the provider can deliver one file per store of active inventory
• Which fields, if any, your team maintains by hand and wants protected
• Your target date — and whether anything else is riding on it, like a domain change or a launch

Timing

Once files are arriving and correctly mapped, going live is quick. The time is almost always spent waiting on the provider's export to be set up and delivered. Start that conversation early, and ask your new provider to contact us directly — most of them have sent us feeds before and know the drill.

After the switch

Give it one full import cycle, then spot-check:

• Your active vehicle count on the website matches your new system
• Prices match what you intended, including any fields you asked us to lock
• Photos are present on new arrivals
• Sold units are dropping off as expected

If something looks wrong, send stock numbers rather than a general description — the pattern across several vehicles is usually what identifies the cause. Email support@overfuel.com.