Siebel eService Administration Guide Addendum for Industry Applications > Siebel eService for eAutomotive >

Inventory Search for Vehicles

Potential customers may find exactly the vehicle that they want by using your Siebel eSales Web site, by looking at your marketing material, or in some other way. Then, because virtually all vehicle sales are through dealers, they will want to see whether any dealers near them have that vehicle in their current inventory.

Both anonymous and registered users can use the Inventory Search view by clicking the Inventory Search global button.

Customers enter the following information:

• Their location. If they want the vehicle at the nearest dealer, customers can enter either their ZIP code or their city, state, and country.
• New/Used Type. Customers use the drop-down list to specify whether they want a new or used car.
• From/To Model Year. If they want a used car, customers use these fields to specify the range of years they are interested in.
• Make. Customers use the drop-down list to specify the make of car they are interested in.
• Model. Customers use the drop-down list to specify the model of car they are interested in.
• Trim. Customers use the drop-down list to specify the trim they are interested in.
• MSRP Less Than. Customers enter the maximum price they want to pay. This field applies to both new and used cars. The price is taken from the MSRP field of the Vehicle record.
• Mileage Less Than. If they are buying a used car, customers can enter the maximum mileage they want on the car.
• Search Range. If they want the vehicle at the nearest dealer, customers can use the Distance In (miles or kilometers) and Search Range fields to specify how far from their location the dealer may be.

When the user clicks Search, the result includes all vehicles that meet the criteria that were entered.

NOTE:  For inventory search to work properly, you must enter only one location for each dealer in the Dealer Locator Administration screen. If you have multiple locations for one dealer, the inventory search may not function properly, because a vehicle is tied to a dealer, not to a dealer location.

The inventory search uses information that you entered in the Vehicle screen of eAutomotive. For a vehicle to be available in a dealer's inventory, it must have the following values entered in these fields of the Vehicle form:

• Status field: Available
• Owned By field: Dealer
• Account field: the dealer name

For more information about making a vehicle available in a dealer's inventory, see the section about Siebel eAutomotive Tools in Siebel eAutomotive Guide.