The Cobalt Group is helping auto dealers offer a complete suite of locate-to-order (LTO) capabilities on their Web sites with a major enhancement to its AutoShow inventory management tool.

Cobalt, a provider of e-business products and services to the automotive industry, announced on April 26 that it is now offering an integrated library of stock vehicle photos with AutoShow, giving dealers the ability to offer standard vehicle photos for every new vehicle listing on their Web sites.

This enhancement furthers dealers' ability to satisfy consumers' automotive research and purchase needs, and reduces the manual effort associated with maintaining a dealership Web site, according to Mike Martinez, vice president of marketing for The Cobalt Group.

"Current and complete inventory listings on a dealer's Web site, including vehicle descriptions and accurate photos, are key components necessary to make locate-to-order (LTO) a reality," Martinez said. "Dealers who adopt LTO tools such as Cobalt's AutoShow and a vehicle configurator will find themselves in a much better competitive position than dealers who wait."

LTO, a new model for the future of online automotive retailing, is a process that allows customers to move beyond doing simple research on a dealer's Web site to actually configuring a vehicle, finding the closest match from the dealer's inventory and then committing to buy it online. With the release of the stock photo library, in combination with Cobalt's Make & Match and NADA Sales Accelerator products, Cobalt provides all of the e-business tools dealers need to enable LTO on their Web sites, according to Martinez.

The stock photo library eliminates the need for dealers to take photos of new vehicles themselves or purchase them from a third party and manually add them to their Web sites. With this enhancement to AutoShow, dealers now receive a comprehensive set of high-quality, professional vehicle photos that are automatically linked to the corresponding inventory on their Web sites.

According to Martinez, this provides dealers with broader inventory photo coverage and considerable savings in time and money. The photos correspond to vehicle options and trim level. Flexibility is maintained because dealers who prefer to use their own photo have the option to override the stock photo for any vehicle.

"I am extremely pleased with Cobalt's new vehicle photo solution for our Web site. It gives customers a strong visual representation of a new vehicle in inventory without any additional effort on our part," said David Cuene, general manager at Broadway Automotive in Green Bay, Wis., who has been a beta tester of the product. "Presenting a professionally captured photo corresponding to the vehicle's trim level is the mark of a high caliber consumer-facing dealership Web site and I know our customers will appreciate it."

About the Cobalt Group

The Cobalt Group(TM), headquartered in Seattle, is a leading provider of e-business products and services designed to help automotive dealers and manufacturers effectively manage their businesses online.

Cobalt's suite of e-business solutions includes Web services, Web site hosting, e-commerce applications, Internet-based customer relationship management applications, data management, and best practices training and consulting.

Nearly half of the nation's auto dealers use Cobalt's technology, including 8,950 Web services clients, and approximately 9,000 PartsVoice(R) (www.partsvoice.com) clients. Cobalt's e-business products and services are endorsed by 14 automotive manufacturers and more than 50 of the 100 largest dealer groups in the United States. Cobalt is the only e-business provider endorsed by the National Automobile Dealers Association.

Cobalt operates MotorPlace.com(TM) (www.MotorPlace.com), an online business management and industry information resource for auto dealers. At MotorPlace.com, dealers utilize Cobalt tools to manage their Web sites, buy wholesale used vehicles through MotorPlace Auto Exchange, locate and market OEM parts through PartsVoice, purchase leads through Pick-or-Pass, and access industry information, news, events, and stock quotes.

Cobalt also operates DealerNet(R) (www.dealernet.com), one of the most widely visited consumer automotive information portals on the Web. IntegraLink Corporation, a Cobalt company, is a provider of automotive data collection and reporting services.

Cobalt has offices in Seattle, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; Detroit, Mich.; Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas.

For more information, visit www.cobaltgroup.com or call 800/909-8244.