If a picture is worth 1,000 words, perhaps dealers might use that many to describe the state of their vehicle images used to highlight their inventory.

Dealer Image Pro, a leader in professional photo, video and 360-degree software for automotive dealerships, recently announced results from a survey it commissioned to better understand the level of satisfaction dealers are having with their preferred vendors and how using a preferred vendor has influenced dealership vehicle inventory photo and video decisions.

Dealer Image Pro presented an online survey to more than 3,000 dealer professionals in December, and 40% said they are currently dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their current preferred vendor managing the vehicle inventory photo and video process.

Furthermore, Dealer Image Pro found that 33% of dealership preferred vendor decisions are primarily influenced by preexisting relations, while another 31% said they don’t only use preferred vendors and still look at outside vendors to take the dealership’s vehicle photos and videos.

“OEMs and auto groups continue to look for the best ways to merchandise their vehicles online for their omnichannel sites and a lot of dealers now simply want the opportunity to work with non-preferred vendors that have new technologies and an expanded reach into other markets.” said Louis Norman, director of operations at Dealer Image Pro.

“Dealer Image Pro has been affected by preferred vendors firsthand, as we’ve been forced into auto groups, but have also been ripped away from happy customers, so we wanted to understand what exactly pushes dealers to a preferred vendor and if it is based on successful results,” Norman continued.

For more information on how to streamline your merchandising for a whole auto group or an individual dealership, like Dealer Image Pro, visit https://www.dealerimagepro.com/demo/ to request a demonstration of the company’s dealership merchandising solutions.