How To: Add Boats to Your Platform

Dealership Tools allows you to add as much detail about a single boat as you could ever hope for. Because of this, we have a quick 6 step process for adding your inventory. In minutes, you will have a brand new or preowned boat added right to your site.

Step 1 – Boat Specifications

a. Add the specifications in the column such as: the status, year, manufacturer, engine type, engine make, hull type, fuel tank size, and so on.
b. Continue adding the specifications in this column such as: selling price, MSRP, dealership cost, model, color, length, stock number, and more.
c. Add a personalized description. The information added in this section will be displayed as an overview of the boat. Be sure to include only necessary information in sentence like forms.
d. Press Save to continue on to step 2.
e. Select ‘View Boats’ if you wish to exit the ‘Add Boat’ process and be led back to the listings page of your current active boats.
f. Select ‘Manufacturers’ to be taken to the Boat Manufacturer Management Section.
g. Press ‘Categories’ to be taken to the Boat Categories Management Section.

Step 2 – Boat Features

a. Ignore this section. We are in the process of upgrading our system and this section is no longer in use.
b. Ignore this section. We are in the process of upgrading our system and this section is no longer in use.
c. Ignore this section. We are in the process of upgrading our system and this section is no longer in use.
d. Enter your standard and optional features and package options into this section. This section will display in its own tab on your site’s boat detail page. Your users will expect to see the features that accompany each boat in this tab.
e. Select ‘Save’ to continue to step 3.
f. Paste any ‘Copied’ data into this format cleaner. If you are going to copy data from a different tool, place the data in this format cleaner first to strip any excess code you may not be able to see. Once complete, you can then re-copy the data and place it into the ‘All Features’ (d.) section to ensure it displays properly.
g. Select ‘View Boats’ if you wish to exit the ‘Add Boat’ process and be led back to the listings page of your current active boats.
h. Select ‘Manufacturers’ to be taken to the Boat Manufacturer Management Section.
i. Press ‘Categories’ to be taken to the Boat Categories Management Section.

Step 3 – Display Options

a. Toggle the Display on Website Switch. When ‘On’ is highlighted blue, you know the switch has been turned on. This will designate if the boat is actively shown on the site or if it is marked as inactive. You can turn boats that have been sold to inactive and add a ‘Sold’ tag to better keep track of what boats have already been sold.
b. Toggle the ‘Feature Boat’ switch to set the boat as featured. This will display the primary image of this boat in the homepage slide show. Keep in mind that you only want a select number of boats displayed in this slideshow. You don’t want to overwhelm your users with a never ending slideshow.
c. Leave this section turned off. Dealership Tools is making some upgrades; we will alert you when the functionality for this has been updated.
d. Flip the switch to set the boat to automatically export to Boat Trader. You can only use this feature if you already have a Boat Trader account. If you do, we will connect your Dealership Tools account with your Boat Trader account.
e. Toggle this switch to set this boat as a current ‘In Stock’ boat. If your company currently has this ‘New’ or ‘Preowned’ boat on your physical lot, set this to In-Stock so your customer knows they can visit and see the boat in person.
f. If you have set this boat to ’In Stock’ with the above switch, select the location/ location(s) at which this boat can be viewed.
g. Hit ‘Save and Continue’ to continue on to step 4.
h. Click ‘View Boats’ if you wish to exit the ‘Add Boat’ process and be led back to the listings page of your current active boats.
i. Click ‘Manufacturers’ to be taken to the Boat Manufacturer Management Section.
j. Press ‘Categories’ to be taken to the Boat Categories Management Section.

Step 4 – Boat Images

a. Click the ‘Upload’ button and then the ‘Add Files’ button to begin selecting the images you would like to upload for this boat. Upon selecting your images, you will then have to click the ‘Start Upload’ button to begin the upload process.

a.Upon upload, you will see 3 more buttons: ‘Sort’, ‘Brochure’ & ‘Remove’. Before saving, you can re-sort the images, mark them as brochure (which will put a ‘Brochure Photo’ corner banner across the image) or you can remove any that you decided weren’t necessary.

b. Click ‘Save and Continue’ to move on to Step 5.
c. Click ‘View Boats’ if you wish to exit the ‘Add Boat’ process and be led back to the listings page of your current active boats.
d. Click ‘Manufacturers’ to be taken to the Boat Manufacturer Management Section.
e. Press ‘Categories’ to be taken to the Boat Categories Management Section.

Step 5 – Boat Videos

a. Select Upload to add a YouTube Video URL. You will need to have a YouTube URL ready to be placed in the Upload pop up. You can add as many videos as you would like that pertains to this boat.
b. Hit ‘Save and Continue’ to move onto Step 6.
c. Click ‘View Boats’ if you wish to exit the ‘Add Boat’ process and be led back to the listings page of your current active boats.
d. Click ‘Manufacturers’ to be taken to the Boat Manufacturer Management Section.
e. Press ‘Categories’ to be taken to the Boat Categories Management Section.

Step 6 – Boat Documents

a. Click ‘Upload’ to upload a .pdf version of whatever documents you wish to share about this boat.
b. Hit ‘Save and Continue’ to continue to step 7.
c. Click ‘View Boats’ if you wish to exit the ‘Add Boat’ process and be led back to the listings page of your current active boats.
d. Click ‘Manufacturers’ to be taken to the Boat Manufacturer Management Section.
e. Press ‘Categories’ to be taken to the Boat Categories Management Section.

Step 7 – Boat Tags

a. Click ‘Add Tag’ to begin adding tags. Tags can be added to help organize your inventory or to help display the boat in a specific location on your site.

a. Add the tag ‘Popular’ to have your boat display in the ‘Popular Boats’ section, just below your homepage slideshow.
b. If the Fully Managed or Marketing Packages have been selected, Dealership Tools will add a ‘Brochure Boat’ tag to your New Brochure Models from your manufacturers.
c. Other tag ideas to help organize your inventory internally are: ‘Sold’, ‘In Stock’, ‘Processing’ and ‘On the Hook’.

b. Click ‘Finish’ to finalize the addition of the boat.
c. Click ‘View Boats’ if you wish to exit the ‘Add Boat’ process and be led back to the listings page of your current active boats.
d. Click ‘Manufacturers’ to be taken to the Boat Manufacturer Management Section.
e. Press ‘Categories’ to be taken to the Boat Categories Management Section.

a. Login to your Dealership Marketing Platform Account
b. Go to the ‘Boats’ section
c. Click on the row of the boat you wish to edit/ delete
d. Edit the desired information

a. If you want to Inactivate a boat, navigate to the ‘Display Options’ and flip the ’Display on Website’ toggle to ‘Off’

e. Select ‘Save Boat Information’ to update the edits to the boat.
f. Delete the boat by staying on the ‘Boat Details’ tab and scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking the ‘Delete’ button.

a. Hit ‘OK’ if you wish to follow through with the deletion.

* If you wish, we offer a Managed service package that will allow you to sit back and relax while we handle pretty much everything except your pre-owned inventory! See our pricing options by visiting dealership.tools.

The “Qualify For Payments” button links to a processing page of your choice. Please email the link to your credit processing page to your account manager. After we receive the link, we’ll add it to your website for you. If you have any questions, just give us a call!