Your website lists a 2026 F-250 at $73,794. Your inventory system says its asking price is $73,395. Both numbers look reasonable, so nobody notices. The customer who calls about it does.
Commercial dealers publish hundreds of units to their website through a feed from the DMS. Prices, incentives, sold units and customer orders all flow through it. Most of the time it works. When it drifts, it drifts quietly, one listing at a time.
Here are three real patterns we caught in one week at a commercial Ford store, with stock numbers changed. None of them showed up as an error anywhere. Each one was only visible by putting the website listing next to the inventory record.
Case 1: the discount that isn't one
The listing for TST31207 showed a $2,000 Ford incentive coming off the price. On paper, the customer was getting a deal. In fact, the website had raised the MSRP by the same $2,000 first.
| Website | Inventory record | |
|---|---|---|
| MSRP | $75,395 | $58,410 chassis + $14,985 upfit = $73,395 |
| Ford incentive | minus $2,000 | |
| Doc fee | plus $399 | |
| Price shown | $73,794 | |
| Price before doc fee | $73,395 | $73,395 asking |
The customer pays exactly the asking price. The "discount" is built from a marked-up MSRP. That may be a presentation choice, or it may mean Ford cash that should reach the buyer isn't. Either way, someone should decide on purpose.
A simple price check flags this as a $2,000 conflict, which sends staff hunting for a pricing error that isn't there. A better check recognizes the pattern and says it plainly: the price matches, and the website MSRP includes the incentive.
Case 2: sold on Wednesday, still for sale on Friday
Two crane trucks, TST55180 and TST55193, sold on the same afternoon. Two days later both were still on the website at $184,500 and $191,000. Every inquiry on them is a call your rep has to walk back.
The less obvious problem: a sold unit still in the feed also trips every other check. TST55180 showed up twice, once as "sold, still listed" and again as "valued $34,910 under the website's MSRP." One mistake, two alarms, and the second one points at the wrong fix.
The real fix is one action at the source: delist it. So that is the only thing it should say.
Case 3: a customer's truck, advertised to everyone
Two vans ordered for a specific customer, TST60412 and TST60438, appeared on the website as available stock. They were committed. They had a buyer. They were still listed for sale, and the only symptom inside the store was a $150 price mismatch that nobody would chase.
Customer orders are the most expensive kind of leak. A stranger can call about a unit that is already sold to your customer, and the customer can find their own truck advertised. The listing dropped off the next day when the order was marked custom, but for that window nothing flagged it as what it was.
The rule we use now: any unit committed to a customer (a custom order, or one built for another dealer) that shows up in the feed is reported once, as a customer order that should not be for sale. It is not also reported as a price problem.
How a nightly cross-check catches it
Every night, the same file your website publishes from is read and matched to inventory by VIN. Each listing is compared with what the dealership actually knows about that unit, and the result sorts into a short list of things to do.
| What it finds | What it means | Where you fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Listed price doesn't match asking | The website price, after incentives and doc fee, differs from the asking price | The DMS or feed source |
| Price matches, incentive in MSRP | The customer pays asking, but the MSRP was raised to show a discount | A decision, then the source |
| Sold or traded, still listed | The unit left the lot but is still advertised | Delist at the source |
| Customer order listed | A unit committed to a buyer is for sale | Delist at the source |
| Should be listed, isn't | Ground stock for sale that's missing from the website | The source |
| Valued under or over the website | Upfit cost or MSRP missing or wrong in inventory | Inventory record |
Two rules keep the list useful. Each problem is reported once, in the place that names the real fix. And anything that already matches stays quiet, under "looks right," so the list a manager reads in the morning is only the work.
Catch it before the customer does
None of these were dramatic. A raised MSRP, two trucks not yet delisted, two vans that slipped into the feed. But each one is a customer conversation that starts on the wrong foot, and on commercial units the numbers are big.
Feed Integrity in ProInventory360 runs this check every night against your own website feed. We set up the feed connection with you during onboarding, so it works with how your store already publishes.
Want to see what it finds on your inventory? Book a demo.