Right now, at a lot of auto dealerships, GMs have the 2027 budget open on one screen and the used car report open on the other.
Floor plan, ad spend and headcount get the long meetings. Further down sits a line that also gets some attention: photography. Might also be callled merchandising. Who shoots your inventory, how fast, and what it costs.
The GM of a ten-store group sits down with the internet director to settle that line. Nothing is off the rails. Cars get shot, listings go live, leads come in. They want to know the money is going to the right place, and that the process holds up when volume picks up.
Some stores shoot in-house. Some bring in a photography partner. Some groups do both. All three options can work. The trick is knowing which fits each store, and that comes down to a few specific numbers.
What does it cost to photograph one car?
Start with cost per unit. It's the number all options get measured against.
If you outsource, it's on an invoice. If you shoot in-house, it's spread across several places. There's the time of whoever holds the camera, often a porter or lot attendant with other jobs. There's the 360 car photography software license, the camera or phone, and any lighting or backdrop. And there's the cost of reshoots, when a spin comes out crooked or a car gets touched up after it was shot.
Add those up for the last 12 months and divide by units shot. That's your in-house cost per car.
A lot of stores never put that number on paper. If it comes in under the quotes you're getting, that's a strong case for staying the course. If not, you've learned outsourcing may be a great path forward.
How fast does a car go from recon to live?
The second number is time. Most stores track days to frontline. Fewer track the time between recon complete and photos live on the VDP. That's the number photography owns.
Pull 20 recent units and compare the two timestamps. If most cars are shot and live within a day of leaving recon, the process is working. If they regularly wait on someone with a camera, that's where the decision needs to be revisited.
Should a dealership shoot its own photos or outsource them?
It depends on volume, staffing and consistency. In-house dealership photography works well when a store has a trained person who owns the job, has steady volume, and software that keeps every image consistent. Outsourcing tends to fit when volume swings month to month, when turnover means constant retraining, or when a store wants photography handled alongside recon and merchandising. For a lot of stores, it's the easy button.
Many dealers run a mix: in-house at the rooftops with a strong shooter, a partner at the stores without one. The right call can change as a store grows, adds a rooftop, or brings in better tools.
What does it take to do in-house photography well?
Stores that in-house photography well tend to have three things in common:
One person owns it. Photography is in their job description, not squeezed between washes and shuttle runs, and someone is trained to cover when they're off.
The tools carry the consistency. 360 car photography captures a vehicle from evenly spaced angles around the outside, and usually from the center of the cabin, so a shopper can spin it on the VDP the way they'd walk around it on the lot. Good 360 car photography software guides the shooter to the same angles, stopping points and framing on every unit. That way the whole 360 vehicle inventory looks like it came from one hand, and every 360 car view a shopper looks at feels familiar.
There's a written standard for what every listing includes before it goes live, from photo count and spin to window sticker and comments.
With those three things in place, in-house can be consistent and cost-effective.
What should a photography partner bring?
When a GM buys car photography services, they're paying for more than pictures. Expect a trained automotive photographer on your lot on a predictable schedule, and the same look across every rooftop. Expect coordination with recon, so cars are shot frontline-ready instead of reshot later. And expect the used car merchandising work after the shoot, from 360 spins and video to window stickers and OEM build data on the VDP.
Making the Decision
By the end of the budget meeting, the GM has the answer based on three figures:
cost per car shot over the last 12 months
hours from recon complete to photos live on your last 20 units
how consistent those 20 listings look side by side on your website
Xcite Automotive can help you manage to all of these numbers and more. if you'd like to discuss which option is best for your group -- outsourced, in-house, or a blend -- get in touch today.