How Different Auto Parts Merchants Solve Issues They Have in Common

Is your auto parts e-commerce underperforming and you struggle to find the reason? Have you just started your online store and don’t know what developments to focus on? No matter what stage you are, there are some key things to consider to survive in this highly competitive market.

Convermax team analyzed the experience of our clients selling automotive parts. We defined common issues that caused headaches to e-merchants and the most interesting ways to solve them. Our customers field-tested all the next practices. Consider them whether you’re just entertaining the idea of owning a store, moving platforms, or redesigning your auto parts website.

E-commerce Data Automation

If you open the website of the auto parts store and one of clothing, the difference between e-commerce sites will be not only in the type of goods. The number of items sold will differ drastically. Typically, the average auto parts e-commerce website contains dozens of thousands of products. Managing information of 150 000+ products manually leaves room for errors and makes the process slow or even impossible.

The issues caused by problems with product data vary. Here’re some examples.

An e-commerce website sells more than one brand of auto parts. Names of the models and sub-models might differ from catalog to catalog. Various automotive brands may have different category definitions, and an e-merchant would like to unitize them. Changing categories manually for thousands of products is possible but will take an eternity.

Some e-merchants modify the name of the product from the one in the catalog. For example, the part name in the catalog was “Running Board Mount Kit 27–2145”. E-commerce owner sells it in the shop as “Westin Silverado/Sierra 1500 Double/Crew Cab 2014–2018; Silverado Ld/Sierra 1500 Limite 27–2145”. People do it for store individualization, to improve SEO, to retarget shoppers or for any other purposes.

But what happens when an e-merchant receives a fresh catalog with a change in the price or other product data? If one just imports the new CSV file to the store, previously modified product names will disappear. So, the store owner should either correct auto parts’ names in the CSV file before uploading or rename products on the website all over again. Either way is time-consuming if done manually and almost impossible if you have 10 000+ SKU in the store.

One of the other common problems is with product pictures. This data is either missed or broken. Have you seen this image as a primary product picture?

We saw California’s Proposition 65 Warning quite a few times. That happens because the uploaded catalog missed the real product photo. Another popular case is when you see a brand logo instead of the product picture. If there are dozens of products with this problem, an e-merchant can fix it fast. But what should be done if there are thousands?

These issues can be solved with data automation.

Data automation is the process of updating e-commerce product data programmatically, rather than manually. The solution will add new products, change product information according to store owner needs and keep it fresh, and synchronize supplier inventory.

There are different processes or software to automate maintaining fresh product information, pricing, and stock level. Decide what’s best for your store depending on how often you get product updates, how many products you sell, what’s your budget, etc. For some e-merchants, a plug-in for bulk product editing is enough. It gets installed into an auto parts store, and usually requires CSV data files from the supplier. It’s possible to update basic product data and even create some custom fields.

But most of our clients use store automation solutions, such as Data Here-To-There. When your store has thousands of products and dozens of models and brands, you need a smarter solution. The one that can create custom pricing rule, change the way inventory is updated, add tagging, automatically find missing product images and other things.

Automation solution receives information on auto parts from data systems (Keystone, SEMA Data Co-Op, DCi, ASAP, OptiCat, Turn 14 Distribution, etc.). Then it processes and transforms data to meet the needs of a specific store. So, it’s easy to generate product information tables, apply the right attributes, and create product variants. With data automation, one can upload new products into a test store, see how the pages will look and whether there are any problems before importing them into a live e-commerce website. Well-organized navigation through the website can also result from data automation.

When finding an auto part is as easy as pie for a person with minimal technical knowledge, e-commerce earns points for user experience and can expect customers to return. And as data automation takes the part of keeping data in order, e-merchants and employees save time for other important tasks.

Auto parts fitment search

According to Hedges & Company’s study, 84% of auto parts e-commerce website visitors who are ready to make a purchase don’t know if a part fits their vehicle. They don’t want to spend time researching to find what part is the best. What they need is a quick way to make sure that the auto parts store has the product suitable for their car. And that’s when auto part fitment search comes to rescue. It will save you from product returns that did not fit a customer’s vehicle and reduce the incoming call load to the service center.

Auto parts e-commerce website visitors have three common patterns of behavior.

1. A customer journey can start from filling in their vehicle’s information. So, the user chooses the right options in YMM widget, and get a customized search results page. For further convenience, the data about the chosen vehicle is automatically saved, and when he or she returns to your website, the search will be already modified for the customer’s car.

2. At some websites, instead of YMM lookup, navigation through the website starts from choosing a mini-store, where users can find all the parts compatible with their vehicle. This solution is especially reasonable for stores that sell parts for a small number of models, like Jeep People:

3. Another common pattern for customers is to browse the store from the category page, discover products, and then check whether they’re compatible with their vehicle or not.

If the user gets to the product page from Google search, advertisement or promotional email, he or she can verify auto part fitment at the product page. This how it’s realized at Tonneau Covers World:

After a customer places an order, their vehicle stays saved. The store owner also has access to users’ vehicle data. It can be used for an extra check that customers ordered the right auto parts. This information also can be useful for marketing and business development purposes.

So, let your customers search the way they’d like by selecting their car model, by browsing the category pages or by inputting the search word in the box. Industry-standard functionality includes:

• Year/Make/Model Lookup
• Verify fitment feature
• My garage
• Universal parts support

Outstanding Content

Parts shoppers want to get as much information on a product to have the confidence to place an order. Shoppers can’t touch and look at these parts in real life, so they will expect detailed product photos and videos, reviews and even installation instructions. And, of course, mobile viewing must be as convenient as the desktop one.

Stage 3 Motorsports solves the problem in a creative way — the website has an interactive garage. Customers can choose a vehicle and check how different parts will look on it in real-time.

Also, invest time in writing useful and amusing blog posts and creating a community around your online store. It’s a great way of growing a loyal customer base. It may be a step-by-step guide on how to install parts or comparison reviews of different brands — anything that will catch the interest of shoppers. For example, Stage 3 Motorsports creates videos with products they sell and adds them to the product pages.

Through text or a video blog, you can educate customers about automotive products, engage in discussions with them, understand your clients better and even gain some fans.

Bottom line

The time when the key to winning customers was the price of the product was not long ago. But now that’s gone. Users choose those companies that provide better prices and better customer experience. According to the PwC research, 73% of shoppers point to CX as an important factor for choosing a seller. And one in three customers will never return to a store after just one bad experience.

So, take care of your store’s product data, content and search. It brings real value to users. In return, customers will enjoy shopping, buying and repeat purchases.

Originally published at https://convermax.com on February 17, 2020.