eCommerce has transformed every major retailing market, and the automotive industry is no exception. Although purchasing an automobile still requires a visit to the dealership, selling auto parts on your website is a business opportunity that can increase your market and the trend of the future.
A PR News report reveals that eCommerce sales of auto parts are projected to hit $18 billion by the end of the year. That represents only a small amount of auto parts sales annually, indicating a large opportunity.
Selling parts online can be extremely complicated, with There are many e-commerce platform to choose eCommerce software comparison by CompareCamp and with the right platforms and e-commerce solutions, a successful strategy can be achieved.
To help you select the right platform, we’ve first provided a summary of the features that your automotive eCommerce application needs to have.
Parts Fitment Data
First and foremost, your store will have to have fitment data, allowing your buyers to confirm that the part fits before purchasing. Having good quality fitment data is crucial to increase conversion rates and more importantly reduce costly return rates.
Working with fitment data is notoriously difficult as it is important. The first challenge is actually obtaining vehicle configurable data. Traditionally buyers only needed the make, model and year of the vehicle to ensure the auto part fits. However, with vehicles becoming more configurable, vehicle definitions alone are not enough to ensure the parts will fit.
The other main barrier to selling online with fitment data is to actually integrate the fitment information. The existing e-commerce platforms out there are powerful, but you will either need custom website development or a 3rd party app, like PartsPal comes in.
Multi channel integration
There is an old addage - Sell where your customers are. Selling your products to multi-channel is important to ensure your products are as visible as possible, whether your customers are looking for parts on marketplaces, social media or on Google.
However, bringing your product to various channels is not an easy task. You will need to keep your stock levels updated and in sync, track your sales, orders and pricing, to have a strong presence in your market.
Mobile-Friendly
Ensuring a mobile-friendly experience is vital in improving search engine optimization rankings, conversion rates, and overall customer satisfaction. Forbes and automotive eCommerce auto part trends reveal that 57% of online customers won’t recommend a business with a poorly-designed mobile website. Opting for a mobile-responsive automotive eCommerce platform allows you to provide an organized, clean, and intuitive user experience.
It can also be an excellent way to collect customer information for future campaigns. Usually, an automotive eCommerce solution allows you to create mobile forms or questionnaires to get customer and prospect opinions. As you gather more data, you will be able to make changes that appeal more to your customers, improving the flow of their purchases.
Product Recommendation Plugin
Every auto parts business wants to increase average order value to make more money from a single transaction. However, this can be challenging since most customers that shop online will usually only purchase the parts they are looking for. Taking advantage of an automotive eCommerce platform with a product recommendation feature allows you to increase sales-per-transaction and help customers become more engaged in the website.
By providing individualized parts recommendation, they can dive even more comprehensively into the product line without needing to perform numerous searches. Technically, the algorithms will evaluate the keywords customers enter and their past purchases to determine their preferences. Thus, allowing visitors to receive appropriate auto parts when shopping, increasing customer loyalty, and personalizing the shopping experience.
Secure Payment System
Error-free payment processing is key in keeping consumers from checkout to after-sales. When customers have a seamless checkout experience, you can increase completed transactions and ensure continuous patronage. Therefore, you must ensure that your automotive eCommerce platform is brimming with a powerful yet secure payment system that facilitates online payment transfer and other financial transactions.
With a secure payment system, you can give customers peace of mind by protecting them against fraud and other security issues when shopping. It also allows you to expand your store reach to national or even international audiences since eCommerce payment systems can accept multiple currencies, unlike brick-and-mortar stores. Thus, expanding your customer base and overall target market.
Achieving Optimized Automotive Operations with an eCommerce Platform
As digital transformation continues to disrupt the automotive industry, businesses have to adapt to achieve optimized operations. Being adaptable is taking advantage of emerging automotive eCommerce solutions to provide customers an intuitive and desirable experience.
