Selling auto parts online

[tnet]

Hi All,

I hope there is someone here who have experience with auto parts stores. Hopefully you will share opinion on the following subject.

I'm starting a project that will enable customers to find which auto parts store near them have the car part they need and also to compare prices.
So very simple thing - you select few filters and get a list/map of stores around you that have car part you were looking for and the price of it.

In the background, car parts stores will have interface to update their stock status and prices. My plan is to also offer them an option to include search of their parts on their own website.
This central website where customers will search all stores will be promoted by me on different medias( Google, Facebook, different newspapers etc).

It would be great if you can share your thoughts on this. Do you see any obstacles? Is there something similar already on the UK market?

 

[Esk247]

There are websites that do this through registered dealers, however, when i've used them in the past they've been either useless, haven't got back to me or have bombarded me with advertising and telemarketing calls afterwards.

So something that is just completely open, so you can search without having to register or phone first would be useful.

The obstacle will be getting dealers/suppliers/motor factors and scrapyards to sign up as the ones i've used are notoriously amature in their work. They just take the cars in, pay £200 in cash and sign the form on the back then crush the car. They don't keep stock lists or anything.

 

[ionpetcu]

I have a website 3r-auto-parts.com and in 3 months I've got 173k parts on my website. The problem is that the breakers don't want to share the price of their parts. Don't know why. They are so busy maybe...
Please take a look.

 

[intercityuk]

I use to work as a parts manager for a number of car dealers so i have some experience. As someone has said most of the suppliers like scrapyards and motor factors are not keen to get into the 21st century as far as the internet is concerned.

I noticed there are a few scrapyards on ebay trying to make a living. I think one of the main problems is that for example not many of the parts are interchangeable for example -

Vw polo n/s door mirror ( sounds simple )

But first you have the different models MK1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,

Yes all the mirrors are different!

Then you have Manual, electric or electric and heated!

Then you have 8 different colours unless you are going to paint it!

So all i'm saying is it's a bloody nightmare stocking all the different parts unless your just selling filters.

That is why a new wing mirror from VW for a Polo is £196.57 + VAT + FITTING !!!!!!!

Sorry just went on a rant then but i hope you get my drift and i do think your idea is a good one

good luck

Regards Paul

 

[intercityuk]

Very impressed with the website ionpetcu, i think that is exactly what the OP was talking about.

Good luck in a difficult market

Paul

 

[ionpetcu]

Hey [FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, arial]intercityuk[/FONT],
Good to know that you are a car parts manager. May I question you if hypothetically wants to use that kind of inventory management system which publish instant the parts of the cars, what are the good points and the bad points.
Thank you,
Ion
3r-auto-parts.com

 

[intercityuk]

I think it is a really good idea but it must be difficult to sort. For instance i just put polo in your website but my model ( mk6 9n 2002 to 2005 )is not even listed. I know how difficult it must be sorting a good system out.

I'm not a parts manager now but i use to be. Just out of interest which software/database are you using on your website?

Most motor factors now use a system where the customer just gives them the reg number to get all the info they need. Maybe this only works for basics like filters and stuff. Would be nice to have the manifactures parts discs included in the database but they wouldn't allow it i suppose.

Couldn't you do your own stock list for a scrapyard or would that be too much work?

good luck and i don't mind if you want to ask me any more questions

Regards
Paul

 

[ionpetcu]

Hello again,
The website is banner free and I have built the whole application to show only the parts of the cars that are advertised by our breakers partners.
When I searched on the already known websites, I found that they offer a large number of filters but at the end, the website is telling to the user that they don't have this part listed but instead they offer a form to request for parts.
I'm a big fun of a good quality results of searches, so I want to offer to the end user from begining only what I have in stock.

I was thinking to offer search results on the breaker websites, but most of them offer poor websites, they are so unconfortable in this web area, most of them don't read e-mails frequently.
This is my current experience with UK auto breakers.
Have a good day,
Ion

 

[intercityuk]

Yes you are correct it is a very difficult Market to get into. But with the price of new parts being very expensive there is a lot of money to be made.

I got a mirror by the way but it still cost me £40 secondhand ! I bet the scrapyard only paid £50 for the whole car ! !

You need to open your own scrapyard !

All the best

 

[intercityuk]

Have a look at steves_vw_dismantlers on eBay they seem quite serious about selling secondhand parts

Cheers

 

[ionpetcu]

Hi intercityuk,
Can you give me a link to steves_vw_dismantlers? I don't know how to go there.
Thanks,
Ion
3r-auto-parts.com

 

[intercityuk]

i think this is it
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/stevens_vw_dismantlers/

Then just click view shop at the bottom of the page

regards Paul

 

[intercityuk]

Sorry tnet for hijacking your thread

 

[ionpetcu]

I have to admit that steves_vw_dismantlers has a lot of good reviews and also a lot of car parts.
How many days were necessary to reach that number of parts (23k)?
Best regards,
Ion
3r-auto-parts.com

 

[frenchparts]

like the idea! i spechalise in french parts!

and it is a very difficult market! with a hell of a lot of red tape and more to come!

lots of people breaking cars up under the radar with no licences etc and not a 1/3 the overheads a genuine breaker needs/has! they can sell parts at a fraction of the cost!

i know a lot of big yards shut down over the last few years, i was speaking to a bloke only a few weeks back who was asking did i want some stock because he was thinking of closeing up! this was 3pm and since he opend at 9 he had taken just over 30 quid! and has 3 staff (did have)

Sent from my GT-I9300 using UK Business Forums

 

[ionpetcu]

As I already mention in the title, I.m very interested in the operational time of the publishing one car part on Ebay. On 3r-auto-parts.com we can publish about 400 in less than 5 minutes.
Have a good day,
Ion
3r-auto-parts.com

 

[danielHW]

Hello,

For car parts online shop is really good to have TecDoc catalog implemented (over 4 mil parts and user can be sure that the part is right for his car). The downside is that it can not be hosted on shared hosting as the database is too large but all major car parts websites use this database.
You can see a demo at happyweb[.]ro/english.

 

[ionpetcu]

As far as I know TecDoc offers an API to get the car parts info.
Is there any api doc?
Ion
3r-auto-parts[.]com

 

[danielHW]

They offer a webservice based on payed subscription but for most East-Europe clients they don't answer the applicants. A grey solution is to use the data and buy the webservice only if you get reported.

 

[ionpetcu]

Hello Daniel,
Have you already used this TecDoc webservice? How fat is it? Is this a good solution in terms of scalability?
Thank you,
Ion
3r-auto-parts[.]com

 

[ionpetcu]

3R Auto Parts is offering you free VRM look-up service for cars registered in UK and Northern Ireland
3r-auto-parts[.]com[/]vrm-lookup