Want to cut right to the case? The best ecommerce platform for auto parts is Nexcess StoreBuilder.
In the past year, e-commerce has bloomed like no other. Online shopping is now more preferred by most than in-person shopping. Ecommerce platforms like Shopify and square space or setting small business owners with the greatest opportunity to profit during a global shift in technology use. Online shopping is easy and convenient, and often less expensive than in-store prices. Dealership shoppers and car enthusiasts are no exception to this boom in e-commerce! Selling auto parts online is easier now than ever with the help of tutorials on Facebook and Google Ad Marketing, making it easy to find your e-commerce platform. Are you considering setting up a sales channel for auto parts? If so, this is a very great profitable opportunity. And with the incline and online sales, now is the perfect time to gain a competitive advantage for the upcoming years.
Small Dealerships and auto part companies are starting to turn to e-commerce because of the increase in thousands of customers at their fingertips amid a global pandemic. At these rates, who wouldn’t want to start an e-commerce site!
In 2019, brick-and-mortar retailers researched and discovered that more than $148 billion and auto parts sales were influenced by online searches and shopping. Since then, it has increased tremendously due to in-home orders with the global pandemic starting during the first quarter of 2020. In 2020 auto parts sales have exceeded $14 billion. In 2021 it’s expected to only grow.
Are you interested in beginning your sales journey online? What platform is the best e-commerce sales channel? Where do I begin? Let’s take a look at some of these questions and dive deep into the reality of the best e-commerce platforms for auto parts.
How does auto parts E-commerce work?
Like a traditional supply and demand chain, the customer orders the specific auto part, and you gather parts that have been ordered to ship them directly to the customer. Sounds simple right?
Here are some benefits of what I’ll talk to your e-commerce platform can do for you as a business owner:
- A great e-commerce platform can design your website
- Handle online payment gateways insecurities
- Generate shipping costs instantaneously
- Create promo codes for customers if applicable
- Adjust shipping and prices as needed
- Direct marketing on Google ads direct channel to Facebook shop for customers
- And much more!
Manufacturers are partnering with aspiring small business owners of all kinds, including auto parts and dealerships, to create a dropshipping method and cutting you out as the middle man responsible for shipping supplies and more. With just a few clicks of a button on a dropshipping site, you can directly send the auto part from the manufacturer to the customer. However, this is completely optional for e-commerce entrepreneurs. You can also take the traditional route and have them in stock and on hand as customers purchase. This creates reliability and positive customer reviews as there are no complications with manufacturing or overseas shipping.
What is the top e-commerce platform best suited for auto parts sales?
Selling auto parts meets a specific demand for its customers, unlike generic retail. A top-tier e-commerce platform is needed to provide those specific needs for an automotive-focused e-commerce sales channel. A great thing about talking to your e-commerce platforms is it provides you with the option of buying the domain to your website at a monthly cost. You are making the website and branding completely yours.
Depending on your level of expertise in the auto part industry, the best-suited e-commerce platform varies. Let’s take a look at my top e-commerce platform recommendations for auto parts sales and what level of expertise is needed to have success on these platforms.
Not listed in numerical order, here are my top recommendations:
1. Nexcess StoreBuilder
Nexcess StoreBuilder has all the functionality you want to sell your goods online, add items to shopping carts, and complete transactions with accurate shipping and tax calculations.
The Nexcess StoreBuilder offers a variety of designs. These options all come with web hosting. Nexcess offers monthly web hosting packages starting at $19 ($15.83 when billed yearly) and going all the way up to $999 ($832 when billed annually). The StoreBuilder product may be used without a separate hosting plan, but if you currently have one of these hosting plans, you can utilize StoreBuilder for nothing.
Pros
- Good customer support
- Easy to use
- Multiple options available
- Secure and Navigable
- Useful Data Reporting
- Payment Processing
cons
- Little bit Expensive for Beginners
- Demo Not Available Before Account Creation
- No Email Account
2. Shopify
Shopify is the best e-commerce sales level! It offers direct sales channels to Facebook and Instagram as well as Google marketing. Shopify is an excellent solution for establishing e-commerce businesses as well as those starting from scratch. Shopify is my number one recommended e-commerce platform because of the multifunction and customization available for your site. It is detailed in inventory tracking and compatible with all popular payment gateways.
- Pros:
- Multiple default theme options.
- Domain authority is available.
- Blog post options, including SEO searchability.
- Shopify app plug-ins are their strongest asset as they have over 1200 different apps available to assist you with inventory, shipping accounting, and other features.
- Local delivery option available for locals and storefront store for businesses.
- Dedicated support team available 24 hours, seven days a week.
- Generate discounts.
- Use accelerated mobile pages to increase the speed of content delivery to mobile shoppers.
- Sell your products on social media platforms like Pinterest automatically.
- Cons
- Not able to connect to WordPress or other platforms as Shopify is a self-host blog platform.
- There are only ten free templates for website design with limited customization.
- Using the accelerated mobile pages feature is only possible if you install a paid app.
- Exporting blog posts to other blogging platforms is a bit of a hassle.
- Multiple discounts for customers are not available at one time but can be used separately.
- Not the most cost-efficient shipping options.
- There is a small lead time of around two days before dashboard data registers.
- Advanced Shopify is available at a much higher monthly price.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace is a great e-commerce option for high-quality templates and pre-existing store friends looking to move online. The e-commerce platform allows tracking of in-store and online sales on the same sales channel. If you are not a pre-existing storefront business, I do not recommend square space as Shopify and BigCommerce offer more options for web design and more.
- Pros:
- Excellent in-store and e-commerce inventory system collaboration and analytical tools.
- High-quality site features.
- The basic plan starts at $30 monthly or $26/month paid annually.
- Advanced plan is available for calculated shipping, gift cards, automatic discounts, and more.
- Cons:
- No App Store is available; if a feature isn’t already included, it cannot be implemented.
- Website creation and navigating takes time to get comfortable with.
- Not best for non-tech savvy people.
- The payment plan option is not the best for non-included site features.
- Basic shipping costs, email marketing, discounts are not available in the basic payment plan.
4. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is best for large and fast-growing businesses. I would suggest that BigCommerce isn’t ideal for startups. Just like any e-commerce platform, you were given the option to design your website through default themes or paid specialty theme offers. BigCommerce is extremely scalable for online businesses. It has a variety of built-in sales tools to compete with your online competitors. See you in multiple channel integration is available as well.
- Pros:
- Complete control over your customer database. Allowing you access to the customers account to edit for them
- Create ads or coupons based on groups.
- You have full control over product details such as description price image and SEO options available for marketing.
- All payment gateways are available, including Apple Pay, Amazon, PayPal, and more!
- Big-commerce is an easy platform to use.
- It is a great affordable option.
- Cons:
- Big-commerce is far behind other shopping carts when it comes to SEO optimization.
- Not the best for shipping outside of the US Payment gateways in the US is beneficial, but for the rest of the world, it blocks good payment gateways.
- Default theme options are limited and not as creative as other platforms like Shopify.
- The website is not fully customizable.
- Must manually enter the right tax code for each product on your catalog.
- It can be a bit clunky to design the site and app features.
- Advanced pricing not available on variant levels.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the best e-commerce platform for Auto Parts startups?
Shopify is my number one recommended e-commerce platform for auto parts! Any scale of a business can be successful on Shopify, and as their business grows, use plug-ins to assist their growth means. It’s relatively simple to navigate and has a great starting default theme for web design. I highly recommend Shopify, especially from my personal experience using Shopify for my small business. The basic plan starts at a great price and allows businesses to evolve.
Which e-commerce platform is great for existing dealerships and storefronts?
Square space is great for in-person and online sales channels. Although it may not have the app plug-ins like Shopify and Bigcommerce, you as the supplier can easily track inventory. The collaboration of in-person sales and online or cohesive. I highly recommend square space only for existing storefronts and in-person sales looking to move online.
What e-commerce platform is best for my auto part business that is fast growing in volume and customer base?
Bigcommerce is a great and simple e-commerce platform for stores with high volume inventory. It’s not ideal for startups as the site can be technologically advanced. The default themes are basic, but better ones are available for a small fee. SEO optimization is limited on Bigcommerce. I recommend big commerce to businesses that have a separate marketing branch of their business already in use.
How secure and reliable are these e-commerce platforms?
To build a reliable customer base, you need to have a trustworthy payment gateway. Customers need to trust you with their payment information before they purchase your product. Before signing with an e-commerce service provider, make sure to look over their security guidelines. Take a look at how secure their system is and if they have a history of security breaches. Because of the popularity of the three e-commerce platforms I have recommended, security breaches have been few to none.
I recommend looking for the tokenized payment system in an e-commerce platform when purchasing. The tokenized payment system removes the actual credit card number and replaces it with a general number to secure payment information from being stolen. The customer’s credit card information is not stored in the system. Only the generated number is.
I have made sure to recommend only e-commerce platforms that integrate well with major payment gateways such as PayPal, Apple Pay, etc.
Consider the following when it comes to payment fraud and security protection. What is the history of this e-commerce platform? Is the customer’s payment information stored in the system? Are there security guidelines around payment information? Does the e-commerce platform support popular payment gateways?
After finding out the answer to all of the above, use the answers in a customer frequently asked questions page to reassure the reliability of your website. This is sure to gain trust and promote a strong customer base.
In Conclusion
Setting up a successful auto parts e-commerce solution takes unwavering commitment, but you won’t have regrets if you stick with it. Once you’ve decided on one of the three software that suits your needs as a business owner and for your customers, it won’t take long to get your site up and to run. Make sure that if you need a state seller’s license, have that on hand when it comes to quarterly state income tax time!
Working with the right e-commerce platform that fits your needs, with the help of great marketing tactics, it’s not difficult to maximize your sales. However, picking the wrong e-commerce solution could leave you in a costly deficit and leave your business damaged in the long run.
Auto parts e-commerce is a great opportunity for dealerships in any aspiring entrepreneur. It’s an opportunity to grow sales and make great revenue to support your dream lifestyle. No, like any business, it does take consistency and hard work. Auto parts e-commerce is a bit more advanced than a typical retail e-commerce store as it requires the supplier to meet the specific demands of their customers and sell the best quality products. Whether you’re looking to move your storefront dealership online or simply sell what you have, or use a drop shipping method, e-commerce is for you!