How to sell auto parts effectively on online marketplaces

Auto parts retailers have more selling platforms today than ever before. Most turn to Amazon and eBay Motors, but there's also Sears.com, Newegg and smaller retailer-operated marketplaces. Still, selling on marketplaces is not that easy.

Setting up an online presence takes time, effort and capital, especially when competing with many retailers. It takes hard work to get your products visible and attract buyers.

Sellers need to consider a number of factors, such as hosting fees, operational requirements, buying behaviors and marketplace policies. Not all channels will be ideal for your business. If you want to be successful and competitive in online aftermarket retail, you have to be strategic in your approach. Leaving your business on cruise control will wreck your margins.

The secret to succeeding on Amazon

When looking for a product, more than 55 percent of shoppers use Amazon as their reference point over Google. Amazon.com has millions of visitors each day and is a good place to start when selling parts and accessories online. According to an Internet Retailer study, 65 percent of Amazon shoppers felt comfortable buying from merchants they never heard of before.

It’s important to note, however, that Amazon has very high standards in terms of accuracy and customer service. Amazon tends to favor retailers who use fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Amazon is all about delivering fast, accurate orders, so there’s a preference for sellers who can deliver within one to three days. As such, drop shipping is not ideal.

Winning the Amazon buy box mainly involves competitive pricing, fast fulfillment and other factors related to customer service and performance. If you don't meet these requirements, selling on Amazon may not be the best marketplace for you. You may just end up accruing listing fees and barely making any sales.

Amazon is great for retailers who have their own warehouses and excel at fulfillment and customer service. But just because you meet their fulfillment standards also doesn’t guarantee sales. To get traffic and conversions, you need to optimize your listings by applying popular search terms in your product description and bullet points.

Content is king, even on marketplaces. In fact, 90 percent of shopping cart abandonment happens because shoppers feel they don’t have enough product information. So be as detailed as you can and use high quality images and videos. Respond to questions about your product. Once you start doing this, you’ll get more traffic and more sales.

The secret to eBay Motors success

Most of our customers find great success on eBay, particularly because eBay Motors has better support for auto parts retailers. eBay’s fee structure is also more reasonable than Amazon’s. But like Amazon, you have to provide clear, detailed listings with rich product content if you want to rank better in eBay’s search results.

With their focus on structured data and personalization through machine learning, eBay is looking to match products to the right shoppers at the right time. As such, you’ll need to use fitment and parts compatibility data to properly optimize your listings.

Buyers on eBay are all about finding the best deals, and they’ll generally buy the cheapest product regardless of shipping and handling charges. This is why many retailers discount their pricing but inflate shipping and handling. So if you’re trying to be competitive on price, know that eBay pricing can be tricky. Using an eBay repricing tool helps make this more manageable.

Selling your extra inventory on eBay is easy, but if your goal is to become a powerseller or top rated seller, you’ll need to amp up your sales volume and maintain a 98 percent positive feedback score. Feedback is quite significant on eBay, so don’t be shy asking your customers to rate your products. If you don’t have enough good ratings, you’ll have difficulty getting more sales.

In the same token, you need to beware of buyers with bad feedback. Since eBay favors the buyer, auto parts sellers have reported giving full refunds to broken parts or replacing an item that the buyer originally hadn’t ordered. If possible, don’t deal with buyers with bad ratings.

The secret to multi-channel selling

Today’s auto parts retailers know that it’s no longer enough to sell on just one place. In fact, there is no “one” best place to sell. Technological innovations will constantly disrupt the industry, buyer preferences will no doubt drive change. The key is to go where the buyers are, and that involves multi-channel selling and maximizing your digital footprint.

Each marketplace brings certain customers with specific expectations, and it takes a lot of work to compete for the buyer’s attention. The more marketplaces you sell on, the more you risk getting orders, product information and inventory counts wrong. The last thing you want is to upset customers and receive negative reviews.

There are several tools available that make multi-channel selling more manageable. If you want to take your business to new heights, consider investing in a listing and repricing automation software tied to an inventory management and accounting system. This would save you time and money – developing accurate fitment data and optimized listings, as well as centralizing orders, inventory and financials.

There are a lot of important details to cover when selling online. Buyers of auto parts are too passionate about their cars to trust just any seller. They look to marketplaces for testimonials and product reviews. If you want to be a successful auto parts retailer, you need to experiment, gather data, and see how you can improve sales on each marketplace.

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