FEATURE

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By now, more and more dealerships are catching on to the fact that online auto Parts shopping is more popular than ever. With so many DIY customers and auto repair shops looking online for the best price, successful Parts websites are seeing millions in auto Part sales each year.

But standalone Parts websites aren’t the only place to sell online. Marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon are power-houses in the world of online shopping and customers know that. Drawn in by competitive pricing and a wide variety of options, marketplaces see millions of unique visitors on a weekly basis.

Selling on eBay or Amazon opens up a new channel for sales and sales are the name of the game. It’s the perfect ex-cuse for Parts Departments to sell Parts and Accessories there, too, in addition to a standalone Parts website.

Some dealerships are hesitant to give marketplaces a try because of the things they’ve heard, but it’s not all true. Plenty of eBay and Amazon myths are floating around that keep dealerships from testing the waters. Let’s clear the air about what you can and can’t believe about selling on an online marketplace.

Fiction: eBay and Amazon are too competitive to make a profit.

Although it’s true that online mar-ketplaces are more competitive than standalone Parts websites, it’s not im-possible to make a profit. Plenty of dealerships and aftermarket solutions have been selling auto Parts on eBay and Amazon for years and have turned it into a valuable new revenue channel.

When selling on eBay or Amazon, deal-ers need to realize that it’s a volume game. Even though the margins on each item are lower, if you can sell more items overall, you’ll come out ahead.

Of course, this means you need an ef-fective system when it comes to pric-ing your inventory. If your item price or shipping price is too low, you’ll lose money on the sale. If the pricing is too high, you won’t make any sales. Either way, being too far off the mark will keep your store from becoming profitable.

Dealerships that nail down the best pric-ing come out ahead and can make any-where between $10,000 and $60,000 in sales each month.

FACT VS. FICTION

BE SUCCESSFUL WITH PARTS SALES IN ONLINE MARKETPLACES

B Y E M I L I E V E C E R A

SELLING ON EBAY OR

AMAZON OPENS UP A NEW

CHANNEL FOR SALES AND

SALES IS THE NAME OF THE

GAME. IT’S THE PERFECT

EXCUSE FOR PARTS

DEPARTMENTS TO SELL

PARTS AND ACCESSORIES

THERE, TOO, IN ADDITION

TO A STAND-ALONE PARTS

WEBSITE.

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Fact: With marketplaces, I need to be well-informed about fees.

Even though selling through market-places is a great opportunity, it does come with one major downside — fees. From listing fees to final value fees, these little costs can cut into your prof-its if you’re not careful.

When setting prices on Amazon or eBay, it’s absolutely essential to factor in the fees you will be charged. It will raise your overall listing price, but it’s better to not make a sale than to make a sale and lose money on it.

The best practice rule of thumb is to set your marketplace prices as low as pos-sible without losing money. Remember that selling through marketplace chan-nels is about selling more Parts overall, even if you make less money on indi-vidual orders.

Although both marketplaces will charge fees, eBay’s fees tend to be lower than Amazon. Regardless of which market-

place you choose, educate yourself on which fees you have to deal with and how much they’ll affect your sales.

Fiction: If it’s a volume game, I need to have a lot of listings. Except I don’t have time to create and manage that many listings.

The more listings you have, the more you’ll sell — that much is true. And if you’re managing your seller accounts manually, then the process can become time-consuming. To solve this problem, you have two options: optimize the list-ings you have, or work with an eBay or Amazon solution.

Even if you can only manage 100 list-ings, make sure you’re only selling fast-moving parts. Items such as windshield wiper blades, filters, brake pads and ac-cessories tend to sell the best. Another trick is to take product photos for each listing, which can double conversion rates. Many dealerships don’t bother to take photos, so this is an opportunity to make your listings stand out.

Other than an individual account, you can also sign up with an eBay or Ama-zon solution. There are ecommerce so-lutions that can create listings for your entire inventory in minutes. They also provide other features that make the selling process faster and easier, such as order management, pricing and ship-ping calculators, waived fees and more.

WHEN SELLING ON EBAY OR

AMAZON, DEALERS NEED

TO REALIZE THAT IT’S

A VOLUME GAME. EVEN

THOUGH THE MARGINS ON

EACH ITEM ARE LOWER,

IF YOU CAN SELL MORE ITEMS

OVERALL, YOU’LL COME

OUT AHEAD.

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Emilie Vecera is a Content Marketer for Phoenix, Ariz.-based Revolu-tionParts, an auto Parts ecommerce provider that makes it easy for deal-ers to sell Parts online and deliver a great shopping experience for their customers. The RevolutionParts plat-form powers over $150 million in on-line sales each year for hundreds of dealerships across the United States.

Fiction: I have to offer free shipping if I’m selling on an online marketplace.

Free shipping will certainly draw the at-tention of more customers, but it’s not a requirement. If your pricing strategy is right on the mark, you’ll make sales regardless.

On eBay, items listed as “free shipping” will automatically be listed higher in search results than those without it. Even if a Parts price plus shipping is less expensive overall, the “free shipping” listings take priority.

It goes without saying, then, that a free shipping strategy will generate more traffic to your listings. However, there still are online shoppers who will do the math and realize that even with a ship-ping cost, your item is less expensive overall.

A strong plan of action is to test out different shipping strategies. Try offer-ing free shipping or flat-rate shipping to your customers to see if either boosts your sales.

Fiction: If I offer free shipping, I have to eat the cost for it.

Shipping auto Parts is expensive and you wouldn’t make any profit if your dealership covered all shipping costs every time. Dealerships are finding that the best way to handle this is to build shipping prices into the price of the item.

As long as you have a way to calculate shipping estimates, you can set accu-rate pricing for your merchandise that keeps you from losing money on the sale. Actually, finding an efficient way to calculate those shipping estimates is the only difficulty. Some dealers do the calculations by hand, while others work with an eBay or Amazon solution that can take care of it for them.

Fact: Selling on a marketplace can be safer for both buyer and seller.

Selling of any kind comes with risk, but at least with an online marketplace, there’s a buffer between buyer and seller. Amazon and eBay want a posi-tive experience for everyone, so they’re willing to step in and mediate problems that arise on their websites.

The Seller Protection Program offered by eBay prevents buyers from transac-

tion defects that were not your fault, unfair customer reviews, unpaid items and more. Similarly, Amazon’s A-to-Z Guarantee protects sellers from cus-tomers filing unreasonable claims, among other things. If your Parts De-partment signs up for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you’re protected even further when something goes wrong that wasn’t your fault.

At the end of the day, it’s completely possible for your Parts Department to make a profit on online marketplaces. There are plenty of tricks to learn and strategies to test when it comes to maximizing that profit, but the oppor-tunity is there for dealerships that take the chance.