Autoexperten is a nationwide auto accessories and spare parts chain with around 70 stores and 410 affiliated workshops. The company also sells vehicle equipment to workshops and auto repair services.
In January 2015, Autoexperten launched its online car parts store. With over 300,000 spare parts and accessories, Autoexperten wanted to reach a larger target group and persuade more customers to buy from them. The ecommerce solution would complement and reinforce in-store sales and take advantage of the existing store network in order to compete with pure ecommerce vendors.
Autoexperten’s ambition was to get away from the typical industry approach and create a website that is user-friendly, even for those of us who are less knowledgeable about cars.
The Storm Commerce platform addresses all the challenges faced by Autoexperten, including integrations with multiple internal and external systems, as well as management of a very large and complex range of products that is subject to stringent advanced compatibility requirements. Other challenges include the complexity of monitoring different warehouses that have to interact with each other, tracking the stocks held by the affiliated stores in order to provide accurate stock balances in real time and the implementation of the necessary reservation logic, including availability countdowns.