Establishing a web-based sales portal can either be outsourced or done in-house. Our source from Vivid Racing opted for the latter, citing “amazing tools on the market that make setting up an online store very easy.”

While e-commerce can be a highly profitable sales stream, key factors must be considered before expanding into motorsports’ virtual marketplace.

“Now is a great time to enter the booming world of aftermarket vehicle parts,” said Dan Mermelstein of Vivid Racing, Gilbert, Arizona, when asked how to advise a race-oriented business that’s considering going into online retail. “The amount of data, technology, and distribution is at a great place compared to 15 years ago.”

That said, he and other experienced online sellers we spoke with believe there are some essential best practices to put in place when entering—or expanding your presence in—the virtual marketplace.

Outsource or In-House?

Mermelstein said initially setting up the sales portal is best done in-house. “If a company hires someone, they won’t know the important stuff in the weeds and will already be behind the profit curve,” he explained. “Better to invest their time to learn and understand the systems, which will help in their long-term growth.”

He pointed at “amazing tools on the market that make setting up an online store very easy. Someone who can download a template, write some good content, and work with Excel data is 10 steps ahead of many others. Platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce are out there. Great CRM [customer relationship management] tools that offer desk ticket support, live chat, and even accounting, such as Zoho.com, are a great all-in-one solution.”

Not every business has that kind of in-house resource. Joe Francis of Day Motor Sports in Tyler, Texas, was faced with rebuilding his company’s website when the business changed hands about 10 years ago. He admitted he “had no knowledge of websites, and we didn’t have the manpower or anyone who could do that for us at that time.”

What followed was three to four years of struggling with out-of-state web developers who over-promised and under-delivered. Compounding the problem was the fact that during the handoff from one web team to the next, “they turned off our website, and we lost everything,” Francis said, “Google rankings, everything. When we finally turned the new website on, we were at the bottom of everything. We had to hire companies to get our rankings up. It’s very important to be at the top of that [web search] page.”

Ultimately, Francis hired a web developer that was not only local, making collaboration easier, but also one with deep experience in online commerce. Now, Day Motor Sports has an employee whose full-time job is keeping the website—and Google rankings—up to date.

“Look for someone who’s built a site comparable to what you want to do,” Francis advised. “See what they’ve done, check out other websites they’ve built, and talk to the companies they built websites for to make sure they’re happy with their service.”

Inventory vs. Drop-ship

Supply-chain troubles have made it difficult to get parts of all kinds. “Anything steel is really hard to get,” Francis said, noting particular shortages of engine and suspension parts, and even wheels. “In different times a company could have something drop-shipped. Now it’s so hard to get parts, they better have them in their own shop.”

Mermelstein was more optimistic, acknowledging that while “2020–2021 was hit hard with supply chain issues, most see this getting corrected in 2022. With that being said, the more a company can drop-ship and hold less inventory, the freer it may feel to work on marketing and customer service. If that company is platform-focused, such as only on Ford Mustangs, it may want to stock hot movers. But if it is trying to sell everything, it should have good inventory reports from vendors, so it knows how to service customers on ETAs.”

Do’s and Don’ts

When asked if there was one thing a business should not do when selling online, Francis returned to the parts availability issue. “Don’t put something on the website that isn’t in inventory or can’t be kept in inventory. That seems to be the number-one complaint we get: ‘I ordered it, and you don’t have it.’”

“When selling online, do not break MAP [minimum advertised price] policies,” added Mermelstein. “Nearly all vendors have this set up and policed. Consumer confidence goes across the industry, so if one company acts like a fly-by-night, customers will feel many others are like that, too.”

When asked what a company should do, Mermelstein said, “Buy from the Vividracing.com wholesale team, of course!” But he also advised, at the start of the process, carefully considering “what kind of shop will it be? Will it sell everything or be platform-focused? This is an important decision in picking the company name and domain. The last thing a company wants to do is choose something like BigBlockPerformance.com and then later go into selling UTV parts.”

“The website has to be phone-friendly,” Francis said. “Young kids don’t want to talk to anybody. They just want to place an order on the computer or the phone and be done with it.” Even people who come into Day Motor Sports’ retail store “will sit at our counter and look at our website—or other people’s websites—on their phone and say, ‘This is what I gotta have.’”

Francis’ last piece of advice is one that transcends the online space. “We pride ourselves in taking care of our customers and standing behind our products. Even though they’re ordering online, we still
have to do customer service, making sure they get their parts and get them in a timely manner.”

SOURCES

Day Motor Sports
daymotorsports.com

Vivid Racing
vividracing.com