Is your Automotive Aftermarket business growing in double digits?  It’s a hard question to ask yourself, but you're in an industry experiencing explosive growth.  The Automotive eCommerce aftermarket business did $38 Billion in 2021 and is projected to grow to $176 Billion in 2031, with an average Compound Annual Growth Rate of 17.5%. There are different strategies that you can put in place to attract more visitors and increase sales.   Customer experience impacts customers using your site and if your store is clunky to navigate or difficult to find the right product they will abandon your store.  Also key is how responsive is your store.  If it is taking more than 2 seconds for your customers to do a search and have the results appear, the odds increase that they will leave the store and find another with a better experience to offer.

So where to start?  The first thing to do is make your homepage clean and easy to navigate.  There is this temptation to want to put too much information above the fold.  Include some introductory information.  What makes you different?  Highlight the value you can provide. What do you specialize in?  Include a Make, Model Year search feature that is prominent on the page,  Also make sure your search bar is easy to see and includes a Cloud Search feature that allows the customer to type in a couple of letters and get search results.

Have in place a good product strategy.  According to statistical data, interior and exterior automotive products are the segments experiencing the most growth, by a large margin.  It is important to include on the home page popular product segments that the customer may have an interest in buying.  Having a clear product menu with easy-to-recognize product images.  The product bar should include some or all of these product segments as choices:

• Interior
• Exterior
• Lighting
• Electrical
• Performance
• Tires and Wheels
• Tools 
• Audio

Advances in payment processing and being able to provide different payment options are giving forward-looking aftermarket eCommerce businesses the competitive advantage.  One of the most popular new payment methods are digital wallets like ApplePay, GooglePay, PayPal, Zelle, and Venmo.  Giving customers the ability to use digital wallets for full or install payment options are letting merchants give their customers a convenient, secure, and efficient method for virtual payments.

Automation is the holy grail for any automotive aftermarket eCommerce business.  Many of these businesses become burdened by manual and repetitive tasks that suck time and energy away from higher value tasks for the business like sales and marketing.  Creating an automation framework allows you to better run your business and give your customer a better overall experience.  From updated product catalogs, dynamic pricing changes, and up-to-date inventory data, automation lets you run a more efficient eCommerce business, giving your customers the confidence to buy and making your business more successful.