ShowMeTheParts has partnered with ChannelAdvisor to enable ChannelAdvisor retailers to feed content for the aftermarket vertical into ChannelAdvisor’s platform to start selling on marketplaces and direct channels. Now, automotive clients can participate in this segment and have unique content to differentiate from other listings that all look and appear the same.
Retailers can also leverage ChannelAdvisor’s Fulfillment Service offering, which will automate the fulfillment process with distribution partners. Once a product is listed and an order taken, the order files are automatically sent to the fulfillment partner to be shipped every 15 minutes! This eliminates the need to buy and carry physical inventory and retailers know their orders are being fulfilled expertly and shipped as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Vertical Development earned Mighty Distributing’s “Excellence in Service and Support Award” for helping them provide better parts information to their franchisees and customers. This award represents efforts made through a partnership spanning over 15 years as Vertical Development has helped Mighty deliver unparalleled support for their franchisees and customers. ShowMeTheParts provides Mighty with multiple solutions to deliver detailed parts information to their customers.
When Mighty Distributing System of America needed help, they turned to Vertical Development to manage their catalog system. As Mighty has developed their business, Vertical Development has been with them each step of the way, helping them transition to the digital age and build their support network. To recognize this exemplary service, Mighty gave Vertical Development their 2016-2017 Excellence in Service Award.
Vertical Development has released a critical update to their ShowMeTheParts app, giving mobile users faster access to the largest public parts database on the market.
The newly updated ShowMeTheParts app provides full access to the largest public parts database on the market on the go. Users can find parts and check photos, specifications and other information while working on their vehicles.
ShowMeTheParts is the largest public parts database on the market covering 1.7 million parts from over 300 aftermarket parts manufacturers. This includes over 4.5 million applications including passenger cars, motorcycles and both heavy duty and agricultural equipment. Along with interchange information and specifications, users can view product information sheets, photos and even 360-degree views of parts. This information is constantly updated, ensuring the most accurate information available.
“Users will see faster look-up speeds and smoother navigation to the freshest data in the aftermarket,” says Jay Wright, President of Vertical Development, Inc.
The app provides access to all the information in the ShowMeTheParts catalog through a user interface tailored to work with small touch screens. Vertical Development’s update brings improvements in both the design of the app and the servers supplying it with data making accessing parts information easier than ever before. Vertical Development is able to create branded mobile apps and HTML5 versions with responsive, mobile friendly design for any company. Over three dozen companies have chosen ShowMeTheParts as the base for their own apps, including Valvoline (iOS/Android,) Champ Quality Filters (iOS/Android,) KYB Shocks (iOS/Android,) and MPA’s Street Smart eCatalog (iOS/Android.)
The app not only makes access more convenient, it means users can check information when they are at their car, making direct comparisons between photos and specifications with the parts they need to replace. The app can even search local businesses to find a supplier for the part they need, putting the power of ShowMeTheParts’s catalog in their pockets.
To get the full benefit of these updates, current users will need to uninstall the app and download the new version. The iOS version is available from the App Store, while Android users can get it from the Google Play Store. For users whose phones don’t have a supported OS, there’s an HTML5 version of the app that can be accessed using any modern browser.
The Daily Herald Business Ledger — in its article “Naperville firm finds the right piece for auto parts market” by Richard Klicki — features the history and offerings of Vertical Development and ShowMeTheParts. The article provides a clear snapshot of how a software company started in 1983 by the Vertical Development Inc. president, Jay Wright, ultimately evolved into a present-day aftermarket parts success story.
Driven by opportunity, ever-changing market and customer demands, and innovation through adaptation, Vertical Development launched ShowMeTheParts years ago and is developing a set of product microsites with future e-commerce, the article explains:
“Wright said the database is also the platform for future growth, as the company plans to develop microsites for specific parts, such as brakes, filters or exhaust parts.
The microsites will also allow a client to order a part from online sites, such as Amazon.com, for a timely delivery.
ShowMeTheParts and Web 2 Market aftermarket parts E-commerce/e-catalog platform has upgraded to Magento 2, bringing faster page rendering and easier inventory management to online parts sales. After years of success with Web 2 Market’s implementation of the Magento 1 e-commerce platform, Vertical Development has integrated the ShowMeTheParts database with Magento 2. This update adds a 100% responsive design that looks great on both desktops and mobile devices. It includes automatic part updates, advanced back-end tools, and faster page rendering, making it easier to use for both retailers and customers.
With the ShowMeTheParts integration clients no longer have to perform the time-consuming tasks of application management of parts. Updated application data is automatically pushed to your e-commerce or e-catalog site and displayed to your customer in an SEO and desktop/mobile friendly way, allowing you to focus on more profitable tasks. Combined with Magento 2 the ShowMeTheParts integration gives you a feature-rich admin, B2B, and B2C selling tools, Content Management System, SEO friendly, professional looking e-commerce or e-catalog. With the recent upgrade to Magento 2, Vertical Development and Web 2 Market are able to deliver a better online shopping experience for your customers and easier management for you.
Establishing your business as a top-tier automotive parts supplier is a tall order, especially when a company is just starting out. Water pump startup NovaPacific had everything in place to make sure it developed high-quality auto parts.
To help customers find the correct part for their application and provide ACES files to support customers and eCat providers, NovaPacific turned to Vertical Development. With the ShowMeTheParts database system, NovaPacific could get accurate information to customers while still being able to add to its growing portfolio of parts.
Read the full article from Vertical Development’s President, Jay Wright on SearchAutoParts.com Aftermarket Business World and see how Vertical Development and ShowMeTheParts helped NovaPacific get its parts information out to thousands of buyers.
ShowMeTheParts may get the most attention due to its position as the largest public parts database in the world, but that doesn’t mean we’ve left our other products behind. Our entire system from paper to e-catalog publishing is constantly being updated and expanded to meet the needs of our customers. We’ve decided to run this new blog series to show you some of the new features we’ve been working on.
Classic Vertical Development Feature
If you’ve worked around parts catalogs, you’re familiar with the Vehicle Configuration Database (VCdb.) This relational database is used in ACES to handle vehicle information including the year, make, model, trim and other attributes to correctly identify applications. Since the beginning, our catalog system has been set up to allow our clients to add their own entries, letting them expand the scope of VCdb well past standard vehicles.
We may be famous today for our massive ShowMeTheParts database, but Vertical Development has been a leader in aftermarket parts catalog publishing for over 30 years, developing mapping and publishing software to fit the needs of a wide range of clients. In this series, we want to highlight some new features we’re bringing to our catalog system. This time, we’re taking a look at alternative part numbers.
There are a lot of variations of parts out there. For brake pads, a company might offer standard, heavy duty and high performance pads. A suspension company may offer rubber and polyurethane versions of a bushing, standard and heavy duty springs, and a variety of shock and strut options built to fit different ride characteristics. Shopped for an oil filter lately? Those come in different ranges, too, offering different levels of filtration to fit a variety of oil change intervals. This range of options means each application may have several compatible variants.
We are excited to announce our 30th year in operations. Based in the greater Chicago area, Vertical Development got its start as a small programming firm, but we soon shifted gears to digital catalog development when contracting with Champion Laboratories in neighboring Albion, Illinois. Today, we are an award-winning technology development firm providing digital catalog software and services to more than 300 aftermarket brands.
Since 1987, Vertical Development has worked with aftermarket companies to first understand their business needs and then, develop solutions to better streamline processes, increase efficiencies, and ensure industry compliance. Each year, we take those learnings and create a development roadmap for future product upgrades and industry innovations. Last year, we announced significant upgrades to our catalog software and systems including near real-time inventory management and stock status updates, a direct result of feedback and feature requests from clients.
Over the last seven years we have been standardizing our vCat application, allowing us to add features and roll them out to our clients quickly. We have grown from a software provider to full service catalog services organization and will continue to operate on the cutting edge of technology to bring state-of-the-art aftermarket catalogs to our clients.
Vertical Development’s ShowMeTheParts database can show your customers which parts will fit their vehicle, what those parts look like and what their design characteristics are. That just leaves one thing they can’t find: inventory. With the near real time inventory system, your customers can see how many of an item you have in stock alongside all the other information that helps them find what they need for their vehicle. We recently added this feature to AP Exhaust’s catalog to take some of the work out creating a parts order.
This system is automated, so when a part is ordered, it’s subtracted from the inventory automatically. These inventory changes are pushed to the website every hour, which is far faster than the days it can take to get information into a system by manually filing and checking orders against the inventory. Automating this process also eliminates errors made when transferring stock information to the system, so the inventory is always accurate.
For buyers ordering from a distributor or wholesaler, that means they don’t have to call ahead to make sure the parts they want are still available. AP Exhaust added real time reporting to their site at the request of their customers. Their distributors already use SMTP to find the parts they want to order, so it seemed logical to display the inventory alongside the parts information. This doesn’t just shorten the time it takes to make an order, it makes it easy for these customers to choose alternative products if the part they want isn’t currently available.
