Marketplace for Inter Cars
Inter Cars
From business case to business model
Marketplace is a platform that offers products and services from various manufacturers in one place. The growing interest in such a solution in the automotive spare parts market has led Inter Cars to take an interest in this business model.
Client
Inter Cars
About Inter Cars
Inter Cars is the largest distributor of replacement parts for passenger cars, vans, and trucks in Central and Eastern Europe and the second-largest on the whole European continent. Inter Cars SA currently manages 251 branches in Poland and 294 units in 16 countries in Europe. The company has been listed publicly on the Warsaw Stock Exchange since May 2014.
Main aims of the project
The project implemented by e-point was to validate the business case of the client in a PoC way – enable the portfolio enrichment by adding third party products over a marketplace business model, in a synergetic way to the current distribution business model.
The need to implement the above solutions in the scope of the company's offer responded to customers' growing expectations. Through the implementation of the project, Inter Cars continued to provide all users with the same functionalities, regardless of the type of devices they use (mobile or desktop).
The purpose of the PoC implementation was to verify whether the assumed scope would meet the users’ expectations. The key was to confirm whether the Partners selling parts could intuitively place them in the system and whether consumers could make transactions.
Key features within the project
The launch of PoC met the client's business expectations. However, in further discussions with business people, an improvement backlog was found, which is being implemented on an ongoing basis.
The preparation of an optimal project implementation plan was crucial for achieving effects. For this purpose, it has been divided into the following stages and tasks:
Strategy
The client considered three solutions:
- Magento,
- dedicated application based on microservices,
- ready-made platform in the SaaS model.
Based on the pre-implementation analysis performed by e-point, own research and external consultancy the client decided to continue the project using Magento software, which offered the best ratio of price, implementation time to the number of functionalities, considering the already existing IT and Business architectural landscape.
During the implementation, the works were carried out in stages:
Technology stack
Marketplace for Inter Cars
Marketplace for Inter Cars
"Inter Cars Marketplace is an effective solution that will allow car repair shops to find several parts, including used ones, which can be used to repair cars of lower value or with less access to replacements. In the long term, this may have a significant impact on extending the service life of the vehicle, and thus have a positive impact on the environment".
Results
The project's main goal has been achieved - Inter Cars has expanded its portfolio of products over a Marketplace business model. The company was enabled to gain experience in this new business model with limiting its investment and risk, thanks to the PoC approached offered by e-point. Partners offering their products over the platform gained access to an extensive group of Inter Cars customers. Thanks to this partners of Inter Cars (mechanics, workshops and other professionals) are now able to offer to their clients (vehicle owner or driver) alternative repair options – used parts, OEM parts and others, depending on the given technical or economic situation.
In effect:
- The number of customers who are offered used parts from the range of IC partners has grown to include Polish and Lithuanian customers who have access to e-Cat.
- The offer was extended to used parts when new parts were not available. Used parts are currently available in two countries in Lithuania and Poland.
- Better visualization and availability of OE parts have been achieved in Bulgarian and Crotatian market.
"Currently, Marketplace products are presented in a dedicated field in the product list of our e-commerce system, and each product category is presented with a dedicated label. We provide appropriate UX and UI interface elements, emphasizing who the Seller is and what the product is. Thanks to our focus on professional customers, it is easier to explain the designation of used parts in the automotive aftermarket, as opposed to how it is done in relationships with B2C consumers".
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