The TecAlliance standards open up new paths in e-commerce
The D2C start-up asellerate relies on the TecAlliance industry standards TecDoc and TecCom for its newly developed e-commerce engine that helps parts manufacturers get started in digital sales and exploit the full potential of e-commerce.
asellerate grew out of the experience that co-founder and managing director Artur Oswald gained with Retromotion, his established online shop for classic car spare parts. "In the field of spare parts for classic cars, the demand from end consumer side is pretty high. However, the availability of spare parts is not always given. So we came up with the idea of consolidating the availability of stocks in the suppliers' warehouses and offering them through an online channel like our online shop. This idea was very well received, both by end users and by parts manufacturers and suppliers," explains Oswald.
"One of our key findings was that the industry is not yet ready for e-commerce business. To do scalable business in this area, it is important to master different disciplines, such as digital product content, digital processes and dynamic pricing. Accordingly, we enhanced our business model," says Oswald. For the development of the data-driven and interface-based eCommerce infrastructure, asellerate relies on TecDoc and TecCom as globally recognised standards in the automotive aftermarket.
Success in e-commerce with established standards
For almost 30 years, the TecDoc Standard has enabled the fast and precise identification of replacement parts and vehicles. It forms the basis for many catalogue systems as well as automated and digitised process solutions along the entire supply chain.
With the TecCom solutions, TecAlliance covers all processes related to order processing in the automotive aftermarket – from availability requests and parts ordering to electronic invoices and returns. The basis for automating these processes is optimum message quality from parts suppliers, with the highest possible standardisation and data consistency. Both standards are important elements of asellerate’s eCom Engine.
"We need to find a way to enable a supplier to make the perfect sale, to make sure that his products are performing well. For that, we need data, and that's where TecAlliance comes in, in the form of common standards," explains Michael Bickel, CTO at asellerate. "We take the data from TecDoc, enrich it and tell our suppliers how to use this data optimally. And we help them with our engine and all the tools and services to build a better product, to make the sale."
Once the products are listed on all channels and ready for sale, the order is transmitted to asellerate and processed through their logistics and fulfilment components. "What we do then depends on what kind of logistics setup we use for a certain product or supplier, which can be multiple options, for example drop shipments. The product is sold through us, but the supplier distributes it to the end consumer, for example. For these cases, TecCom Order Manager comes into play which in such cases is the perfect communication platform for us. We only need to figure out what kind of TecCom setup a supplier is using and how they internally map their data structures and processes. We just dock onto that and transmit the sales," says Bickel.
In an in-depth interview, Oswald, Bickel and Toska Herrmann, Product Owner at asellerate, talk about changes and challenges in the automotive aftermarket and explain how their eCom Engine helps parts manufacturers realise the full potential of digital commerce.
