We developed Latam Parts eCommerce
Client:
Services offered:
eCommerce B2C
UX Research
UX/UI Design
UX Writing
About the project
Latam Parts is a vehicle parts distributor. We developed their eCommerce to sell directly to the end-user. By integrating the business into the digital market, we were able to elevate their buying experience and of course, increase their sales potential.
Latam Parts was looking to open its own eCommerce
Latam Parts is an auto parts distributor that only had a presence on Mercado Libre.
Having only one sales channel, they faced several challenges. Their sales potential was limited, they had to pay high commissions to the marketplace, and they had to compete against other companies selling the same products as them.
For these reasons, they decided to open their own eCommerce with the goal of no longer depending solely on the marketplace and positioning themselves in the auto parts market.
BigCommerce was selected as eCommerce Platform
Latam Parts was looking for an open commerce platform that would allow them to continuously improve their online store and include out-of-the-box functionalities that would not involve building everything from scratch. For these reasons, they selected BigCommerce as their platform.
BigCommerce is an Open SaaS software with advanced features included such as B2B Commerce (online sales to businesses), Multi-Storefront (management of multiple online stores and brands), integration with multiple payment processors, and the ability to have up to 600 variants of the same product. Although they did not plan to integrate these functionalities in the first version of the site, they did plan to do so in the long term.
We conducted UX research to understand the user
The Gluo UX team set out to understand the overall landscape of the auto parts industry. For this, they interviewed stakeholders on the client side, conducted automotive sector research, generated a competition benchmark, and created Protopersonas, also known as customer archetypes.
After gaining a broad understanding of the industry's particularities, our research team advanced to conduct interviews with frequent buyers of auto parts. This allowed us to generate a global understanding of the industry status and potential customer profiles.
Once the research was completed, the UX team, both researchers and designers, met to explore ideas on how to build the Latam Parts experience.
We generated an auto parts categorization for the brand
Product taxonomy and categorization are the heart of any eCommerce. It is one of the most basic ways to search for items, especially in highly specialized and technically complex products.
One of the client's needs was to generate a categorization of auto parts based on ACES & PIES, which is an American standard for categorizing vehicle parts.
However, during the user research process, we realized that we needed to refine the product categorization to better fit the Mexican market. Therefore, the UX Research team generated a hybrid auto parts categorization that followed the principles of ACES & PIES and was understandable for the end customer.
We designed the eCommerce experience
The Gluo UX team designed the eCommerce experience for Latam Parts based on guidelines from the Baymard Institute and the Swedish UX Research Institute. This organization has defined more than 1,000 design guidelines for eCommerce and has more than 100,000 hours of user research.
In turn, specific improvements were made to the design of the online store, based on the insights generated by user research.
Thanks to the discoveries, icons were added to the categories so that customers could quickly identify the vehicle parts they needed, new subcategories were incorporated into the previously selected categories, and the compatible models of each replacement are mentioned, among other relevant changes.
Throughout the process, the design prototypes were validated by the Latam Parts team to ensure that the quality standard they were looking for was being met. Once the screens were approved, the corresponding template was developed in BigCommerce.
Our Frontend team made multiple modifications to the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript of BigCommerce to achieve the proposed experience design.
We integrated Elasticsearch as a search platform
To ensure a good search experience, Elasticsearch was implemented. This search engine is capable of displaying relevant results in a matter of miliseconds, ensuring that the user always finds exactly the product they need.
We created a specialized filter for auto parts search
One of the client's requests was that users could filter products by YMMSE (Year, Make, Model, Submodel, and Engine). This filter is an essential tool for a customer to find exactly the part they need for their vehicle.
We launched the Latam Parts eCommerce
We launched the Latam Parts eCommerce on time through the SAFe project methodology. This way of working allowed us to efficiently manage the project from start to finish, align the design and development team with business objectives, and ensure high-quality work.
Now, Latam Parts has its own online store and is not solely dependent on its sales on marketplaces.
In this way, their business no longer depends on a third party, they reduce the cost of sales commissions, promote their own shopping experience, position their own brand, and most importantly, increase their sales potential.
