America’s Largest Car Parts Seller Elevates Supply Chain and Boosts Revenue with a Dealer Portal

Project Overview

Large North American transportation equipment manufacturer with over 50 dealers in the car parts distribution network

Goal

Redefine the procurement experience for the nationwide car parts distribution network by connecting dealers and suppliers via a single online B2B dealer portal for simple and fast wholesale ordering.

Team

Product Owner, Delivery Manager, Adobe Commerce Architect, Business Analyst, Tech Leads, Adobe Commerce Development Team, QA Team, UI/UX Designers

Main Challenges

The manufacturing company set out to modernize its B2B dealer portal and enhance the ordering experience for the car parts distribution network members. The goal was to help dealers efficiently purchase parts in bulk from multiple suppliers. However, the outdated legacy systems, rooted in the ’90s, couldn’t deliver the experience dealers demanded and the company had to start a complex digital transformation.

Managing a Catalog of >300k SKUs

The company sells car parts from its extensive catalog and collaborates with several dropshipping suppliers. The new ecommerce platform needed to import data for over 300,000 products. It also needed to sync data about customers, orders, invoices, stocks, etc., with internal systems. To cope with hourly updates of massive data, optimizing software infrastructure and data flows was necessary.

A Gap Between ERP & Online Platform

Adobe Commerce was chosen as a solution for the new dealer portal. However, there was a need to move the dealership network to the new platform gradually to minimize disruption to daily operations. This involved integrating Adobe Commerce with the outdated HTI ERP system.

Deep Customization of Adobe Commerce

While out-of-the-box features of Adobe Commerce addressed most of the required capabilities, the company needed to further customize the platform for its unique business needs. To develop new custom features, it was necessary to augment the internal team with experienced Adobe technology consultants.

Custom Solution

Online B2B Dealer Portal

Adobe Commerce Сontrol Panel

The new Adobe Commerce control panel has transformed the way Business Administrators and Sales Representatives operate. We’ve developed a tool that simplifies the management of catalogs, content, discounts, and orders. Additionally, it provides statistics for sales insights.

React-Based Dynamic Website

The new dynamic website has made a vast catalog of car parts easily accessible for Counter Reps and Parts Managers within the dealership network. It allows dealers to choose from in-stock items or opt for drop shipping from 13 other suppliers, facilitating quick orders for hundreds of products through a simple CSV file upload.

Adobe Commerce & ERP Integration

The implementation of Adobe Commerce marked the first phase in the company’s digital transformation journey. Other systems were pending upgrades, posing additional challenges for us to address.

Data Preprocessing Microservices

As a stopgap measure, we had to integrate the new dealer portal with the existing ERP system. Given the severe limitations in data export capabilities of the HTI ERP, our strategy involved creating custom software to process ERP data before seamlessly importing it into Adobe Commerce. Additionally, we had to come up with a solution to prevent the automatic backflow of data until the ERP was upgraded.

CUSTOM DATA PROCESSING MIDDLEWARE

The microservice checks the data in the most recent files from the ERP system with the existing information in Adobe Commerce. It identifies any new or changed data, arranges it neatly, and divides it into chunks, each containing about 10,000 records.

ASYNC IMPORT TO ADOBE COMMERCE

The processed data is transferred into Adobe Commerce in segments through its API. The data import queue is managed by RabbitMQ, a message broker that ensures a stable flow of information from the processing middleware to the dealer portal.

USING CDN FOR PRODUCT IMAGES

To ensure quick page loading, CDN efficiently manages product images. This helps optimal utilization of network resources, leading to faster media content delivery, reducing wait times, improving reliability, and providing a seamless customer experience.

BYPASSING BUILT-IN ORDER MANAGEMENT

Until the ERP upgrade the data from the dealer portal doesn’t flow back to internal systems. Instead, details about new orders on the platform are sent via automatic order confirmation emails to our Client’s Customer Service Reps, who then enter these orders into the ERP manually.

Data Flow Between HTI ERP & Adobe Commerce

Upcoming Stages of Transformation

As the digital transformation journey unfolds, there’s more to come. Our team is improving the solution, incorporating additional features and new integrations. Currently, we are in the final stages of integrating Power BI, a move that will empower our Client to analyze the performance of the new portal. Looking ahead, the next significant milestone will be transitioning to a new ERP solution.

Results & Wins

The MVP was launched within just 4 months. The first five dealers, with a total of 150 employees started using the platform daily. We’ve been proactively collecting their feedback to enhance the dealer portal. Other dealers will be onboarded within a year.During the first few months, the new dealer portal has not only proven to be dependable and user-friendly but has also substantially contributed to revenue. With our assistance, the company is progressing through the digital transformation, providing a modern B2B buying experience that aligns with its position as a market leader.

win 01

A lightning-fast launch of an MVP with robust capabilities within 4 months.

win 02

Revenue totaled
$6.5
million for the first 3 months.

win 03

Five dealers (150 users) placed orders via the new B2B portal right after the launch.

win 04

Hourly import of
300k
SKU data sourced from the ERP.

win 05

Upon the rollout of dropshipping, 13 suppliers began selling car parts through the dealer portal.

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Karim Antar Director of Business Development

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