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~ Intershop ~

A global market in which offering your customer the information produces friction that leads to mistakes, delays,
possibility to easily check an online catalogue for the right and decreased purchase confidence, which erodes loyalty.
part—especially for industrial B2B aftermarket solutions—
with accurate information and that allows them to select the The aftermarket information challenge
correct spare part or upgrade part means a lot of time and One of the first issues mentioned by Intershop as a core
money saved for both your customer and your company. challenge that any aftermarket industry must face today is the
challenge of presenting their information in a relevant and
And make no mistake; if you don’t do it, someone else will. efficient way.
The online aftermarket competition is fierce, if you don’t
believe this, just search for your company’s spare parts on By definition, aftermarket industries are populated with an
Alibaba, and you will most likely find cheap white label spare amazing amount of information: spare parts, components, and
parts for your products. And these competitors will try to sell upgrade parts—either for physical or software products—are
their white label parts to your customer base. normally accounted for in the hundreds for any aftermarket
brand, product, or solution.
COVID-19 impact on the aftermarket industries
One of the reasons is the growing environmental concerns In the past—at least until the 90s—this information was
and the desire to repair and refurbish as much as possible to normally presented using printed catalogues with hundreds
increase the lifespan of products, but also the fact that due to of pages detailing each item’s functions and compatibilities.
the COVID-19 crisis, production has been delayed for many A brick-size catalogue was the standard. Doesn’t sound sexy
industries. And refurbishing and repairing are sometimes the at all from a marketing perspective nowadays, with Twitter,
best and only options. But the COVID-19 impact stretches YouTube, and all the social media channels, right?
even more: according to Intershop research, in 2020, the US
industry went through 10 years of e-commerce growth in just Following the current online marketing trends, you could
the first three months of the pandemic. As a result, a lot of even be tempted to surmise, reduce or plainly just skip the
business buyers now rely on digital customer experiences in part involving providing so much information about your
their daily work and/or use e-commerce websites as a tool to aftermarket products to your potential customers. And that
support their sales. This has heavily impacted the aftermarket would be a terrible mistake. Why? Because, and this is really
industry, an industry that is heavily reliant on information to important: aftermarket products need to be remarkably clear
achieve sales. in both their functions and their compatibility.

Nowadays, getting the customer experience right, and Friendly, accessible, and complete information
granting them access to relevant and efficient information, Aftermarket e-commerce needs to provide friendly access to
leads to loyalty (retention, enrichment, and advocacy), their potential customers to all the data they might want to
resulting in business growth. Getting the customer experience check about any specific product or combination of products.
wrong translates to pain – not only for you but for your
customers as well. Irrelevant and/or complex access to

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