Whether you’re on the manufacturing side of the parts and accessories business or the retailer side, you’re constantly dealing with questions:

• Is part # OU812 really on backorder? And how long do you think it will be until you have it?
• The fitment data for part # 4U2PON seems off – it doesn’t include current model year, but it probably should. Can you confirm?
• Did order #555 ship yet? Can you share an update?
• How can I download the images for all your newly released parts?
• Part #ABC123 is still listed as available on your website – can you take it down?
• You’ve got the wrong fitment details for our new line of wheels – can you correct it?

And so on.

If only there was a system that would address these questions automatically, right? A system that dealers, installers, distributors, and manufacturers could all use to get quick answers to important questions with minimal effort. A system that would make it easy for everyone in the industry to just focus on selling parts and accessories?

That system exists! And it’s called MidwayPlus.

MidwayPlus Defies a Simple Explanation

MidwayPlus is hard to describe:

• When I talk to parts and accessories manufacturers, they tend to focus on the fact that MidwayPlus is an alternative to a self-managed B2B portal.
• When I talk to retailers and installers, they explain that MidwayPlus is a great place to get accurate product info, inventory status, etc.
• When I talk to distributors, they explain MidwayPlus is a great source of inventory data.
• When I talk to the staff at MidwayPlus, they often explain 90% of the people using the platform aren’t really using it to its full potential.

Which is to say, MidwayPlus is more than just a B2B ecommerce platform. It’s a portal that connects the companies who manufacture parts and accessories with the retailers and installers that sell them. Through the MidwayPlus portal, dealers can find new brands, manufacturers can share info about new products, and distributors can streamline order processing.

But don’t take my word for it. I sat down with Albert Reda, Founding Partner & Director of Business Development at MidwayPlus, to talk about his auto parts roots and how MidwayPlus is helping brands succeed.

Can you describe the MidwayPlus platform as if I knew nothing about it?

Most manufacturers sell their products through a network of distributors and dealers. The challenge is that many of those relationships are still managed the old way, through phone calls, emails, spreadsheets, and manual order entry.

MidwayPlus gives manufacturers a modern system for managing their wholesale relationships online. It allows distributors, their staff, and dealers to find products, check availability, and place orders digitally, while the manufacturer keeps control of pricing, product data, and who can buy. The platform is easy to implement and connects directly with the manufacturer’s ERP system so orders, inventory, and customer information stay synchronized.

For buyers, the experience is like a digital mall. They are invited by brands to purchase from their storefronts. Once inside, distributors and dealers can manage purchases, payments, and important order-related communication from a single buying account that works across all the brands in “the mall,” all within a user experience designed specifically for wholesale. Buyers get one access point, while each brand maintains full control of its own storefront and who can access it.

The goal isn’t to replace distributors or change how the industry works. It’s simply to make it easier for wholesale partners to do business together.

Can you tell us briefly about your auto parts industry experience?

I’ve been in the automotive aftermarket since 1998. I got my start at Vibrant Power Inc., where we founded the Vibrant Performance brand and helped grow it into a well-known name in the performance parts industry.

In 2018, I moved to Global Emissions Systems Inc., where we created the high-performance catalytic converter brand, G-Sport Emissions, and expanded its presence through exhaust manufacturers, distributors, and performance retailers around the world.

Most of my career has been spent working with manufacturers, distributors, and dealers to grow wholesale sales and strengthen distribution networks. Today, as a founding partner at MidwayPlus, I focus on helping brands modernize how they manage those wholesale relationships.

What is your favorite part about your job?

My favorite part of the job has always been the relationships. The people in this industry have made it a real pleasure to come to work every day. Over the years, clients, channel partners, suppliers, and colleagues have all enriched my life in meaningful ways. Many of those relationships have grown into lasting friendships that I cherish to this day.

What’s your standard ‘elevator pitch’ for MidwayPlus?

We help manufacturers run their wholesale business online. A lot of brands still manage dealer and distributor orders through emails, phone calls, and spreadsheets, which creates a lot of friction. MidwayPlus gives them a platform where their partners can find products, check inventory, and place orders digitally, all connected directly to their ERP.

So instead of waiting for someone to answer the phone or process an email, their B2B partners can log in and buy whenever they need to. It basically makes their wholesale business accessible 24/7.

Are there any common misconceptions that people have about the MidwayPlus platform?

The most common misconception is that MidwayPlus is simply a tool to sell direct and serve more resellers. That’s true, we can certainly help brands do that. But another misconception is that MidwayPlus is trying to replace distributors or change how the industry works. That’s not the case at all. The distribution network is incredibly important to the automotive aftermarket, and most of the brands we work with rely heavily on those partners.

What we really do is help brands amplify their service capabilities. Everyone in this industry is inundated with emails and phone calls from consumers, dealers, resellers, and warehouse distributors. In that noise, the ability to properly serve your most important wholesale partners can suffer. MidwayPlus gives those partners the ability to access the information they need to sell the product whenever they need it. No waiting for someone to answer the phone. No waiting for email replies.

Another misconception is that the easiest way to improve margins is simply by adding more customers that buy direct at higher margins. That’s not how we help. MidwayPlus helps brands reduce the cost of managing their warehouse distributor relationships. WDs drive the volume in this industry. We help manufacturers realize more profit from those relationships by lowering the cost of servicing that business.

What are the 3 most important things you want potential clients to know?

The first thing I tell prospects is that the timing to start your e-commerce journey will never be perfect. You’re never going to feel 100 percent ready. There’s an old saying that the best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago, and the second-best time is today. The same applies to your B2B online presence.

Like a tree, it takes time for your B2B customers to grow into the system. You’re asking both your staff and your customers to adopt a new way of doing things, which means changing habits. There is always a learning curve.

Second, the transition to digital B2B takes time and it will put some stress on both your team and your customers. Your customers need time to develop trust in the data they are consuming. Once they trust that inventory is accurate and that orders are being received and processed properly, they begin to rely on the system. That’s when the dependence on phone calls and emails starts to fade.

Third, MidwayPlus is not just here to build your storefront in less than 90 days. We’re here to support both your team and your customers through that transition. We continue working closely with our manufacturers long after launch because their success is critical to our mission. We pride ourselves on being accessible and available whenever our brands need us.

How long has MidwayPlus been in business?

Since September 2021.

How did you end up in Novi, MI?

We’re based in Novi, Michigan. It was a central location for our founding team, which made it a natural place for us to establish the business. I’m based in Canada and travel down to Michigan regularly to spend time with the team.

Why do you think MidwayPlus is so successful?

A big part of our success comes from the experience our team brought into conceptualizing and building the platform. No one had ever built something quite like MidwayPlus for the automotive aftermarket.

Brian Lounsberry, Steven Christy, and Greg Atkins spent many years at Motovicity Distribution, where they built and managed the enterprise-grade technology that supported a large automotive distribution business. That experience gave us a strong foundation for what MidwayPlus would eventually become.

All of us also come from the automotive industry. We’ve spent years working with manufacturers, distributors, and dealers, so we understand the sales and order processes that drive this business better than most.

How do you see the market for your MidwayPlus evolving over the next 5 years?

Over the next five years, I think we’ll continue to see more manufacturers invest in modernizing how they manage their wholesale relationships. The expectations of distributors, dealers, and installers are changing. They’re used to having access to information and services whenever they need them.

At the same time, manufacturers are under pressure to do more with their teams without dramatically increasing headcount. Digital tools that reduce administrative work and make it easier for partners to place orders, access product information, and manage transactions will continue to become more important.

I don’t think the fundamentals of the automotive aftermarket will change. Distribution will remain a critical part of the industry. What will change is how efficiently brands are able to support those relationships.

The companies that remove friction from the wholesale transaction and make it easier for their partners to do business with them will have a clear advantage.

A huge thank you to Albert Reda for participating in our interview series. To learn more about MidwayPlus, visit https://midwayplus.com/.

Many automotive parts and accessory brands learn about the importance of intellectual property after they have an issue:

• Numerous Spork clients have expressed regret over failing to register a trademark after seeing a competitor choose a strikingly similar brand name
• Patent issues have impacted several of our clients over the years, leading to cancelled or delayed products and/or issues exhibiting at the SEMA show
• Copyright infringement is a constant issue for our clients; Some are falsely accused of infringement, some are trying to take back their own copyrighted materials

Through it all, we’ve learned just enough about intellectual property laws to know there’s no substitute for legal expertise. Sisson & Banyas is an IP law firm that knows the parts and accessories industry, having worked with several manufacturers in our space.

We recently sat down with Jeffrey Banyas, Legal Production Manager at Sisson & Banyas, to talk about what they do, their roots in the industry, and the biggest misconceptions about IP law. Jeffrey will explain more about his firm below, but we would call out one thing we really appreciate: Flat fee billing for legal services.

Surprise legal bills suck, and Jeffrey tells us that’s not something his firm does. That right there is enough to put his firm on our short list.

Can you describe the services of Sisson & Banyas as if I knew nothing about you?

We help protect what often proves to be our customer’s most valuable assets, their brands and their innovations. We do this through filing, prosecuting, enforcing, and licensing trademarks, patents, design patents, and copyrights in the United States and around the world.

Can you tell us briefly about your auto parts industry experience?

The high performance and aftermarket automotive industries have literally put food on the table and a roof over my head my entire life. Starting from growing up in a family owned high performance racing engine business. At age 11 I began racing quarter midgets, and later sprint cars and super-modifieds throughout the Midwest, and continued to do so until a few years after I graduated from law school. Today, I get to stay involved in the industry I love so much by helping dozens of parts manufacturers and related aftermarket businesses protect their brands and innovations.

What is your favorite part about your job?

Seeing our customers bring a product to market that we’ve helped protect brings me a lot of satisfaction. Knowing that we play a role in helping support their business growth and capturing/growing their market share is what it is all about. I have very little interest in filing patent or trademark applications just to get someone a pretty plaque to put on the wall that they won’t ever be able to use to generate income.

What’s your standard ‘elevator pitch’ for Sisson & Banyas?

Our Firm operates on a different model than most. We provide most of our services on a pre-arranged flat fee basis designed to provide our customers with budget predictability and reduce communication barriers that come with typical attorney hourly billing practices. We also pride ourselves on our commitment to responsiveness with all communications returned to you within 24 hours.

Are there any common misconceptions that people have about the services of Sisson & Banyas?

This profession comes with a lot of misconceptions. Most notably, the idea that trademarks and patents merely represent a ticket to sue someone in court. While litigation is one avenue a company might take to enforce and monetize their intellectual property assets, many others exist. Including licensing, ecommerce enforcement, customs and border seizures, and more.

When you’re talking to potential clients, what are the most important things you want them to know?

Companies have a lot of options when it comes to securing their intellectual property assets. What sets myself and Sisson & Banyas apart are:

• Our customer service philosophy (flat fees, responsiveness)
• My background and commitment to the industry

How long has Sisson & Banyas been in business?

The Firm has been in business for 21 years. I have been with the Firm for 15 years.

How did you end up in Medina, Ohio?

The Firm was founded in Medina, Ohio – one of the more economically successful counties in our state – by my business partner, Ed Sisson. Ed and I have committed to keeping the Firm in Medina because of the business friendly culture and strong sense of community.

What do you think it is that has made your firm so successful?

If I had to point to one thing it would be our people staying true to our mission, vision, and values. We value the individual and diversity of opinion and views, the courage to speak up, and the discipline to respect a decision once it is made. Our vision is to create a culture of competencies to proactively advise customers with business-based intellectual property decisions in a global context. I believe that everyone within our Firm has done an excellent job living up to these ideals every day.

How do you see intellectual property legal services changing over the next 5 years?

The market for our services will likely continue expanding. With developments in artificial intelligence, new product development tools, and increased options to communicate with customers coming out every day, protecting a company’s investment in branding and R&D against counterfeiting and knock-offs has never been more important.

Thanks to Jeffrey Banyas for participating in our interview series. To learn more about Sisson & Banyas, visit https://sissoniplaw.com/.

Spork is going to hit the 20 year mark this year, and we’ve seen a lot of changes in the world of online marketing (way too many to list). But one thing that hasn’t changed is automotive forums:

• Forums are still where a lot of die-hard enthusiasts go to learn, ask questions, and vent
• Forums are still critical communities in a lot of niches
• Forums are still visible in Google search results, and still influential in Google search rankings

Does this mean you should run out and join a bunch of forums? Or call up the media company that owns 90% of the popular automotive forums and commit to a massively overpriced ad package? Not necessarily. But forums are still relevant, and we’ll talk about how to leverage that fact below.

I Was Born After The Year 2000 – What’s a Forum?

The younger you are, the less likely you’ve interacted on a forum. So for you younger readers, a forum is kind of like a Reddit thread, but with multiple sub-threads:

• Typically forums are communities dedicated to a particular make and model of vehicle or a specific automotive passion
• Forums have multiple boards, each of which is assigned to a topic area…there could be a “tech” board where people post technical questions, there could be a “buy and sell” board where people post about gear they’re trying to sell, etc.
• Some examples of popular or well known forums are Cartalk, VW Vortex, F-150 Forum, Bob Is The Oil Guy (great place to argue about motor oil)

Which Forums Are Important?

There are some sites that rank forums by estimated traffic, social media followers, total users, total posts, etc., but none of those metrics are relevant. Instead:

1. Run a competitive backlink report and see which forums are linking to your competitor’s websites
2. Do some searches for frequently asked questions in your niche, and click on any forum threads that appear in the first page of results.
3. Join any forums that seem relevant, monitor them daily, and see how often new topics are posted. Active forums have dozens of new topic posts a day.

If a forum appears in a lot of search results and backlink reports, it’s probably important. If it’s also active, it’s definitely important.

How Should You Market On Automotive Forums?

There are a couple of approaches. The “cheap” but time intensive option is to get involved. Sign up on each forum, spend a few hours a week visiting, participate where you can, and repeat. Over time you’ll find several opportunities to interact with potential customers, establish yourself as an expert, and drop links.

The other option is to find an active forum member to be your ambassador. You still have to join and participate in the forum, but when you find an active user who’s already a fan of your brand:

• Message and offer to send them some free merch as thanks for their support
• Share your professional contact info with them and offer to help solve any problems they have, and encourage them to share your info with anyone who has a problem (just not publicly)
• If the user is active enough, ask them if they’re willing to post a review on the forum if you send them a free product
• When you launch a new product, ask them for their thoughts, and offer a free product to test

If you do it right, your forum buddy will recommend your brand, promote your products, and share your contact info with anyone who’s griping about your company on the forum.

NOTE: You’re offering free product to review/test because you want forum posts about your products. You probably won’t be able to track any sales back to the post, but the review content itself will boost organic search and visibility in A.I. answers.

What About Buying Ads on Forums?

We don’t recommend forum advertising as a general rule. Most automotive forums are owned by the same media company, and we find their packages to be pricey. Also, if you know how to use Google Ads, you can usually buy ad placements on these forums at a much lower cost.

However, there is one important caveat: If you can make a contribution to the forum in exchange for an upgraded “business” or “vendor” profile, that is often a good deal. Business registrations typically don’t cost much, and they’re a good way to support the forum.

Last But Not Least, Here Are Some Forum Etiquette Tips

Before you start posting to forums, make sure you know the rules.

Be 100% truthful and open about who you are and what you’re about. This means that you should disclose your business purpose on your profile. It doesn’t have to be explicit, just something that shows your affiliation.

Contribute to the community. No one likes to be around a person that only talks about themselves – when you participate in a community, find ways to offer advice, help people, contribute to resources, etc.

Always be gracious and polite. Forums are famous for harboring “trolls” – people who have nothing better to do than start trouble and poke holes. Kill them with kindness.

Own up to mistakes. When you participate in an online community, you will inevitably have a “run-in” with someone who had a bad experience with your business and is eager to berate you. Rather than engaging in finger pointing, admit that you could have handled the situation better, apologize, and move on. The person with the bad experience may not let it go once you’ve apologized, but the community will recognize your honesty and give you the benefit of the doubt.

Respect your competitors. Never denigrate your competitors or their products – it hurts your own image more than it hurts theirs. You should point out key differences, however.

Write as if your parents or children are in the room. Imagine that everything you do or write on a forum will be seen by every member of your family. Obviously, foul language, crude innuendo, etc. are unacceptable.

Respect privacy. Don’t make the mistake of disclosing a client relationship in a public forum, ie. don’t blog about “Jane stopping by the shop last week” unless you’re sure that Jane wants you to disclose her business with you to the entire world. The same goes for your employees, vendors, etc.

The simplest way to develop a parts and accessories marketing strategy is to identify all the ways that auto parts (and accessories) are sold, and then work backwards. That’s exactly what we’re going to do in this post.

There are basically four sales channels for all parts and accessories:

1. Offline in parts stores, off-road shops, speed shops, etc.
2. Offline in repair shops and service businesses
3. Online in marketplaces like Amazon and eBay
4. Online on websites like RockAuto, SummitRacing, etc.

Each of these four sales channels has different requirements, and a good strategy acknowledges the differences between each channel.

Invest in Data

Parts can’t be sold anywhere without data. In fact, the auto parts and accessories business is primarily a data business. The industry generally differentiates between two types of data:

1. Catalog data – Product description, photos, specs, etc. (aka “PIES data”)
2. Fitment data – What vehicles a part will fit (aka “ACES data”)

Both types of data are required for success, so every strategy should focus on creating and/or obtaining this data. Also, better quality data typically leads to more sales and higher margins, so it’s wise to invest here.

Importantly, data isn’t just accurate fitment and specs. It’s photos and videos that help end users decide, detailed specifications that can be used in product filters, detailed descriptions that outline a product’s uniqueness, installation instructions, warranty policies, point of sale materials, and so on.

Speak To The DIY Community

DIY consumers account for a substantial amount of parts and accessories sales. Many brands focus on selling direct to consumer for this reason. However, DIY consumers aren’t just a revenue stream – they are critically important to all part and accessory brands because of their influence.

• DIY’ers constantly discuss the pros and cons of various products on social media, “bench racing” one product against another
• DIY’ers usually have strong opinions about individual part and accessory brands, which they don’t hesitate to share online
• DIY’ers have generated (and continue to generate) millions of hours of how to, review, and comparison videos for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok

When it comes to parts and accessories, DIY’ers won’t stop talking. As a result, most consumers of parts and accessories are influenced by DIY’ers. If a product or brand has a positive perception in the DIY “community”, that will drive sales on all channels. Therefore, every parts and accessories strategy should embrace consumer focused marketing.

NOTE: Many parts and accessories companies are only focused on business to business (B2B) sales, aka wholesale. Very often, these B2B companies will ignore DIY consumers in their marketing strategy. This is a mistake, as it ignores the most influential group in the industry.

Understand Perceptions of Quality

Nearly every company understands the importance of quality, and most track metrics like return rate, scrap rate, customer complaint rate, etc.. However, most of the people who buy parts and accessories do not know or value these metrics.

Instead, buyers rely on perception to indicate quality. Perceptions are influenced by all kinds of things, many of which aren’t really quality indicators:

• Warranty length (lifetime is best) and warranty labor reimbursement (jobbers/installers often see labor reimbursement as a quality indicator)
• Product packaging quality and heft – “cereal box” cardboard hurts quality perceptions, heavy duty printed packaging boosts it
• Where a product is manufactured (USA is generally perceived to be best, but Germany or Japan are highly regarded as well)
• Whether or not there are plastic components
• Whether or not a product is “OEM” or “OE”
• Whether a product is “universal” (negative) or “direct-fit” (positive)

A good marketing strategy identifies and acknowledges how the target customer perceives quality. And because of differences in quality perceptions from one buyer to the next, market research is essential.

No One Sells A Commodity

Too often, part and accessory buyers (and end users) perceive products as commodities.

Replacement parts, for example, are often perceived by consumers as “about the same.” This is consumer ignorance of course, as there can be massive differences in quality from one part to another. But the question isn’t why consumers are ignorant – the question is why aren’t manufacturers doing a better job of explaining how their products are unique?

To differentiate your products from the competition, you need to develop your marketing in several areas:

• Demonstrate the product’s ruggedness and/or performance in special circumstances – Consumers often assume that if a product works well in a racing or commercial environment, it will also work on their vehicle.
• Highlight OEM fit, finish, and quality standards – Most consumers perceive OEM parts and accessories to be the best available.
• Explain how the product’s superior quality benefits the consumer – Consumers will choose your product if they believe it will reduce the risk of damage to other components, or reduce the inconvenience of an unexpected failure, or reduce future maintenance, etc.
• Emphasize how the product’s excellent durability will save the consumer money – Longer lasting products cost more up-front, but save time and money in the future. Does the customer want to buy nice, or buy twice?

Finally, explain why the product is better – talk about the design and development behind the product, showcase the manufacturing, and support all the statements about your product with evidence (even if the evidence is anecdotal).

What About Brand? What About Endorsements? What About Something Else?

When we talk to new or prospective clients about part and accessory marketing strategy, we’re often asked about specific activities. e.g. “Should we brand this way or that way?” “Should we sponsor this event or race team?” “Should we pay a well-known influencer to promote a product in a video?” Should we “get on Tik Tok?” and so on.

In our view, ALL of these specific marketing and advertising ideas should be evaluated using the following four questions:

1. Will it improve product data?
2. Will it improve product or brand reputation with DIY’ers?
3. Will it improve perceptions of brand or product quality?
4. Will it positively differentiate our brand or product from the competition?

Evaluation isn’t a simple “yes” or “no” – it’s a conversation about metrics for each question. This is the nuts and bolts of marketing, and something that we work at when consulting.

Summing Up

Every part and accessory marketing strategy should start with data and DIY’ers. Both are necessary for success. It should then focus on perceptions of quality and developing differentiators. While there’s a lot of work that goes into developing a good strategy, the final document shouldn’t be too complex (usually just a couple of pages).

As always, the devil is in the details. Figuring out how your target customers perceive quality, for example, is a substantial market research project. Identifying key differentiators requires a lot of specialized industry knowledge. Understanding and evaluating how DIY’ers perceive certain products or messaging requires experience.

If you want to work with an agency that understands these things, contact us.

A lot of part and accessory brands are looking for an ecommerce platform that:

• Can handle large catalogs and year-make-model search
• Can do both retail and wholesale ecommerce
• Can manage multiple storefronts (different stores for different brands or markets)
• Will integrates with an ERP

One option that does all of the above is Miva. Miva describes itself as an enterprise-grade ecommerce platform that focuses on large, mid-market merchants. For companies in the parts and accessories industry, that means helping to manage huge catalogs, making sure buyers find the exact part they need, and keeping everything – from inventory to payments to shipping – working together in one place.

Today, we’re speaking with Rick Wilson, CEO at Miva to learn more about the platform and options. As you’ll learn below, Miva has been around a while (25+ years), and as a result has had time develop a comprehensive part and accessory ecommerce platform.

What’s your standard ‘elevator pitch’ for Miva?

Miva is built for businesses that are serious about scaling ecommerce. Especially in industries like auto parts where you’re dealing with tens of thousands of SKUs, complicated fitment data, or B2B workflows. On most platforms, that means duct-taping together a pile of expensive plugins. With Miva, it just works. Put simply: we help you sell more, stress less, and innovate faster.

Can you tell us briefly about your parts industry experience?

We’ve worked with auto parts and aftermarket sellers for years, and the challenges are always the same: massive catalogs, compatibility issues, and customers who need speed and accuracy when they search. We’ve helped sellers take what feels overwhelming and turn it into something scalable and profitable. The real advantage is that Miva gives you the performance you need without forcing you into a messy stack of add-ons.

What’s the best part of your job?

Watching our customers grow. Seeing an auto parts seller go from clunky, outdated systems to doubling or tripling their online sales – that’s what fires me up. I also love leading a team that pushes boundaries. Our latest product, Vexture, came out of listening to customers and finding an elegant way to solve their biggest headaches with AI-powered search and merchandising. That’s the best part: solving problems that actually move the needle for people.

What common misconceptions do people have about the products and services you offer?

Some people hear that Miva has been around for 25 years and think that makes us outdated. Couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, 25 years proves we know how to adapt and keep delivering. We’re not resting on legacy tech – we’re constantly redefining what enterprise ecommerce can be. Longevity isn’t a weakness; it’s proof we’re built for the long game.

To what do you attribute Miva’s success?

Two things: innovation and partnership.

We evolve as the market changes, and we listen hard to what customers tell us. Ecommerce isn’t static – especially in auto parts – and our job is to stay one step ahead so our clients can too.

When you’re talking to potential customers, what 3 important things you want them to know?

1. We understand complexity. If you sell auto parts with complicated data, Miva was built for you.
2. We drive results. This isn’t about pretty websites – it’s about revenue, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
3. We’re partners, not just providers. Our job isn’t done when the software goes live. We’re in it with you; with real people you can actually get on the phone when you need help.

How long has Miva been in business?

Miva’s been around for more than 28 years as of 2025, which is rare in tech, we’re the real unicorn. That longevity shows we know how to keep evolving and staying current with trends, helping our clients separate the wheat from the chaff. Just as important, a lot of our employees have been here for 10+ years. Their commitment is what makes the product and support as strong as it is.

How did you choose your current business location?

We started in San Diego, it’s a fantastic place to build a company and that’s where our headquarters are, but we also have an office in Tampa and employees in 19 states in total.  Our legendary culture at Miva helps us attract exceptional talent, and ecommerce is digital – so we work with clients everywhere.

Where do you see the market for your products and services moving over the next 5 years?

Ecommerce is only going to get more sophisticated. Auto parts buyers will expect faster search, more accurate compatibility, and no-hassle buying experiences whether they’re B2B or B2C. The future is AI-driven personalization, smarter data, and tighter integrations. Our mission is to make sure sellers don’t just keep up with that change but lead it.

For more information about the Miva ecommerce platform, visit https://www.miva.com/platform-overview.

At first glance, creating a bunch of Year-Make-Model (YMM) pages might seem like a great SEO strategy. After all, YMM is how many people think about their vehicles. Shouldn’t your website match how customers search?

Not so fast.

In our experience working with aftermarket parts and accessories retailers, the “build lots of YMM pages” approach tends to fail more often than not. Here’s why.

1. More Pages ≠ Better Rankings

It’s tempting to assume that more content means more opportunities to rank. But in practice, the opposite is often true.

When a website has tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of pages, they can dilute overall site quality in Google’s eyes. The reason? Most of those pages are low quality. And the pages are low quality because it’s borderline impossible to create thousands of awesome, high quality pages that are worth indexing.

SearchEngineLand has a great article on content pruning that breaks down the importance of trimming unremarkable or redundant pages. And in our agency’s experience, reducing page count almost always leads to better rankings. If you’re flooding your site with near-duplicate YMM pages, you’re probably hurting your rankings.

Of course, if you run a major brand with massive search equity (like AutoZone), you would be the exception to the rule. But there are maybe 10 companies in our industry that fall into that category.

2. Most YMM Pages Are Full of Duplicate Content

Let’s say you’re selling performance accessories for Chevy Silverado trucks. You might be tempted to create separate pages for the 2001, 2002, and 2003 models.

The problem? These pages will almost certainly list the same set of products. That means 90% or more of the page content is duplicated across each version. Here’s a real-world example from AutoZone:

• 2001 Silverado 2500 HD Engine Page
• 2002 Silverado 2500 HD Engine Page
• 2003 Silverado 2500 HD Engine Page

These pages are almost identical—and Google knows it. Large retailers like AutoZone can sometimes get away with creating a lot of duplicate content because of their brand authority, but if we had access to AutoZone’s analytics (we don’t) we’d guess these pages don’t bring in much traffic.

But what about creating unique content for each page? Won’t that fix it?

In the old days, a common workaround to the duplicate content was to write unique blurbs for each YMM page. We (Spork) used that technique extensively throughout the 2010s. It worked great for a while, but about 5 years ago we noticed the traffic die off.

With A.I., it’s possible to do more with unique content, but it’s risky (see below).

3. Accessories Customers Don’t Usually Search by YMM

This one might surprise you, but the data is clear.

In a recent analysis of one client’s account – and going back nearly three years – we found that only a single-digit percentage of all search queries included a model year. 90%+ of the time, accessories shoppers aren’t typing in a full year-make-model search.

Instead, they’re searching by part type, brand, or feature—think “off-road light bar,” “Bilstein shocks,” or “custom aluminum driveshaft.”

NOTE: YMM-specific searches are more common in the replacement parts world than in the accessories space, but they’re not super popular in that world either…we don’t recommend a YMM strategy for most companies.

Important: Google’s Dim View of Low-Quality AI Content

One last point worth mentioning: A major Google update in March 2024 cracked down hard on AI-generated content lacking originality or depth. If you’re considering using AI to generate hundreds or thousands of YMM pages, you could be walking into a trap.

We would summarize Google’s view of A.I. content as follows:

• Most of us hate finding generic A.I. generated content when we search.
• Google knows most of us hate generic A.I. generated content.
• Because Google knows we hate it, Google will make sure generic A.I. generated content doesn’t rank.

Bulk-generated YMM pages are likely to be ignored, deindexed, or even result in a penalty if they’re generic enough.

What to Do Instead

If you’re trying to grow organic traffic to your parts or accessories site, here’s what we recommend instead of mass-producing YMM pages:

• Focus on high-intent categories. Build out content and landing pages for the parts and upgrades your customers actually search for.
• Focus on brands. A lot of the people buying accessories online are searching by brand name.
• Offer a year-make-model lookup tool. Instead of creating static YMM specific pages, let customers filter by year/make/model.
• Invest in quality content marketing. Videos that compare, review or install products are gold. Videos and written content that explain details and answer specific questions are evergreen. Focus your efforts accordingly.

Final Thoughts

The “more is better” approach to SEO doesn’t work when the “more” is low-value, A.I. generated garbage. YMM pages may sound strategic, but they often waste time, budget, and crawl equity—especially in the accessories market where model-year searches are relatively rare.

Want help crafting a smarter, data-driven content and SEO strategy? Contact us—we’ll help you focus on what actually moves the needle.

The fourth quarter can be a goldmine for parts and accessories ecommerce, but only if you plan ahead. With warnings about reduced consumer spending this Q4 and online competition at an all-time high, it’s smart to prepare now to maximize revenue.

In this post we’ll map out suggested promotions, creative strategy, and related “stuff” for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday selling season.

Key Sale Dates For Q4 2025

Here’s the lineup you should be planning for:

Halloween – October 31st

A lot of retailers run a “Black Friday Preview” sale for Halloween. It’s a bold move – one we don’t necessarily endorse – but there’s logic to it. A substantial portion of consumers spend their entire gift budget before Black Friday.

Still, if you run an aggressive sale on October 31st, sale fatigue can set in before December.

Veteran’s Day – Tuesday, November 11th

A surprisingly high percentage of DIY’ers are current and former military, which makes Veteran’s Day especially important for the parts and accessories industry. The creative should be respectful and understated, and there should be an extra for current and former military above and beyond what the general public will receive.

Black Friday – Friday, November 28th

This is one of the biggest sales of the year – don’t hold back on discounts or special offers. Also, don’t hesitate to start the sale on Monday the 24th or Wednesday the 27th.

Small Business Saturday – Saturday, November 29th

If you’ve promoted your brand as a small, family run company, you can remind your customers you’re a small business as part of your Black Friday promotion. If you’re a big brand (or your customers perceive you as a big brand), sit this one out.

Cyber Monday & Cyber Week – Monday, December 1st to Friday, December 5th

Most companies simply extend their Black Friday sale/offer into the following week. That way people who didn’t jump at your best offers on Black Friday don’t feel like they missed out.

Green Monday – Monday, December 8th

It might feel odd to run the same Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale all the way through the 9th, but a lot of companies will do it. “Cyber Monday Sale Extended” is a great way to explain why the sale runs a little longer.

Other companies will promote this as a “Last Chance For Guaranteed Delivery” sale and run it through the guaranteed shipping cutoff day.

End of Year Clearance & New Year’s Sale – Friday, December 26th to Monday Jan. 5th

The last week of December is usually a great week, as many consumers are looking for deals. Most brands will run an “End of Year Blowout” sale or similar this week that overlaps New Year’s.

Also, don’t end this sale on January 1st – hold it through the following Monday. A lot of your customers will be out of the office the 1st through the 4th. A surprising percentage of online buyers use their employer’s computer to place online orders, which means the first day they’ll be able to buy is the 5th.

Marketing Activities That Move the Needle

Email – Plan multiple emails per promo event – “Sale starts now”, “Sale going on now, and “Last chance!” are all recommended.

Social Media – Post at least as often as you email, and use video, product spotlights, and countdown graphics to drive engagement.

Sale Specific Facebook & Instagram Ad Campaigns – Sale-specific creative is key. Usually, images get the best results, and we’ve seen good results with vehicle make-model specific versions of graphics (e.g. making multiple versions of the same ad, but with different vehicles shown).

Google Ads – While it will rarely make sense to launch new Google Ads campaigns during sale periods, there are some things to remember:

• ROAS will probably be higher during the sale, so feel free to bump up the daily budgets during the sale period
• Sale-specific creative can be scheduled in just about every type of campaign
• Promotion ad extensions can be scheduled at the account level, which is a quick and easy way to get a performance lift

Countdown Timers, Offer Bars, and Overlays – A sticky holiday themed promo bar or overlay is a generally effective. Some important tips:

• Test whatever you’re using on desktop and mobile – make sure they’re not covering up important elements or interfering with normal use.
• Make sure they don’t cause layout shifts that can irritate users.
• Make sure the user won’t see the offer more than once per session, at least if they intentionally close the offer.
• Email capture is a best practice, but during big sale periods it’s best to get the order. Maximize revenue by putting the code where people can find it, even if they don’t submit an address.

Planning and Creating Your Creative

Once you’ve come up with your sale calendar and identified all the activities you’re going to do, it’s time to work on creative.

You can do something sort of subtle – like the Jegs banner below showing a holiday gift on a workbench alongside some products:

Or, you can do something off the wall…we used ChatGPT to generate all of these graphics. Each of these need work, but the idea is that with A.I. there aren’t many limitations.

Finally, once you come up with a couple of designs you like for each sale, you can make a few sizes and drop the graphics into emails, social media posts, and ad campaigns.

Other Tips and Suggestions

We’ve been helping clients with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales for nearly 20 years, and there are a few “gotchas” you can plan for to make life easier.

Check your discount codes. Check them incognito, check them logged in, check them against other offers, etc.

Offer gift cards. If someone who wants to buy an accessory as a gift – but doesn’t know what to buy – a gift card is the answer. We’ve never had a client who sold a lot of gift cards (usually gift cards are a single digit percentage of sales), but every dollar counts.

Check your offer bars. We mentioned it above, but test your overlays and offer bars. They can block cart buttons, checkout buttons, etc. Check them on desktop and mobile.

Plan for the last guaranteed shipping day cut off. Each year FedEx and UPS will announce their “last day for guaranteed delivery” cutoff date, and each year there’s a lot of uncertainty as the cutoff day approaches. For UPS, the 2025 “UPS Ground” cut-off date should be December 18th. For FedEx and the US Post Office, it might be several days earlier (one source says December 13th!).

Make sure your shipping and return policy pages are up to date, and check your FAQs page too. Customer service is often swamped during the holiday season, and you can save them a lot of heartache now by reviewing the shipping, return, and FAQ pages and making sure they’re clear and complete. A little effort now might save the support team a few dozen emails or calls later.

Also, while you’re at it, add some info about holiday shipping cutoff dates to your shipping policy page (December 13th is a very conservative target), and consider extending the return window for the holidays as well (gives your support staff more time).

SEMA will eat up a lot of your time between now and Black Friday. The SEMA show eats into everyone’s calendars in October, and when it’s over it can take a few days to recover. If you can plan your Q4 now, November won’t be so hard (SEMA setup starts October 30th and ends Nov. 7th).

Plan for your staff to be out. The holiday season is cold and flu season. Kids have lots of time off from school in November and December. A lot of us will travel to different states to see our families – or have family come and stay for a few days. It’s smart to assume your team will be less available as Black Friday approaches.

Set expectations now for last minute requests. If you work in marketing like we do, you know how disruptive a last minute change request can be. We suggest locking down the sale calendar with the executive team now, and then writing down a due-date for each sale. This can limit (or possibly even eliminate) last minute requests.

If you’re a brand, don’t forget the dealers. As much as brands try to plan ahead (see above), dealers/retailers often don’t learn about the details of a sale until a couple of days before it starts. As a result, they don’t have time to properly promote every sale they learn about.

But if a dealer is notified a week (or even 2 weeks) before, they can put together banners, schedule emails, etc. By giving the dealers more notice, the more participation you’ll get from them.

NOTE: If you don’t want to give the dealers the discount info until the last possible minute, you can still give them some banners, the sale start and end dates, and a rough idea of what will be on sale.

The conventional wisdom in influencer marketing says:

1. Only work with influencers who are aligned with your brand
2. Avoid one-off placements and reviews; Focus on building relationships
3. Don’t do anything with influencers who aren’t a perfect fit and/or who aren’t interested in a long-term relationship

We’d call this the “brand alignment” approach to influencer marketing, and it’s great advice for most industries. But when it comes to parts or accessories marketing, it’s wrong.

Influencer Marketing For Parts and Accessories Is Different

Most influencer marketing strategies are built on brand alignment because most products – like sunglasses or skincare products or shoes – are “universal.” Nearly every influencer could review a pair of sunglasses, for example, but only a few of them have the right audience/values/etc. For these types of products, brands must be discerning.

But when your product is a set of fender flares for a 2025 Ford F-150 (or the like), fitment often trumps lifestyle:

1. Consumers are more likely to buy if they can see photos and video of a product on their specific vehicle
2. DIY’ers are more likely to buy if they can watch someone install a product on their specific vehicle
3. Most companies don’t have the photos and videos consumers want to see

So, if you want to sell those 2025 F-150 fender flares (or whatever), any influencer who has the right vehicle – and who has proven that they can make a decent part or accessory review video* – is a worthwhile opportunity.

*A proven ability to make a decent review video for a part or accessory is a low threshold, but it’s still a threshold. If an influencer has never made a part or accessory review video – or if the review videos they’ve made are hard to hear, poorly lit, confusing, or poorly organized – proceed with caution.

One-Off Product Reviews Are Actually Pretty Great

One-off reviews bring a lot of value:

1. More often than not, the review video will feature a unique fitment that your company doesn’t have photos or videos for, which means it will help at least someone buy your product.
2. Consumers often search for year-make-model specific install videos and reviews; The more specific the search, the more likely the review will appear in search results.
3. Every review video is “social proof” and potentially influential.
4. Every review video is content for the blog, the newsletter, the social media channels, etc.

At Spork, we coach all of our clients to think of influencer videos as outsourced video production first, search engine content second, and “everything else” third.

Sometimes, the “everything else” drives a LOT of value. But even if all a video does is a) give your brand more assets that help potential customers visualize and b) raise your brand’s visibility in search, it’s a good investment.

Install Videos Also Help Customer Service

A huge percentage of part and accessory buyers are DIY’ers. They’re on YouTube, searching for install videos that show them how to get the job done. If your product shows up in a clear, helpful install video – especially one tied to their exact vehicle – it builds trust and confidence that can lead to sales.

But even if an install video does not drive sales, it can help customer service. A DIY’er who bought your product and gets “stuck” during the install process will immediately go to YouTube. One-off review video(s) are going to surface in YouTube searches, and odds are good they’ll help the customer solve the problem on their own. No contacting customer support, no leaving angry reviews about bad instructions, and fewer returns.

Social Media Influencer Part and Accessory Marketing Best Practices

To reiterate: We’re not saying that long-term relationships with brand aligned influencers are bad. They’re obviously good. But anyone who coaches a part or accessory brand to ‘avoid one-off reviews’ or ‘only work with brand-aligned influencers’ is giving bad advice.

Influencer video ROI should be based on more than trackable revenue. A lot of brands expect influencer videos to generate sales. Sales are obviously important, but a “generate sales or go away” approach to influencers is short-sighted. Consider:

1. If your company wanted to make the same video, could you get the vehicle shown in the video? What would it cost?
2. After you obtain the vehicle, how much would it cost to have someone on your team shoot and edit the video? How much would you pay a contractor or agency to shoot and edit?
3. If you made this video in-house, how much time would it cost your video generation team, and what could they do with that time instead?
4. How many people will watch the video and buy, but forget to use the code or click on the affiliate link in the description?
5. How many people will find this video on YouTube search months or years from now? How many of those people will buy, and can you track those sales if the discount code is expired and the affiliate link is removed from the video description?
6. How many existing customers will reference the video instead of calling customer service, and how much time will that save your customer service team? How many product returns or bad reviews will the video prevent?
7. How many years will the video be visible in YouTube search results? How many customers will buy because they found a video for their exact year make and model?

If you do the math, influencer video is incredibly cost effective.

Remember that Google and YouTube search is a thing. A lot of part and accessory consumers will research a product on YouTube and Google extensively before buying. If the consumer searches extensively, what are they going to find? Videos from the same 2 or 3 YouTubers, or a dozen different reviews from a dozen diffierent channels? Or maybe all of the above?

Or will they find videos for a competitor’s product because the competitor isn’t focused on “brand alignment” and casts a really wide net, dominating YouTube search results?

Also, influencer relationships come and go. We’ve heard countless stories from brands about finding a great influencer, having a lot of success with them, and then something changes:

• The influencer starts promoting a competitor
• The influencer quits social media
• The influencer gets irrationally mad and drops the brand
• The influencer completely shifts focus and starts making completely unrelated content
• The influencer starts asking for more and more money, to the point where it’s not feasible to work with them any longer
• The influencer says and does something that offends most of their audience, and then doubles-down in the comments and burns it all down…and your brand catches strays for months because of it (true story)

Assuming that all influencer relationships will eventually end, there’s an argument for being open minded about placements.

So, Who Are the Best Influencers for Auto Parts Marketing?

At Spork our criteria are pretty simple:

1. They need to be on YouTube. YouTube is where most DIY part and accessory buyers search. An influencer can have Instagram or TikTok of course, but a YouTube channel is required.
2. They need to be focused on creating automotive content relevant to the product. An influencer for a replacement part brand is typically making repair how-to videos, or at least getting their hands dirty every now and then. An influencer for an off-road accessory makes off-road videos at least once in a while. Etc.
3. They need to be actively creating and promoting videos. We want to see videos being churned out on a weekly or monthly basis, and we want to see evidence of the creator promoting their content and trying to grow the channel (posting videos to forums or reddit, engaging with commenters, etc.)
4. They need to be able to create a decent quality video. Hollywood production quality is not necessary (or even desirable – it often comes across as overtly promotional), but audio should be clear, lighting should be used, the information should be shared in a way that makes sense, etc.

That’s it. We don’t really care about subscriber counts (we have a minimum but it’s very low), we don’t stress out about video views (we can drive those ourselves), and we don’t worry too much about how an influencer’s values or audience aligns with the brand (within reason of course) because most placements are one-and-done.

Summing Up

The best influencer campaigns in the auto parts and accessories industry don’t look like influencer campaigns at all. They look like helpful videos, install guides, and search-optimized content created by a bunch of real vehicle owners.

NOTE: I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t mention that we do influencer marketing as part of our SEO services. Learn more about our services here.

Using data from both TheGigaBrain.com (a newer A.I. tool that analyzes Reddit posts and comments) and Amazon.com, we’ve put together both:

1. A list of both popular and trending automotive accessories by type
2. WHY these products are trending, which is far more important than the products themselves

Here’s the list.

UV Protection Products

Increased awareness about UV damage is making consumers more interested in window tints and reflective coatings, and increased customization/exact fit options have made old school products like dashboard sun-shades popular again. There’s also car tents/umbrellas, which most consumers are still learning about.

Takeaway: Many of the companies marketing interior cooling products (sun shades, car umbrellas/car tents, solar powered window venting fans) are promoting them as fuel saving devices. The pitch is that keeping the car cool is a good way to reduce the load on the A/C system, which in turn saves gas.

This is a good reminder that consumers are always open to products that provide fuel savings.

Tire Gadgets

Battery powered portable tire inflators and digital tire pressure gauges are popuar on Amazon, and we’re not sure why. They’re very affordable and kind of cool, so it seems like a “cool gadget” more than it is a trend. Products offering emergency inflation (like fix-a-flat kits) are also selling well.

Takaway: The marketing lesson here might be that consumers love the idea of being prepared for unlikely events (like a tire blowout), and they’re always interested in a cool toy. But this particular category seems less like a trend and more like a cheap form of tire protection.

Cleaning & Detailing Supplies

YouTube has made detailing and cleaning even more accessible to enthusiasts than it was a few years ago (and it seems like it’s been something everyone knew about for decades). In the ‘old days,’ you might go to your local parts store or Wal-Mart and load up on some cleaners in pretty bottles and call it good.

Today? Consumers are buying special-purpose microfiber towels, interior wipes, cleaning putty/gel, etc. And brands pitch all-in-one cleaners and ceramic infused products as the best on the market, with social media being used to drive interest. Even paint correction tools and techniques are gaining steam with regular consumers.

Takeaway: YouTube videos make it easier than ever for people to learn how to do things, and inflationary pressures are encouraging customers to DIY more than ever. Companies that sell consumable parts (eg brakes, shocks, replacement side mirrors) should be copying what the chemical companies are doing.

Air Fresheners

It might not seem significant, but air fresheners are very popular and we think we know why:

1. There’s a lot of people who are tuned into essential oils, health benefits, mood benefits, etc., and they’re bringing those interests into their vehicles.
2. There was a pandemic a few years ago that changed people’s perceptions about air quality (at least a little).
3. The average vehicle is getting older. Drivers are keeping cars for a decade plus, and trucks and SUVs for almost two decades. It’s not a stretch to imagine a 10 year old high miles car needing an air freshener.

Takeaway: The North American vehicle fleet is aging, partially due to the high cost of new vehicles, and partially because vehicles are built better than ever and lost a long time. Every automotive brand should be thinking about these older vehicles and how they impact product development planning and obsolescene…too many brands drop older vehicle fitments too soon.

Dash Cams

According to GigaBrain data, dashcams continue to gain traction thanks to their ability to record accidents and improve safety. The most frequent comments on Reddit related to dash cams are about buying them to “lower insurance costs” and “prevent fraud” that could increase premiums. Anecdotes abound, but we couldn’t find one auto insurance provider who offers a discount for dash cam owners.

Takeaway: It seems as if consumers are buying dash cams for percieved savings rather than actual savings. Which is to say, marketers can always drive sales by talking about savings from unlikely events (insert your own joke about volcano insurance here).

Vehicle Organization & Storage

This is another category that seems sort of insignificant – vehicle storage accessories have always been popular – but the note here is that SUVs and crossovers are steadily becomming a larger portion of the North American vehicle fleet. Storage accessories are growing in popularity because there are more big vehicles with big unstructured spaces on the road now than before.

Another aspect to vehicle organization and storage accessory sales is the overlanding trend…many consumers have fallen in love with the idea of turning their vehicle into a “mobile command center,” with everything they need to survive for days on end. While a trunk organizer for an SUV might not seem like an overlanding accessory, there’s an overlanding/camping/prepper aspect to these products.

Takeaway: SUVs and crossovers are steadily becomming a larger portion of the US vehicle fleet. Marketing to late model and older SUV and crossover owners is probably a good idea.

DIY Diagnostic Tools

Last but not least, the number of DIY OBDII diagnostic readers sitting in people’s tool boxes and kitchen drawers is massive (tens of millions of these things are floating around). The odds that a regular everyday consumer will pull their own “check engine” trouble codes are good.

In the reviews of these diagnostic tools, consumers talk about how much they enjoy the transparency into their vehicle, and how empowered they are to fix easy problems as a result. Of course, anyone with even a little bit of repair knowledge understands a trouble code is merely a starting point. Still, it’s a great trend for the parts industry.

Of course, the rise of cheap diagnostic tools is both a blessing and a curse: More DIY/DIFM buyers than ever, but also more returns, more complaints about parts “not working,” and more phone calls and emails to the support team.

Takeaway: All automotive parts brands – and a lot of accessories brands – should assume their customers know just enough about diagnostics to be dangerous. Adding troubleshooting guides to instructions manuals and websites is a must. It’s a little bit of work to create that content, but it will save your customer support team time, reduce returns, and improve product review ratings.

Finally, if you enjoyed this post and the analysis in it, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish stuff like this all the time.

If you work in the automotive parts and acccessories industry, you’re juggling a lot of product identififcation data: SKUs, MPNs, ASINs, UPCs and GTINs, distributor part numbers, etc. It’s ridiculous.

Thes reason we have so many of these ID numbers?

1. Each manufacturer has their own part number for cataloging purposes, fitment data purposes, and of course ordering.
2. GTIN and/or UPCs are often used to track inventory, but third parties (like Amazon and Google Merchant Center) often require these numbers to upload data.
3. Warehouse distributors often have their own unique SKU which is needed for ordering.
4. Many ecommerce companies and retailers have their own internal SKU for their website or internal inventory management.
5. Amazon has their own unique SKU called an “ASIN” you that’s used for orders, reporting, advertising, inventory, etc.

Fun, right? Lots of numbers that are easy to transpose, confuse, import incorrectly, etc.

The goal of this article is to help auto parts and accesorries industry folksy understand what these different numbers are, and offer some suggestions for dealing with this mess.

Let’s Define All These Damn Numbers

Let’s start with some definitions:

SKU – Stock Keeping Unit: Typically an alphanumeric designation for a specific part that’s created by a retailer, distributor, or manufacturer’s internal use. It can be whatever the SKU “owner” wants it to be. SKUs are not consistent from one manufacturer to the next, retailer to retailer to retailer, etc., which means they can “collide” (when two or more different products have the same SKU, that is “SKU collision”).

UPC – Universal Product Code: A number that identifies a specific product, managed by a registration company called GS1 for a fee. Because UPC numbers are registered, they act as a universal ID that all retailers can use to identify products (at least in theory).

GTIN – Global Trade Identification Number: GTINs are essentially the same as UPCs, only technically a UPC is a GTIN…it’s confusing. GTINs are linked to specific individual products.

EAN – International Article Number: Europe’s version of the UPC, but also technically a GTIN.

MPN – Manufacturer Part Number: This is usually a manufacturer’s SKU – manufacturers will reference their own part number when they provide fitment data (eg a list of the vehicle makes and models a part is compatible with), catalog data (eg photos, descriptions, specs, dimensions, etc.).

ASIN – Amazon Standard Identification Number: A SKU for Amazon.com, but because Amazon tracks all their SKUs precisely, an ASIN can be a form of unique identification like a GTIN or UPC.

Brand Code – A four letter code issued by the Auto Care association that corresponds to a specific parts brand/manufacturer. You can look them up or free here, you just have to register an account. Because brand codes are always unique, they can usually be used with MPNs to create a unique SKU.

In terms of formatting:

• GTINs (which includes UPCs and EANs) are always numbers. Most of the time, a GTIN starts with several zeros.
• MPNs and SKUs can be letters or numbers, with or without dashes. SKUs and MPNs can even have spaces (only it’s really really dumb to put a space in a SKU/MPN).
• ASINs are always letters and numbers

Best Practice – Never Trust Anyone Else’s SKU (or MPN)

As mentioned above, SKUs and MPNs are a free-for-all. There’s no consistency, and there are dozens of situations where completely different manufacturers will use the exact same SKU for completely different products. This is called SKU collision, and it’s not good when it happens.

To avoid SKU collission, many distributors and retailers use their own SKU system. They often add a prefix to an MPN, as that’s a good way to make sure the SKU is unique while helping humans look at the SKU and know what it is.

For example, if all the Westin brand products that are available from a distributor have a “WESTIN” SKU prefix, it’s easy to tell when you’re looking at a Westin product.

Can’t We Just Use GTINs To Track Everything?

If you’re thinking, “Why would anyone bother to create their own unique SKU for every part when they could just use a UPC or GTIN?”, you’re definitely thinking about this problem the right way. Unfortunately:

• Not every manufacturer invests in GTINs/UPCs. GTINs/UPCs have to be registered with a company called GS1, and because GS1 charges a surprising up-front fee for registering these numbers, and another annaul fee to maintain the registration. Many manufacturers don’t bother because of the expense.
• Some UPCs are recycled. Because of the cost of registering new GTINs, some manufacturers will buy “used” UPCs that were registered decades ago by defunct retailers. These old GTINs are unique and associated with products that no longer exist (imagine a house brand from JC Penney – every product had a GTIN, but no one has used it in decades). Re-use of old GTINs is not allowed by GS1, but for a variety of reasons several manufacturers use recycled GTINs (they often don’t know they’re doing it).
• GS1 doesn’t give away GTIN data. Believe it or not, the company that has a global monopoly on product identification number registration doesn’t grant free database access to look parts up by GTIN. So, even if a manufacturer pays to register a GTIN with GS1, they can’t assume their customers will have a way to check/cross-reference the data.

GTINs are sort of a necessary evil. They’re hard to get away from because they’re so common and well-supported, but they’re also kind of a racket…GS1 charges a handsome fee to distribute GTINs and we’re not exactly sure why they charge so much or how they can get away with it.

Sidebar: If you’re a state or federal regulator, please look into GS1’s defacto monopoly.

What About Tracking Everything With ASINs?

An ASIN – or Amazon Standard Identification Number – is Amazon’s official SKU for a specific product. However, because Amazon is a behemoth, its ASINs are often used by retailers as a form of UPC. This isn’t a bad plan (ASINs have a lot of advantages in terms of tracking and lookup), but it’s not foolproof because Amazon doesn’t necessarily have ASINs for every product.

Also, Amazon sort of requires new products listed on its site to have a GTIN (there is a way to request a GTIN exemption, but it’s not well documented). As a result, if a product has an ASIN, it probably has a GTIN as well.

OK Fine – I’ll Make My Own SKUs. How Should I Do That?

Because SKUs and MPNs aren’t always unique, and GTINs or ASINs aren’t always available, your company may decide to use its own SKUs to track every product. If so, we have some suggestions:

1. Come up with rules/guidelines for creating SKUs that you and your staff can reference whenever a new part comes in.
2. Use a mix of letters and numbers.
3. Think about ways to include essential specs in your SKUs, like part brand/manufacturer, part finish, part type, item count, location in the warehouse, and so on.
4. Try to keep it short enough to remember so that you don’t have to immediately write it down when you see or hear it, assuming you’re manually picking, packing, and shipping.
5. Never start a SKU with a “0” (zero) or a letter “O”.
6. Never use a space in your SKUs.

For example, the SKU AFE-SAT-5.4-1283-E could refer to an AFE air intake with a SATin part finish that fits on a 5.4L V8 with the internal stock number of 1283 that’s stored in section “E” of the warehouse.

OR, that SKU could be simplified to AFE-SAT-1283 or just AFE-1283. Whatever makes sense to you.

Some More DIY Part SKU Examples (For Inspiration)

Example SKU: SSTAIL101524

SKU indicates product material, part type, and age:

• Material: Stainless Steel
• Part: Tailpipe
• Purchase Date: 10/15/2024

Example SKU: WPSILV60

SKU indicates part type and fitment:

• Part: Water Pump
• Fits Vehicle: Silverado
• Engine Size: 6.0L

Example SKU: ALT-GM-140-75CORE

SKU indicates part type, manufacturer, amperage, and core deposit:

• Part: Alternator
• Manufacturer: GM
• Amperage: 140
• Core Deposit: $75

Fake Example SKU: YUR2SLO

No offense!

Another Fake Example SKU: OU812

Who says this SKU business can’t be fun? Organizing an auto parts website is a hoot!

SKU Dos And Don’ts

We’re just going to keep going on and on about SKUs until you fall asleep…

SKU Dos

1. Keep it simple, so that you can train new hires to read them quickly.
2. Keep it short…but not so short that it doesn’t contain helpful info.
3. Start with letters to make sorting easier.
4. Use letters, numbers, and dashes. Special characters like _ ! @ * | don’t always play well with inventory management systems.
5. Document the SKUs somewhere important, and make that info available to everyone who works with your inventory.
6. Document the SKUs in your accounting system.

SKU Dont’s

1. Don’t re-use SKUs for different parts…if you have a SKU for a part that gets discontinued, that SKU should be discontinued as well.
2. Don’t use the letter “O”, the letter “i”, the letter “L”, or any other characters that can be easily confused.
3. Don’t use non-standard characters, like &, ~, ^, $, |, etc. The problem with these characters is that they’re not always easy to say or type into a computer. And, some data systems don’t support them.
4. Don’t use a SKU that’s so detailed it becomes unwieldy.
5. Don’t let anyone change your SKU system without good cause. Once you set up a SKU system, changing it can be a lot of work, and it can make historical analysis/records look-up that much harder.
6. NEVER start SKUs with the number zero. The first time you import data into Excel, there’s a good chance those zeros disappear.

In Summary

Ideally, all auto parts and accessories companies would be following one universal part numbering system that corresponded to a recognized fitment code, but that’s just not the world we live in.

So, if you’re a retailer trying to deal with all this data, you want to:

• Develop your own SKU system that makes finding parts and fulfilling orders easy.
• Keep track of MPNs, alternative SKUs, ASINs, and GTINs (which includes EANs and UPCs) for every SKU, as they can be really helpful for ordering, cross-checking, and more.

We often tell our clients that parts ecommerce is a data business, and SKUs are just one aspect of this data. Accounting for product catalog data like SKU, MPN, GTIN, and UPC doesn’t scratch the surface when it comes to fitment, cross-reference, dimensions, variants, and so on, but we’ll leave that for another post.

Have fun!

Updated May 2025.