The Amazonification of the Dealership Parts Department

This article is brought to you through the DMM Podcast Partnership with The Multi-Point Inspection Podcast sponsored by InteliChek, the industry leader in automotive service studies.

Ibrahim Mesbah, Co-founder and CEO of RevolutionParts and a DMM Expert, joined Brandon Barnett on the Multi-Point Inspection Podcast. They delved into the challenges of the parts buying experience, explored opportunities for greater efficiency, and discussed how RevolutionParts is leading the charge on making parts purchases as seamless as online grocery shopping.

Born in Egypt, Ibrahim moved to Zambia when his parents, both medical doctors, took up positions with the World Health Organization. He had always been intrigued by the US and chose to attend college at Texas Tech before transferring to Arizona State University where he completed his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Computer Engineering.

“And then came PayPal”

After spending 5 years at PayPal, which at the time was an eBay-owned company, Ibrahim found himself immersed in a culture of innovation and exploration. This is where he developed a passion for payments and e-commerce, “finding ways to connect buyers and sellers in a safe and secure way.”

The brother of a friend ran the parts department of a local Arizona dealership and it soon became clear that automotive presented a unique opportunity, a huge industry that was “severely underserved.”

The parts-buying process is daunting. You need to figure out the part number, decide between OE and aftermarket brands, ensure it would fit in the car, find a source, check delivery times, and verify data accuracy. For the founders of RevolutionParts, these challenges shaped their mission to redesign the shopping experience. “The complexity of the data, auto parts applications, supply chain, and inventory” was significant, “but that is essentially our mission: How do we make this as easy as shopping for toilet paper on Amazon?”

“Were you scared?”

As first-time founders, Ibrahim and Andreas have been open about the challenges. “Just building a company in general is pretty hard, and it’s painful.” Ibrahim shares that the many ups and downs that come with trying to solve such a complex problem in such a vast industry have come with many setbacks; “I was naive, I didn't know what I was signing up for.”

It’s been 10 years since Ibrahim and Andreas began this journey, a journey which saw them bootstrap to their first $10 million. They have made a lot of progress, it’s a $400 billion opportunity. “People talk about making an impact, there is a massive opportunity to remove a lot of friction and waste out of the experience and make parts buying easier.”

COVID changed expectations

With the average consumer expecting that they can access information online, research, make a decision, complete the purchase, and have the product delivered to their doorstep, RevolutionParts is expanding its reach beyond the current 2000 franchise dealers already on its books to create an even bigger network, fast: “That's still not enough coverage where we have representation across every OE brand in every major metro area. How do we onboard dealers that are just willing to drop ship because there's a lot of waste and traditional shipping.”

The goal is to be the e-commerce platform for auto parts, the e-commerce platform of choice.

Ibrahim shares, “We have a goal to drive our $600 million in annual sales to about 3 billion by the end of 2026.” By continuing to grow its network of retailers and also partnering with wholesale buyers, RevolutionParts wants to partner with brands, especially on the “specialty, performance, and aftermarket side.” There is a big opportunity to enable their dealers to grow by making it easier for them to sell products already being sold in the dealership, through existing online channels.

“You can go into a dealership and buy performance brakes or accessories, and typically those are specialty aftermarket brands. We want to be the platform of choice for any parts brand or manufacturer and enable sales through their network of retailers and distributors.”

Imagine this. Genuine Ford parts are 1000 miles away

Now keep imagining. A Ford dealer signs up to RevolutionParts and a curated parts catalog, is accurate and constantly enriched in terms of the quality of the parts data. With competitive pricing and updated and accurate inventory data, it becomes clear where the specific part that is needed is. “Is it on the shelf, is it across the road at another Ford dealer, is it within the metro area?”

In the given scenario, the car enthusiast is doing their own repairs. They go online, find their neighborhood Ford dealer, and find the part they are looking for. They build a cart, check out, and notice that they have the option to receive this part within hours and in a cost-effective way.

“One day, every dealership is gonna use our solution”

Every dealer today has a website with their new car inventory and used car inventory. However many dealers still require the customer to complete a form or call in when it comes to parts.

Here are three reasons why your dealership needs to update the parts purchasing power on the website:

1. It improves the experience for a local customer (standard customer or repair shop) and removes the cost of dealing with incoming phone calls to the dealership.
2. It creates a new revenue stream.
3. It allows you to deal with obsolete parts more efficiently.

Last year, RevolutionParts facilitated $620 million in annual sales across 2000 franchise dealers.

“We know there is likely between $4 billion and $5 billion of OEM parts sold online. If you are buying an OEM part, whether you start your search on Google, your neighborhood dealer website, eBay, or Amazon, there's a 25, 30% chance it's one of our customers, and we're powering that experience.”

It has been ten years since the RevolutionParts story began and, according to Ibrahim, “We have a good team. We have great partners. We're just starting, scratching the surface of what's possible.”

You can listen to the full podcast here:

• Spotify Podcast
• Apple Podcast

This article is brought to you through the DMM Podcast Partnership with The Multi-Point Inspection Podcast sponsored by InteliChek, the industry leader in automotive service studies.