This is how ecommerce is supposed to work.

I use a company called Rock Auto LLC who is based in some far off part of the USA.  I use them because it’s quicker and easier and often cheaper to deal with them than it is to deal with a local supplier here in the UK.  A couple of years ago I’d never heard of them, but now they are on my MVP list.  Why?  Because I appreciate the fact they have ecommerce down right.  Let’s take a look at the Rock Auto customer experience and you’ll see why I am impressed.

It'll never go back together again...

The website is not flashy, it’s not gimmicky. It gets straight down to business.  It’s easy to look at and easy to work out where you go to get what you want.  It’s equally easy to browse or search depending on your preference on how you want to shop.

Once you have drilled down to the parts you need for the car you have you are presented with a range of choices based on the manufacturer of that part, shipping location (vital information for an overseas customer, you want all your bits to ship from the same location to keep the costs down) and you can even see photos of the part, diagrams, spec info, etc.  Everything you need is there to make it easy for you to select the part you need.

You can select prices to be in US Dollars or converted to your local currency (in my case GBP) although they still bill in US Dollars so the price in your currency is indicative rather than precise.

When you get your basket together you select your shipping options. There is a well placed link to explain shipping options in terms of shipping time and cost.  Most shipping options then allow prepayment of the import duty and VAT (taxes for any non-Brits reading this).  This may seem like a small point, and to some an annoyance if they are hoping to sneak parts through the postal system without getting caught for import taxes but it really is a good thing because most carriers charge between £6.95 and £15.00 to process import duty and VAT at this end.  Pre-paying saves this charge.

The basket also allows you to include items “saved” (by entering a quantity of zero) so you can pick them up next time without searching, just go into your basket and change the quantity back to 1, 8, 16, whatever.

There is a live chat option which I have never used but seems a good idea too.  I have no idea what hours it is manned though, so those of us shopping in different time zones may not be able to use this feature as easily.

Once your card is processed and your order is on the system you get useful update emails automatically generated.  They are well thought out too.  For example your confirmation email gives a link back to each item you purchased, order status and separate link takes you directly to the tracking section of the carrier’s website which is shipping your order, right into your actual shipment.  It’s all just so seamless, its “joined up” and it works.

When there is a query on your order, for example I ordered a rotor arm as part of an order and this part was actually out of stock at their warehouse despite having been listed as available on the website, a real person sent me an email and the email contains hyperlinks back to my order and the item in question.  My options are explained and I just have to ping an email back to confirm my choice.  Easy.

None of this is rocket science.  This is just good ecommerce design/practice.  So why do so many other companies utterly PHAIL to offer a good web experience?  I’m afraid I have to name and shame JC Whitney as an utterly frustrating company to try do business with as an international customer due to the convoluted and slow methods of getting international shipping prices and options and placing an order to ship to UK.   Jegs and Summit also need to get demerit points because they charge a surcharge (around $20) to international buyers for no other reason than I guess they just can.  Summit were at least offering online international shipping options although that appeared to have gone last time I used their website. 

I have no idea how big Rock Auto is and how many people it employs.  It does however prove you don’t need to be the size of Amazon to offer a proper online shopping environment which supports your customers and has them coming back time and again as well as telling their friends how good it is and even writing blog posts on the subject...