Between 8% and 20% of the reference number that we search for or those of your customers search in your webshop, do not have a defined equivalence to your products, when on the other hand you do have the product in the warehouse or available at your suppliers. But as the saying goes: “Eyes that don’t see, heart that doesn’t feel”.
The issue is that since we normally do not analyze in detail what is happening in the search results, we take it for granted that it works, and we believe that we should not or cannot do anything else.
But one thing is indisputable, if your customers do not find the products they are looking for, they will not be able to buy them, no matter if they are available in your warehouse! Or if you are not able to quickly find the product they ask for, you could also lose the sale.
We are currently in a situation where there are auto parts databases on the market that are considered “de facto standards” (such as Tecdoc), where everyone uses these same tools and therefore everyone finds (or does not find) the same.
Every year hundreds of equivalences disappear in the suppliers’ catalogs. They disappear because newer products appear or they are just superseded by another product, then equivalences are redirected to all these new products. The problem is that you continue to have products based on references numbers that are no longer correctly or completely cross-referenced in the databases.
Let’s play with an example, but there are thousands of situations like this!
1) VALEO replaced the reference number “439503” with “439696”.
2) Imagine that you have stock in your warehouse a product referenced with “439503”.
3) Now a client asks you or looks for the PSA “5702A7”, (search for it in Tecdoc or in your database, please). Can you find the reference number “439503” that is standing in your warehouse? Possibly not, instead you find the new reference number “439696”.
Every year thousands of crosses disappear in the databases of the main manufacturers for different reasons, which means you lose the possibility of finding many of the solutions you may have in your warehouse.
The solution to the problem of missing equivalences is to maintain your own database that complements the current information found in the catalogs, an issue that will require a lot of dedication, perseverance and time.
At Factory Data we have data technology to capture, store and process all cross-list information that is continuously generated in the market. In this way, we can access all the historical equivalences that have been published at some point and thus complement the information that existsin official sources. Boosting your sales potential and minimizing the obsoletes generation.
