I was doing some online auto parts shopping today, looking for pinchweld. For those of you who have no idea what pinchweld is, it’s a soft-rubber-like seal that you use when installing glass in a car.
I was trying to avoid going from parts store to parts store looking for the stuff, so I started looking through auto parts websites. I quickly became frustrated because the the sites insisted that I enter the year, make, and model of my car in order to search for what is essentially a universal product. Of course, since the stuff isn’t model-specific, it didn’t come up in a search. I gave up, and drove to a couple parts stores and found what I nee
ded.
Later in the day, I was online searching through my favorite vintage VW parts store, and found myself wishing I could just put in the year and model of my car, and it would come up with the parts I needed.
Sometimes, you have to make a choice in how you present products online. In these two cases, I’d choose the method the VW parts house used. Why? Because while it wasn’t as convenient, I was able to find the parts I needed for my car. If your website doesn’t show a product and you carry it, the customer is likely to look elsewhere because they don’t know.