Podcast Overview
Richard Hill sits down with Radoslav (Rado) Chernaev, CEO of Autofixa, to get to the root of why automotive eCommerce has spent years trailing fashion and tech.
Rado’s answer comes down to one word: fitment.
The pair first met at Autofixa Live in Milton Keynes, in a room of 350 people from across the UK automotive parts industry. This conversation picks up where that day left off.
Selling car parts online is a different game. A fashion retailer deals with a product, a size and a colour. An auto parts retailer is managing 90,000 to 200,000 parts, legacy systems, patchy product data and few or no images, and every buyer is asking the same question: will it fit my car?
Rado shares the story of one retailer with 500,000 listings and a 10% return rate. A large share of those listings had no fitment data at all. What did exist was around four years out of date and the customer service team was answering compatibility questions by hand.
Autofixa focused on the 20% of products driving 80% of the returns, and within a year the return rate had dropped to around 3%, with stronger marketplace rankings on top.
This isn’t a polished software pitch. It’s a frank look at how bad data compounds at scale. One error repeated across hundreds of thousands of listings turns into wasted staff hours, lost margin, poor reviews and weaker visibility in Google and in AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude.
Rado is just as honest about AI itself. Autofixa uses it to scale fitment work, but every result is still checked in-house, because a hallucinated fitment means a returned part and an unhappy customer.
The conversation goes well beyond fitment. Rado explains why buyers are turning to aftermarket and green (refurbished) parts as household budgets tighten. His own hunt for Kia Sorento wiper blades turned up prices anywhere from £35 down to £2. He also argues that OEM brands gain control by selling on marketplaces directly, because resellers are already listing their products, usually with poor data.
Richard and Rado unpack what a one to two year OEM tender process really involves, from security and GDPR to disaster recovery and financial due diligence. They finish on where automotive eCommerce goes next, as AutoDoc, B&Q and Temu move into parts and more brands go direct to consumers.
If you sell automotive parts or accessories online, you’re weighing up a move onto eBay or Amazon, or you’re dealing with returns you can’t explain, this one’s for you.
Listen to the full episode now and don’t forget to hit subscribe.
Topics Covered:
00:00 – Introduction: Richard and Rado reconnect after Autofixa Live
03:12 – Why automotive lags so far behind fashion and tech online
09:22 – How Autofixa solves fitment at scale with data providers, automation and AI
12:45 – Case study: 500,000 listings and a 10% return rate cut to 3%
15:37 – How wrong fitment hits reviews, search visibility and margin
18:43 – Tighter budgets, an ageing vehicle parc and £35 vs £2 wiper blades
29:22 – Marketplaces: are brands losing control by selling on Amazon and eBay?
35:43 – Inside a two-year OEM tender process
39:24 – Where automotive eCommerce goes next: DTC, AutoDoc, B&Q and Temu
42:17 – Book recommendation and where to find Rado
Thank you to DataFeedWatch for sponsoring the eCom@One podcast.
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Richard Hill (00:02.251)
Hey Redo, how we doing?
Rado (00:04.45)
Richard, very well. Thank you. How are you?
Richard Hill (00:06.667)
Very good, very, very good. Now I'm at Redo at your event, Autofix Alive, which is probably about six months ago now. And it was like, said to, I said to Carrie Anne, I run the podcast, we've got to get you on. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate your time. So I think before we get into the nitty gritty of all things, automotive and automotive parts, et cetera, et cetera.
Rado (00:23.15)
Pleasure.
Richard Hill (00:31.661)
I think it'd be great for you to introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us how you sort of got into the world of automotive.
Rado (00:37.944)
Okay, so my name is Rado Radoslav, rather short. I am CEO of Autofixer.
Autofix is a service and technology provider for the automotive industry focused on e-commerce and building e-commerce infrastructure for large enterprise plants, but now also small and medium businesses. We basically what we basically do is we help these brands, retailers, resellers, distributors, dealers as well. We help them either start their e commerce journey
or expand or you know try being proficient by selling online. I started doing e-commerce fifteen twenty years ago when I was like finishing university. it was an automotive
I just you know, I've always loved online and online selling, etc. And it was kind of a hobby and passion and then be it be it became my job throughout the years. Different I've changed different companies. And then a few years ago I was invited into Autofixa as a like it was a different role, on to a project where we were supposed to build a marketplace for purely for automotive parts and it was really exciting and things changed slightly, but here I am like
Like doing e commerce with automotive parts. I love it.
Richard Hill (02:06.604)
So a long time in e-commerce and automotive. you know, thank you. Really looking forward to it, get it stuck into it. Obviously automotive, you know, is a, I think a really unique niche, a really unique set of challenges, problems, you know, exciting things that brands can work on. So we'll get into that. So obviously a lot of things that are spinning through my head now that I want to ask you.
Rado (02:18.966)
Yeah.
Richard Hill (02:33.61)
I think, you know, we spend a lot of time here working with automotive and different brands and a lot of the things acquire. I think, you know, different industries we work in, you and I think, I think you said on your talk or on some of my notes, know, automotive generally seems to sort of lag behind a lot of other industries, particularly sort of things like fashion and so forth. You know, why do you think parts and accessories are sort of so much slower to digitize?
you know, what's, what's maybe one thing that finally forces, retailers to sort of think, do know what we really need to catch up?
Rado (03:12.567)
So I mean I said it lags behind, but that's probably also an understatement to be honest. it's it automotive has always been very hard to as as a category to digitize, right? If you think for example, fashion, it's relatively straightforward because you have a product, a size and a color and
Richard Hill (03:18.688)
Hmm.
Rado (03:35.894)
you have images, like ninety-nine percent of the cases you have images because you need to sell that product online or without an image you couldn't. And you have a beautiful description and it's very similar to tech, like you know, earplugs and earphones and like a laptop. You have some specs and then you can easily put that spec online and then people would just you know choose the right option for them at the right price and purchase. Whereas
It I mean they're they're designed basically for e-commerce, fashion and tech categories, right? Automotive isn't like that. first of all you have enormous catalogs in the automotive of parts. You have you don't have images, which is a big it's a big problem. You have specific, you know, schematics of where the part would f the part would fit the vehicle, because we're talking about parts mainly, right?
Richard Hill (04:29.718)
Yep. Yep.
Rado (04:32.461)
And it like and you have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of different parts for multiple vehicles, right? And it's really hard to take a a photo of each and every one. It's expensive as well, and it's not designed like that. It's it's it's the industry is completely different. It has its own legacy system, it has very poor product data that you you would usually put on on a on a
web store for example, the data isn't like the material and the color, etc. It's it's completely different and beyond everything, and most importantly, Fitment. And we should probably, you know, talk about Fitman and what what is Fitman for the audience, probably everyone would know, but still Fitment and compatibility is kind of
The right the right vehicle, your own vehicle, matching that part, because one part can fit hundreds and hundreds of vehicle, perhaps vehicles, right? a combination of vehicles like the models, ears, engine type, sometimes chassis, etc. You know, a wiper blade can fit across so many different brands and models and makes, right? So you just have to have that fitment behind every part.
And that's very complex, right?
Richard Hill (05:56.895)
Yeah, I think, I think the automotive brands that are listening now, they'd be like, yep, yep. Yeah. Tick tick. You know, a sort of quite often a legacy system that's sort of maybe been in place for many, many years, you know, with things, things added and bolted on and, know, no images, you know, the sort of lack of maybe even those schematic drawings and just quite a tricky place to navigate.
And a very tricky place it can be for obviously customers to navigate and find and have that confidence that they're buying the right thing, which is, you know, a big part of what we're, what we'll get into. So Fitment, you know, that's, that's probably your, almost your middle name, is it sort of thing?
Rado (06:37.259)
Now it's yeah. The the industry itself is very how do I put it? i it used to be conservative, right? You have distributors, motor factors and garages and dealers selling all these parts. So you would walk in and just say, This is my vehicle and I need a braking pad, and you would like someone would tell you what the right part is for you and you Yeah, fine, I mean you know what's the price like can you fit it on my vehicle?
E-commerce changed the customer. So now the latest generation of people or buyers, we call them buyers, someone calls them customers, would expect to do everything online. you said it yourself previously when we were talking and discussing that you would ask your AI
whatever you're using like ChatGPT or or Clot or any of these guys, you would ask them, you know, I need I need to change my wiper blade, that's my vehicle, what's the best part? Or I need to fit a bumper on my car, what's the best place to buy it and how do I do it? Can I do it in my own garage or do I need like you would expect then
Richard Hill (07:35.467)
Yeah. Yeah. Hey. Yep. Yep.
Rado (07:51.928)
to have that all information served to you online and perhaps buy online, get delivered to your home. You're not gonna walk down to like a shopping mall for parts and like go to different stores and pick the right one. It's just so different right now.
Richard Hill (08:08.33)
Yeah. Yeah. I think that this sort of, we obviously were chatting before that fact that, know, obviously, you know, the fact that search is changing massively, you know, has been, you know, and it always will do. There's always, you know, new, technologies and so forth coming through, but never like the last sort of 18 months with LLMs and people using, you know, chat, GPT, Claude, and literally, you know, there's not a day goes by that I don't sort of have a conversation on my drive to, I've got a 15 minute drive to work. And yesterday I had a
Rado (08:18.849)
Yes.
Rado (08:34.886)
Ha ha ha.
Richard Hill (08:37.58)
I just got back of holiday and I have to admit that I was, I was in a meeting in the afternoon. hadn't had a chance to prepare for, so I just discussed the meeting with Claude and, and then I looked at certain products and so forth. And, and, you know, obviously I am reliant on the quality of that information, but at the same respect, know that certain industries information is not going to be as good as other industries. So it's like, you know, I think automotive, particularly if your data isn't right.
then your information in the LLMs is going to be incorrect as well because the LLMs are going to draw that information from somewhere. So maybe I think it'd be good for you to maybe walk us through how sort of Autofix actually solves that problem, obviously big at scale.
Rado (09:11.489)
Yes.
Rado (09:22.923)
Yeah. So
Fitman is probably the single biggest thing people outside of automotive e-commerce underestimate, right? they don't understand, they know about it, but they don't understand where it comes from and how it is, how complex it is, and where it needs to go because of all the legacy system that I that I just that I was talking about. In most e-commerce categories, for example, just as an example, a custom customer would ask, Do I want this? Whereas in automotive,
Richard Hill (09:43.03)
Yeah.
Rado (09:54.274)
the it's a it's a completely different question. The original question is does it actually fit my vehicle? Does it fit my car, right? So you have to accurately answer these questions, this question, this particular question, and in at scale, which is which is complicated because if everything is at scale, you have a catalogue of like 90,000 or 200,000 products, right? So and you have
Richard Hill (10:00.299)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rado (10:22.311)
Imagine you do you do not have the the right fitment, which is actually quite common and that's where we as a business waterfixer helps our clients. You create a
problem at scale, right? So you have to be very careful how you go about your data and where it comes from, how good it is. You just have to be precise, right? It it's it's a it's a big problem and it's the number one kind of problem or challenge in the industry to digitize. Now we work how we solve and we solve that and what we do is we we work with
catalog providers, data providers who hold the data, who who create the data. It's not like you are a brand or manufacturer of let's say, you know, wiper blades or baking products, it doesn't matter. You can't just create that. You need to get the information for all the vehicles that you wanna fit it to, create that pro product.
and then feed that information into a catalog where the distribution network can get that information. And once someone walks into that like brick and mortar, like walks in and asks this is my vehicle, this is my registration number of my vehicle, my VIN number, you know, what's the right product? The same is for online, right? It just at scale. And yeah the main how we started doing this this years ago was through a you know people data team
Richard Hill (11:30.154)
Yep.
Richard Hill (11:41.994)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rado (11:54.37)
But people with experience in the automotive industry at the same time blended with an experience with digitizing and like e-commerce. And it changed to us building our own automations and tools because it's a repetitive work sometimes, most of the time actually now. And it went from us building those tools to us building those tools, but integrating also AI to do it at scale.
which helped us as a business you know tremendously in the past like you said, like eighteen months or so for us to be able to expand faster, you know, be more accurate, etcetera. Of course we run everything in-house to check if it's the right one 'cause we don't want some AI hallucinating. Because like I said, one error can be an error at scale can just, you know, be a massive problem.
Richard Hill (12:45.517)
Yeah. Is there maybe an example you're able to share of maybe a customer that's benefited from your service?
Rado (12:55.18)
yeah, absolutely. So we we analyzed I mean I'm not gonna give the exact name, but we were for example, we were analyzing a customer's store.
Richard Hill (13:03.051)
Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah.
Rado (13:08.718)
And they came with a very specific problem which we might need to talk about, which is kind of a high percentage for returns. And the question was, why are we having so many returns and why are we not rating so good like on marketplaces? And in this particular case, the plan had 500,000 listings online. it's like a problem on scale on scale. And they had
and when they were talking to us without like signing a contract, you know, it was just a scoping if we can work together was they they were having a ten percent return rate.
Now we've identified the problem and it was quite simple because when you opened their listings you would it's you would have seen that a significant percentage of their of their listings would lack Fitman at all. Like they're they're not gonna have any Fitman. And the client was dealing with that through customer service, like people answering messages, right? Which is which is a lot slower. And you you know, if you walk into a store, online store and you s you need to ask about Fitman.
Richard Hill (14:07.105)
Yep. Yeah.
Rado (14:14.064)
You'd you'd rather move to the next door where you can automatically check against your vehicle. So you're losing a client. But they were still having a lot of clients asking these questions, and it's just time time consuming to convert. And on top of that, the the the Fitman that they had was probably four years old. And people think you know, you drop your Fitman once and you never update it, which is very wrong. So the Fitman was wrong and not updated, which was causing them first not to rank very highly on the marketplace, and second to generate.
quite a lot of returns and a lot of internal kind of communications with you know internally plus externally with customers. Absolutely yes. And we just fixed we've just fixed the problem. Yeah yeah yeah we fixed the problem we said this is
Richard Hill (14:50.477)
So a lot of additional manpower is getting wasted. lot of obviously cash, a lot, a lot of issues there that compound. Yeah. Yeah.
Rado (15:02.56)
We analyzed the returns and it's it's the Pareto thing. It's the Pareto thing where you know twenty percent of your products cost eighty percent of your returns. So we fixed that twenty percent and immediately the the return rate started dropping. of course we've we had a contract one year after the return rate is around three percent. and there are not that many.
Richard Hill (15:11.457)
Yeah.
Rado (15:28.706)
you know, fitment issues. It's it's different and you know, around performance vehicles and and et cetera, where fitment isn't so accurate, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Hill (15:33.238)
Yeah.
Richard Hill (15:37.901)
It's just huge, it? That sort of getting it right ultimately is, you've got a happier customer, which is the most important thing, you know, and it's, you know, in e-commerce and the it's about that retention lifetime value of that client. That experience at the start is absolutely key. They get the thing that they want. You know, they've ordered it seamlessly. Obviously there's a lot we could talk about there, but you know, ultimately the fitment is correct. They've got the right thing.
Rado (15:47.873)
Absolutely.
Rado (15:54.283)
Exactly.
Richard Hill (16:05.664)
You know, then they were looking for that next thing or they're looking to recommend, where did you buy your bumper from? I got it from. Yeah. I was great. I just, I just Googled it, found it, ordered it. It was there the next day. Nothing more to say. You know, that's, that's how, you know, a great experience. There various touch points on post purchase, you know, for the delivery and maybe, you know, the vet, obviously there's a lot of other stuff you could do to really, really.
sort of turbo that experience, but then ultimately you want them to come back. Whereas if the fitment's incorrect, they're not buying from you again, potentially, unless you, you know, there's obviously things you can do to turn them into a raving fan by delivering it personally, but you can't do that a thousand times, can you? But ultimately you've got the cost of, of customer service going through the roof, you know, reputation, reviews, things like your reviews are very relied upon in search now as well, you know, so, you
Rado (16:51.021)
Exactly.
Richard Hill (16:57.234)
know, chat GPT is not going to recommend you if you've got three and a half stars on reviews.io or, know, so then it compounds the whole, it's not just about you've lost a customer, you've lost reputation, it's search reputation, you know, it's that lifetime value, which, but then when you're dealing with, you know, certain parts, obviously the margins are really tight. You've just took the margin completely out of it. So profitability has gone. So yeah, the knock on effect. So you are.
Rado (17:02.08)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Rado (17:13.015)
Exactly.
Richard Hill (17:26.348)
You must have a lot of happy clients for do. Well, I was in a room in Milton Keynes with you and there was about 400, 500 people in the room. Maybe I haven't got the number correct. Yeah. And there was a very, very, very positive vibe around the brand and what you're doing. So hats off to you because it's a tough industry to crack in terms of getting those things right.
Rado (17:29.962)
so I really hope so. I mean we're s striving to do
Rado (17:41.592)
Three fifty, yeah.
Rado (17:50.444)
I hope so.
Richard Hill (17:56.139)
Yeah. And obviously you've got a, you you sort of got a host of big brands that you work with a lot of the sort of, very well known car brands, for example, you know, you use your services. So it's really, really great to hear. So I think, yeah. okay. So I'm thinking of best direction, to take things. think, you've got this sort of non-branded branded. don't know if the arguments, the right word, but you know, we've, we've got, like, as you know, quite a lot of automotive clients selling.
different products, know, and having products made and so forth. You know, what do you think's maybe driving customers, to sort of maybe choose more non-branded products and, know, and that sort of messaging around that and the different sort of changes maybe in product ranges.
Rado (18:43.203)
Yeah, that's a that's a really interesting question there. it's a l it it has a lot to do, I think, with macroeconomics environment right now. It plays a huge part, right? Because consumers or buyers have had several years of you know, pressure economic on household budgets like food, energy, borrowing, you know, what else, insurance, yeah.
Richard Hill (18:46.068)
Hehehehe
Rado (19:12.149)
almost everything has become a lot more expensive. And with with with that, of course, at the same time, in the UK s in Europe as well, like whole Europe, but like UK specifically, we've got like an aging vehicle park, so people keep their vehicles for a longer period of time.
And so they they have to fix their cars, right? And if you're driving a 10-year-old, you know, Toyota as an example, any car actually for that matter, I'm not necessarily going to make the same purchasing decision for the 10-15-year-old vehicle, as somebody who's, for example, driving a like a brand new 80 grand car, right? So so the economics at
Richard Hill (19:53.834)
Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah.
Rado (20:00.28)
a lot of a lot more to that price complexity. marketplaces offer this transparency. so you can choose between original product and you can choose aftermarket but there is premium aftermarket and like you know aftermarket and there's white box and you know I was actually doing this on doing this on my own the other day. I drive a Kia Sorrento, a big one because I have two kids, you know I I need I need something really big.
Richard Hill (20:27.326)
Yeah, that's a good car for sure. That's a good Fabi car. Yeah, it's like a tank.
Rado (20:30.703)
Yeah, it's like a it's like a truck, right? It's huge. Exactly. So and it's two two years old, right? The vehicle. and I had to buy I had to buy wiper blades now. And it's weird because the original ones from Kia are you know at
one price like thirty-five pounds, something like that, right? If you w if you go to the marketplace, you can you have all the selection from the original one from 35, you have premium aftermarket at 30, you have normals at like 20 or 18, you and you can go down to like two pounds. It's incredible because I can go I can I can yeah I can buy I can buy for two pounds. So it really depends what you're looking for and how old your vehicle is one you want to add to that vehicle.
Richard Hill (21:24.732)
Mm. And what did you, which one did you buy?
Rado (21:26.605)
is it but I but I didn't buy the original one I bought like premium because the car is like two years old right but if my but if my vehicle was like 15 years old I would have definitely not spent that much and imagine this on on a headlight like a an an original headlight for if I'm driving a you know 2010 BMW for example right
Richard Hill (21:32.352)
Yeah.
Richard Hill (21:41.536)
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Hill (21:48.973)
I had exactly the same situation with a bit. I've got an old E46 2003, so 23 years. It's like my second love of my life.
Rado (21:52.185)
Really?
Rado (21:56.783)
Amazing car.
Rado (22:02.327)
I ha I my my my my dad had one and we kept it to this day we kind of still renovate that ka that vehicle. Restore okay.
Richard Hill (22:05.1)
Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, it's like my Yeah, it's literally my so but unfortunately, the the front splitter was was, you know, it's carbon is a CSL front splitter and it was it was split. And I had the same dialogue because it was something like 900 pounds for the proper carbon or maybe 1100 pounds or something like this is about two years ago, three years ago. And then it was like, there's this one that all the options.
Rado (22:27.151)
Exactly.
Richard Hill (22:34.838)
But then there's this tussle of, well, you know, it's my baby. I want to get the best one, but at the same respect, that is ridiculous price for a splitter. So I didn't spend this. I was down here and yeah.
Rado (22:41.591)
Exactly.
Rado (22:45.773)
But like it that's also b b based on what the customer expects and the great thing about nowadays about e commerce and about like marketplaces is you have all the options. Now I actually wanted to say something about that as well. If you are restoring a a vehicle that you love, a vehicle that that that is a classic car that you that you don't wanna get rid of because you love it, right? And it's a great engine, etcetera, you perhaps might spend for an original part if you
Richard Hill (23:04.363)
Yeah.
Rado (23:15.747)
even find original part for the vehicle like that and you don't necessarily want to spend on on the cheapest possible option just to get it but if you're driving if you're driving a 10-year-old car because and it's like your daily vehicle and you need to change your headlight
Richard Hill (23:23.754)
Yep. That's so true.
Rado (23:35.089)
I mean the example is like a BMW that's the ten, fifteen year old a BMW. You wouldn't necessarily pay like a fifteen hundred pounds for a new head, like you would get like a
you know an aftermarket version for like five hundred. Quite a lot of of the people would actually also go nowadays for the green parts, which is like the industry's refurbished parts. So you have all three options. You have the the very brand new regional equipment part, which is of course most expensive one. You have the aftermarket which is a range of different pricing and
Richard Hill (23:58.273)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rado (24:10.254)
different brands, different prices, different quality as well. You know, quality is super important there. And then you have the green part, which is a refurbished part which a lot of people go to and and they they wouldn't be wrong going with like a refurbished with a green part.
Richard Hill (24:23.308)
Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we find that we do a lot with classics. I think I mentioned before we came on classic cars, you know, and you've got those it's literally, you know, someone's life is this, you know, 30, 40, 50 year old classic, you know, some of the Jags, Land Rovers, you know, the stuff that's like been in the, you know, it's like granddad's garage for the last 25 years. And he spent, you know, way more than he'll ever get back maybe, but it's not really about the money and some of these things is it's about just that genuine.
Rado (24:38.788)
Yeah, exactly.
Rado (24:50.585)
Exactly.
Richard Hill (24:52.702)
You know, and then there's everything, there's everything in between because, know, a lot of people want to do that, but then they, maybe, you know, it's, it's a cost thing. So there's a whole mix of customers out there, isn't it? So it's, it's, it's catering potentially for all of them. If that's, know, but obviously. Yeah.
Rado (24:53.53)
Exactly.
Rado (25:07.778)
Exactly. As a retailer nowadays online, you I think it's the retailers' job to educate the the the the buyer what the option is. It's not just putting, you know, twenty similar products out there on the screen in front of everyone. You need to explain why one wiper blade or one breaking pattern or whatever
Richard Hill (25:29.43)
Yeah.
Rado (25:31.37)
Why is one 10 and the other ones 40 pounds? What's the difference for the addition what's the difference for the additional 30 pounds? Is it like the warranty? Is it the longevity? Is it like the brand? Is it like different specification? Is it the quality in the if it's the quality, why is it the quality? And we help as well with that. And you said it yourself, you know, ranking and feedback and it plays a a massive part in this.
Richard Hill (25:41.44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Hill (25:56.813)
Yeah, I mean, that's literally how you rank. That's how you, you know, that is, you know, when you're thinking about, you know, you know, the, the automotive folk that are listening now, you know, that is literally the world we are living in where, you know, there's a lot of competition for everything, isn't there? No matter what you sell an automotive, you know, it's definitely up there.
Rado (26:06.884)
Mm.
Richard Hill (26:14.72)
But if you are creating this content that is educating people on, on these differences and that's, know, maybe like we've discussed like price quality material, longevity, you know, depending on the products, there's all different things, know, when, when search engines, whether that's Google, you know, whether that's Claude, whether that's chat, GPT, whether that's Bing, you know, they've got to decide who to rank, who to surface in those LLMs, you know, and that comes from, you know, your footprint out there.
Rado (26:28.837)
Yes.
Richard Hill (26:42.484)
online, whether that's know the product feeds you're using, you know, viral to fix that are going and feeding into Amazon, whether that's your product data that's pushing into Google shopping, whether that then ultimately is, you know, those top 10 listings in Google, obviously, depending where you are in the world, that changes a lot. There's a lot of paid ads and so forth. But ultimately, that quality of information, and then that interaction on the website, those are all the signals that are going to mean you're going to surface more.
People are going to buy more. So the days are well and truly gone where you can just go, all right, I've got a feed. I pushed it in and that's it. It's like, well, yeah, the same as everybody. Everybody's doing this maybe. Well, you know, if it was like this playing field, it's leveled, but then you want to have these sort of bells and whistles using the right tech, adding the right information. It's going to surface you. Yeah. Yeah.
Rado (27:37.126)
You're I agree. You have to move what you just said was absolutely spot on. You have to move upstream, you have to improve the catalog, constantly and update it, which improves the fitment online, which leads to improvement in the search results. And improvement in the search results is where the economics really change, right? where you get like the traffic and you convert.
Richard Hill (28:01.845)
Yeah.
Rado (28:05.145)
you know, give the com the customer, we say that we we we should give the customer the confidence that they're buying the right product before they actually reach the checkout. Right? They need to know this is the vehicle this is my vehicle, but this is the right part for my vehicle, the right quality, with the right warranty, with the right refund options, etc., and the right shipping. And it's kind of yeah. So it's yeah, it's it's complex.
Richard Hill (28:17.129)
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Hill (28:24.585)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like absolute confidence in making that decision. So it's like, you got to have this, you got to have, know, like you say, like the fitments are just rock solid. The reviews are rock solid. The process on the website of purchasing and the associated products. If you've got the wrong products and it's, you know, you're, you know, you're buying a BMW bumper and then you see a MG.
Rado (28:32.741)
Yeah.
Richard Hill (28:51.179)
you know, whatever, staring at me like, what the heck? You know, it's over. So it's over.
Rado (28:54.449)
Yeah, it's not like the fashion industry where you just I mean, you I like these sneakers and I'll try them on and if they don't fit or I don't you know like them I can I can actually keep them from time t wear them from time to time or if it's a t-shirt and it just doesn't fit you just send it back and you don't care. You you don't wanna deal with like if if you're changing a part on the engine, you don't wanna deal with that, right? You don't wanna deal with the wrong part, right? It's not fun.
Richard Hill (29:03.285)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Richard Hill (29:14.313)
Yeah.
Richard Hill (29:22.827)
No, no, Okay. So, marketplaces, you know, as, as, as a business here, you know, most of our clients are on marketplaces and that's not, we don't manage that, that piece, you know, wherever I am much, you know, paid ads and SEO and so forth and email. but obviously a lot of our clients are on there. You know, what would you say to potential automotive brands that are looking to, you know,
Rado (29:23.651)
So yeah.
Richard Hill (29:48.838)
go and advertise on marketplaces that may be a little bit nervous about losing control of that sort of brand where they're going on, say Amazon, for example. But then they've spent a lot of time building the brand and their asset and their domain and their brand. What would you say about them? So bring them around. Should they do it? Shouldn't they do it?
Rado (30:10.377)
yeah, thank you. That's a great question. and thanks for asking this because this is kind of the question that we get, like the first and initial most important question that we get from the big OEM brands that we kind of service and work with. they ask the same question.
So because they're nervous, right? I'd probably say you're not losing control, you're actually gaining control. It's it's the truth is is the opposite. I'd probably say that the customer has already made the decision for you because customers don't really care about like channel strategies, they shop where it's convenient and quick for them. and
I would say that 90% of your or even more than that of your product catalog is already on the marketplace anyway, on eBay, on Amazon and other marketplaces. So it's not the question is not, is it the right moment? Because you're probably already late, and then am I losing control by doing it? Like am I decreasing the value of my brand by by doing a marketplace? No, it's quite the opposite. You're actually
Going there to fix your brand identity on the marketplace because you can't rely as a brand, you can't rely on hundreds of others resellers, distributors, you know, retailers selling your brand by following your parent guidelines. They would choose or they would sell.
They are there for the sale, but they're not there to represent your brand. They would not necessarily, you know, put the right description. most of them might not have the right data. So it's like they're damaging the fitment and they're damaging the brand. So if you're selling if you're a big brand and someone's selling, a dealer is selling your brand, but they haven't fixed their fitment on the marketplace on Amazon or eBay, they're probably selling with wrong fitment. It means that you're buying just like BMW or like Audi or Volkswagen or Toyota, it doesn't matter. You're buying a product for Toyota.
Rado (32:07.124)
And you get the product of the original product from a marketplace from a third-party seller, not the kind of official brand, right? And you get something wrong. And you're and then the only thing you have in your mind is like I just, you know, they send me the wrong part, right? And if you if you actually go on the marketplace, if you're a big brand and you go on the marketplace directly.
Richard Hill (32:24.031)
Yeah.
Rado (32:30.758)
then you own that experience and you start owning that customer and the customer journey and you can improve the message, the quality, the the you know, the brand experience, the brand messages out there. and you also benefit from a lot more sales 'cause there is there is the traffic is there and it's it's it's gigantic. So you just benefit from it as well on top of that.
Richard Hill (32:54.656)
Yeah.
Rado (32:54.952)
it just gives you greater c you don't lose control. Your direct and consumer store marketplace just gives you greater control over the experience. Stronger brand representation, customer relationship, loyalty as well, and better long-term kind of economics. that's what we represent, yeah.
Richard Hill (33:02.111)
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Hill (33:06.282)
Yeah.
Great. Yeah. Great answer. Great answer. think, you know, it ultimately exposes you to so many customers. Yeah. Yeah. So what I'd like to do now, we'll do, deep breath. I'm going to do a quick fire round. I'm going to ask you five quick fire questions, that, you've to answer in sort of five seconds or less. Okay. So let's go. So, so question one.
Rado (33:35.164)
Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it.
Richard Hill (33:39.441)
eBay or Amazon for a brand selling auto parts today. Which one?
Rado (33:44.474)
eBay first.
Richard Hill (33:45.693)
eBay first. Thank you. Biggest mistake automotive brands make are marketplaces right now.
Rado (33:51.63)
Underestimate the data quality.
Richard Hill (33:55.232)
Great. So marketplace first or D C first for a brand, but for a brand, for a brand that is brand new marketplace.
Rado (34:00.209)
Marketplace first. Always.
Rado (34:05.764)
Marketplace first immediately. Massive traffic out there that you cheaply gain from, right? Instead of investing in ads and you know brand positioning.
Richard Hill (34:07.593)
Yeah, yeah, agreed.
Richard Hill (34:13.695)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So will AI replace most data product data teams in e-commerce within three years?
Rado (34:24.058)
not replace help them enhance and scale. Definitely not replace. no d the the the category is just too complex for AI for now.
Richard Hill (34:37.085)
Agreed. So one brand outside automotive that you think is the best e-commerce operator in the world. E-commerce operator in the world. Dyson. that's a good one. That's a good one. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're not too far from here. They're well, they're one of their farms. Yeah. Massive land. Yeah. Massive landowners in the UK. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant.
Rado (34:47.526)
Dyson.
Rado (34:57.369)
really? Cool. Yeah.
They are the
Richard Hill (35:03.409)
Okay. So, obviously we've covered a lot of ground. I think, I know a couple of other sort of final questions, if you don't mind. So I know, you know, lot of big brands, use you, you know, you're gonna go to your, your site and a lot of the sort of who's who have the sort of big brands use your, your, your, your, technology, SAS and software and so forth, for their marketplace presence and to get that consistency across all the different outlets.
You know, what does the vetting conversation look like from the other side? What do other sort of brands like maybe Jaguar actually check when it hands sort of their relationship and their sort of catalog over.
Rado (35:43.43)
Huh. A great question again. Yeah, that's a it's an interesting one. It's a yeah, no, no, no, that's not tough, it's very interesting actually. It's it's an interesting because people sometimes imagine winning a major OEM.
Richard Hill (35:44.779)
That's the last tough one. Yeah.
Rado (35:58.919)
company is mainly about kind of demonstrating our technology and or our portfolio with you know clients that we have they we to get to the point where we sign with or and we work with a brand like that it's first of all it's really slow the process. It it can take one year, two years with like I don't want to name brands but like we've worked with the process was two years.
And it goes through a massive tender process. So they can't just give you the award you the contract because they like you or because they they like the company. They might but it's a tender process.
That goes through multiple rounds, and each round requires a lot of work by the team. It requires they look at at security, you know, JLR, especially right now, you know, security, GDPR, your infrastructure, your uptime, your business continuity policies, your disaster recovery policy, your processes, your data governance, your escalation procedures. We were asked to prepare a
a specific policy for how we manage you know batteries in the office, you know, that kind of thing. And these policies are actually being analyzed and they have to fit certain regulations in in the UK and in Europe. And if you fit everything, then there is a second round a round with due diligence where they would kind of you know check
how the company reacts, what's the opinion about the company online. They would some of the bigger companies would dive even deeper and analyze your financial situation because they need to make sure that you know your company's you know stable. Exactly. Exactly. They don't want to risk it. So it's you know with the with the smaller ones it's of course it's easier because you know they want they wanna win fast. But these guys, the big ones, it's a it's a it's a really tough
Richard Hill (37:44.819)
Yeah. Yeah. Sound. Yeah.
Richard Hill (38:00.224)
Hmm. Hmm. No, I I appreciate that insight because it's, you know, I think there'll be a lot of people listening that are doing different things and looking to, you know, work with bigger, bigger brands and, know, so I think it's, you know, some of those things that maybe you wouldn't think about if you obviously, if you've not done it before. but yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. There's quite a lot to it and quite obviously it's a lengthy process and
Rado (38:05.031)
Process.
Rado (38:20.133)
Absolutely.
Richard Hill (38:25.515)
you know, that sort of very detailed due diligence, a bit like selling a business maybe where it's, know, yeah, yeah.
Rado (38:30.566)
Yeah, no, exactly. It's it really is like selling a business. You're absolutely spot on there. It's so much due diligence going in. Yeah. And then you have competitors. So you have to also blindly propose and and c like commercials that wouldn't necessarily fit your own you know company's model, but you have to adopt something new to kind of beat your competitors to win a project.
Richard Hill (38:37.503)
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Hill (38:53.835)
Yep.
course. Yeah. A very bespoke sort of pricing structure potentially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, yeah, yeah. The bigger the deals, that's the world we're in, guess, isn't it? So well, brilliant. Now I always like to sort of end on a couple of questions around sort of future predictions. I think, you know, where does, where does, automotive e-commerce go next? You've got this AI driven fitment.
Rado (39:02.778)
yes, exactly.
Rado (39:10.116)
Exactly. Yeah.
Richard Hill (39:24.171)
We've got, know, marketplace consolidation and marketplaces, obviously brands going, direct to consumer, you know, to contend with, you know, or maybe, you know, there's all sorts of things happening. You know, what would you say three years from now? What does a sort of a successful 10 million plus automotive retailer really needs to sort of have nailed down have fixed.
Rado (39:46.718)
Okay, good. Yeah, we we think about those things quite a lot in the business, right? I think we're about to see several changes happen at once. I think we're gonna see quite a lot more direct to consumer stores in the industry. the margin there is a lot bigger because you sell directly.
Richard Hill (39:51.211)
Hmm.
Richard Hill (40:06.794)
Yeah.
Rado (40:07.855)
I think you would see continued marketplace growth as well, probably some consolidation, but because at some point it was you know just one mark big marketplace just like eBay, now you see quite a lot of new marketplaces coming into the picture. And I can name them of course because they're quite openly, you know, aggressively coming into the market, like Autodoc, for example. they build their marketplace platform now, they're huge, they're kind of expanding, trying to challenge eBay, eBay is like the number one.
Amazon has al have always been there, but you have also BMQ coming and opening their a parts category, right?
Richard Hill (40:42.943)
Yep.
Rado (40:48.079)
you have Timu, the Chinese one also opening their parts category, huge, right? So and you have a lot of others that are probably gonna pop up very soon. The category is the industry itself is huge, right? And yeah, obviously a lot of AI is gonna come in, which would obviously help with much better fitment technology, which we are also working on and and actually offering right now. Yeah.
Richard Hill (40:52.745)
Yep.
Rado (41:15.951)
It's not one thing individually that's gonna change all of them together. I think the industry is now ready to do e-commerce in general and it's like you know gonna expand really fast.
Richard Hill (41:27.531)
When I listen to that list, I think how exciting, you know, I know it's, you know, there's a, there's a, know, there's work and there's, you know, there's, sort of maybe apprehension, of course. And that's, that's any industry, but it very exciting. You know, I think it feels like automotive is really coming into the more, more into the digital side. You know, obviously it's been there for a while, but as we discussed, right at the beginning, beginning, this sort of lag, potential lag or a lot of lag, you know, because of the
historical sort of challenges, know, with the large catalogues, legacy, da da da. So exciting to see this sort of almost like this bloom of automotive over the next few years, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, Riddhu. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. I like to end every episode with a book recommendation to have any book in the world that you would like to recommend. Doesn't have to be,
Rado (42:00.178)
Absolutely.
Rado (42:04.048)
Exactly.
Rado (42:10.437)
I also, yeah. Yeah.
Rado (42:17.767)
Major.
Richard Hill (42:24.689)
Automotive related or anything, you know, not before he isn't gonna be automotive related but anything at all anything
Rado (42:29.967)
No, it's not. the last book I I I read, it took me a while to read it because it's a big one. I read From Third World to First, the Singapore story, because I l I used to live in Singapore. yeah. And yeah, this is the the autobiographical kind of memoir by Lee Kwan Yoder.
Prime Minister who served for 45-50 something years and he basically you know took Singapore from a third world country to a first. and the book is is huge.
But at the same time it's it's written in a way that is very easy to read and extremely interesting. And it for me personally it helped me realize a few things about the business as well and how to do stuff around the business, you know, how to grow, etc. Not personal growth, but like the business and how a a one man kind of changed the whole country and what he did for his for for
Richard Hill (43:22.283)
Mm.
Richard Hill (43:34.193)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rado (43:43.133)
people there. It's
Richard Hill (43:45.675)
That actually sounds fascinating. I also used to, I lived in Singapore for nine months when I was sort of 20, 22, I think. So it's a place close to my, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, quite some time ago, but yeah, yeah, I was studying, studying out there. but as part of my university degree, did two years in the UK, one year there. I was meant to do one year there, but I did sort of, about seven, eight months and then traveled, the rest. But yeah, I studied there in Singapore university. Yeah. Yeah.
Rado (43:50.897)
Awesome. really?
Rado (44:12.529)
And I mean the it's called the book is called from Third World to First. It's the Singapore story, so it's big but it you can read it quite quickly, right? It's just
Richard Hill (44:19.817)
Yeah, no, I will. So we'll link that up in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. For those that want to find out more about yourself, more about auto fix, what's the best way to do that?
Rado (44:24.913)
My pleasure.
Rado (44:30.405)
Or fix it dot com or just contact me on LinkedIn.
Richard Hill (44:33.781)
Fabulous. Well, thank you for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure. And I'll speak to you soon. Thank you. Bye.
Rado (44:38.161)
Meet you. Yeah, thank you, Richard. Bye.
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