Extensive feedback and research leads to enhanced customer purchase experience for agricultural or construction machinery through Partformachines new website.
With business continuing to increase apace, a revised and improved web platform was deemed necessary not only to cope with the growth in both traffic to the site and the number of references on offer, but also to create a better customer journey and future-proof the platform, for the next stage of Partsformachines’ development.
Having reached the end of its second trading year, Partsformachines has seen growth in all areas. Customer numbers more than doubled in 2022 with, at the same time, a substantial uplift in individual order values. The number of supplier partners also increased notably in its second year, while the total number of parts now referenced has increased almost tenfold.
“The Partsformachines concept proved itself viable in its first year and growth in our second year has exceeded all predictions in many aspects of the business. We have been surprised and delighted about how our supplier partner base has expanded and how our suppliers, almost across the board, have been quick to give us access to vastly increased numbers of references,” explains PFM Press Officer, Simon Maurice.
“The overall effect has been that we realised early in 2022 that we needed to fundamentally redesign our platform, in order, not only to cope with these factors but also to maintain and ultimately improve one of our fundamental strengths, Partsformachines’s customer journey. This we have now put in place with the new platform.”
Partsformachines continues to receive top ratings on Trustpilot. The ability of the company to mix personal interaction into the online purchase both during and after a sale has always been one of its strengths and with the new website, it should make the sales process even easier, more informed, and ultimately smoother and more enjoyable.
After extensive interaction with customers, the Partsformachines plan for its Gen-2 platform was drawn up and the site now offers a raft of improvements.
As the crucial first interaction with customers, the landing page has been the subject of an extensive amount of development work in its own right. It now features a host of information readily available to customers, which is possible through various improvements that include:
- Dynamic and Easy-to-navigate Header
- Widget, Finder Tool
- Currency calculator
- All current offers easily viewable
Moving on through the site, intensive effort has also made in improving all aspects of the search and comparison functions
Rapid access to partner brands and popular machines can now short-cut a customer’s search, while the product pages themselves have been significantly enhanced, with much more detail available to a customer, if required. The customer can now compare both the equipment offered and the machines themselves, ensuring the best price for the correct product.
The new site also has the advantage of being able to bring new partners onto the site much more rapidly than its predecessor. Average transfer into the system for new supplier partners used to be around six months, now the Partsformachines team is confident of being able to achieve the same integration process in a month or less.
The shopping cart – another key area – has also been enhanced and the overall check-out functionality made smoother, easier and faster. If required, finance options will also be instantly available for purchasers, and these are viewable at an early stage of the purchasing process as well, obviously, as during the final purchase itself.
Out of stock products can now be ordered – together with any currently available discounts, to ensure customers don’t miss out on any offers simply because an item isn’t in stock at that time.
Much of the logic for the new site has been custom-developed in house and this is something of which the Partsformachines team is very proud – as well, of course, as the overall end product itself.
The early response to the launch of the enhanced web platform has been extremely encouraging with the conversion rate of people coming to visit the site and then ordering having risen by an impressive 30% in the days since its introduction.
In 2023 Partsformachines is looking to expand its market outside of what has, thus far, been a UK-centric offer. This new and enhanced Partsformachines platform is a critically important tool in the next stage of the company’s development.
The number of supplier partners is also increasing rapidly – something that excites everyone at Partsformachines, as Simon Maurice explains. “It seems that suppliers to the agriculture and construction industries are deciding that Partsformachines is a route to market that they have to be part of, to help ensure their future growth – which hopefully bodes well for all parties concerned.”
