Autosparks

Client: Autosparks

Sector: Automotive

Our hobbies are things that can provide true enjoyment, allowing us to indulge in and provide a deep sense of joy.

Many practically and technically-minded people turn to motor vehicles for their hobby, and classic and vintage cars are a common source of enjoyment and excitement.

Autosparks is a company that supports people restoring or rebuilding such vehicles by selling harnesses for classic motorcycles, cars, tractors and commercial vehicles. Autosparks also supplies original equipment harnesses to smaller volume manufacturers. These include applications for some of the top British sportscars, European road sweepers and a range of emergency vehicles.

Based in Nottingham, UK, Autosparks previously had an online ecommerce website running on Magento 1. But with Magento 1 end of life approaching in 2020, the company took the decision to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2, and brought Williams Commerce in to lead the project.

Moving to Magento Open Source

Autosparks took the decision to stick with the Magento ecommerce platform model with which they were familiar. They opted for Magento Open Source, knowing that there was an opportunity to upgrade to Magento Commerce in the future.

During the discovery phase, the Williams Commerce team focused primarily on web functionality and UX. Our UX and UI team held workshops with Autosparks, which informed a custom design of the new website’s homepage. This was redesigned in line with best UX practice, as were the product list page and detailed product page. This also includes the wiring harness page, which can be filtered by car and model by users.

Enhanced Purchasing and Delivery Options

The purchasing flow from basket and checkout have been kept Magento Native, while in the checkout section, tools such as postcode look up have been added to support the customer in finding their address quickly.

Delivery options are based on collection or Fed Ex delivery, while payment methods are organised via payment vendor Stripe. This allows customers to pay by a variety of means, including Amex, Discover, Maestro, JCB, Mastercard and Visa.

On top of this, Autosparks chose to activate Magento’s out-of-the-box Paypal payment method, allowing customers to use an existing Paypal account for payment. Paypal is particularly appealing for customers looking to pay incrementally, with Pay in 3 and other finances available if required.

Dynamic Data Migration

As Autosparks did not have a business system for their product data, Williams Commerce migrated all data from Magento 1 into Magento 2. No further business system integration was required.

While Autosparks primarily used Magento’s fast era of functionality, Williams Commerce did upgrade some elements with a module. This included:

‘Sort by’ functionality on product list page
Additional rules, including most viewed and best seller
A PDF attachment capability to add downloads to the product page if required
Upgrade delivery so this can be based on postcode to charge differently between the UK Mainland and the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles.

Additionally, to support Autosparks and lower risk around the migration, the client requested support from our very experienced Digital Marketing team on their choices during the project, as well as an SEO migration to ensure no SEO value was lost.