By Nermeen Nabil 
Building an online auto parts store can seem like an intimidating project. While you might excel at selling auto parts, website design and development may not be your strength.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a developer to create an automotive website. With new technology and great ecommerce platforms (like Volusion) available, it’s easier than ever to get your online auto parts store up and running.
Create a Strategy for Your Site
Before you start building your website, you need to determine its purpose and how you want your customers to interact with it.
First, determine if you want customers to be able to order directly from the website or if it’s more of a brochure just showing what products you have. If you are going to sell products through the website, then you also need to think about how often you will update the parts and if you will integrate with a shipping partner to send the purchased parts.
Once you determine your goal, you can get into the nitty gritty of building it.
Gather Information and Assets
The next step is gathering essential information and assets you will need to get started on your website.
Some assets you’ll need are:
A digital version of your logoFonts and colors you use on your other materialsProduct photos and videosLinks to your social media profilesReviews or testimonialsInformation for an About Us page
Choose an Ecommerce Platform
One of your most important decisions is which ecommerce platform to partner with. This choice is crucial because it determines how easy it will be to build your website. Of course, finding the most straightforward solution that requires the least heavy lifting from you is essential!
Volusion is one of the easiest-to-use and most robust ecommerce platforms. Its professional and responsive designs will make your website stand out to customers.
Start Building Your Website
After selecting your ecommerce platform, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and start building your online auto parts websites.
Pick a Theme
The first step is to select your theme. You want to pick a theme that reflects your brand, looks good, and will attract customers. Volusion offers three themes specifically designed for automotive companies:
Build the Core Pages
Once you have a theme in place, you need to determine what pages you want on your online auto parts store. Typically, you will want a home page, an About Us page, a Contact page, and a Product page. You should also consider adding a testimonials or reviews page and a blog.
Determine what types of content you want on each page and start building them out. Ideally, your ecommerce platform has easy-to-use modules to make adding and creating content a breeze. Volusion offers easy-to-use blocks to build website sections. There is no limit to how many blocks you can use, allowing you to customize the site to fit your needs.
Create Product Pages
The bulk of your site will be the product pages. Having these pages set up correctly and with the right tools is essential to make purchases easy and accurate.
Key Elements
Numerous elements should be added to each page. Some recommended elements – which are all available in Volusion’s ecommerce platform – include:
Product reviewsProduct descriptionsProduct featuresTech specificationsExtended details about each productRelated productsRecently viewed products
Volusion’s platform also provides custom fields and custom filters you can use to make your auto products stand out.
Must-Have Functionality
In addition to adding vital elements to product pages, you also need to ensure essential functionality is in place. Some capabilities your pages should have are:
A product finder block. This lets customers sort your products by make, model, and year.Multiple product images. You want to show customers various angles of your products.Related product components. When a customer is shopping for an item, you want to be able to show them related products. For example, suppose they are looking for one component needed for an oil change. In that case, you can show them related parts for everything else you know they need to complete the oil change.Image zooming options. Let customers look closely at your auto parts by allowing them to zoom in on the product when they hover over it.Collapsible product details. You want to provide customers with robust information about each part but don’t want to overwhelm them. The ability to collapse the features, technical specs, descriptions, extended information, and other fields will make the pages more accessible for customers to navigate.Product organization tools. You need to make it easy for customers to find products on your site. Adding subcategories can help. This makes your products more organized and easier to find.
Purchasing Tools
The goal of your online auto parts store is to sell products. You must make it easy for them to complete a purchase.
Volusion offers a “Sticky Add to Cart” feature. This keeps the “Add to Cart” button right in front of users as they scroll around the page and learn more about the product. This reduces the risk of them getting distracted and forgetting to add the product to their cart.
While creating these pages, you must also account for purchasing and shipping capabilities to ensure you can complete a sale and deliver the products.
Attract Visitors
Once your site is running, you must ensure potential customers can find your online auto parts store. A key way to do this is to make sure your website follows search engine optimization (SEO) best practices, which will help it show up in online searches.
One top way to do this is to use keywords throughout your site and product pages. You should also ensure the keywords are used in the metadata on your site pages, in headings, page titles, and more.
Getting customer reviews and writing blogs on your website are also ways to boost your SEO. At Volusion, our blocks are built on a modern tech stack, making it easy to add integrations like a WordPress blog, MailChimp, TrustSpot, Yotpo, and SearchSprings to your website.
Volusion’s templates include SEO best practices. We take it very seriously and follow industry best practices to help you attract more customers to your automotive website.
Let Us Help You Build an Online Automotive Store
When creating an online auto parts store, let Volusion help. We offer free, easy-to-use themes and blocks. These themes look good with professional designs and are responsive so that they can be easily accessed on desktop, mobile, or tablets. These pages can be easily customized to make the site reflect your brand. Start your free 14-day trial today to see how easy it is to get your auto parts store up and running.
Nermeen Nabil Khear