SD Wheel Corp.Accessorizing automobiles with the click of a mouse

Company Overview

Steve’s Discount Wheels, Inc. (SD Wheel Corp.) is a family-owned business that sells aftermarket automobile accessories, such as rims, tires, lug nuts and tire pressure sensors. Founded in 2003 in a small garage near Chicago, SD Wheel Corp. differentiates itself from competitors with its attention to customer service. Not only does the company sell tires, but it also mounts and balances them, allowing customers to easily add the assembled tires to their cars. With this level of customer service, coupled with its competitive prices, SD Wheel Corp. has quickly expanded to include two warehouses, a storefront and a strong online presence.

The Situation

As SD Wheel Corp. increased its online sales, the company surpassed its ability to manage inventory levels across Amazon and eBay, as well as keep up with each marketplace’s changes and regulations. The company decided it needed to outsource its inventory management to prevent overselling, maintain its superior customer service and continue to grow its online business. “We needed a solution to help maintain inventory levels and manage product listings across multiple marketplaces,” said Steve Hamilton, owner of SD Wheel Corp. “The entire process from start to finish had become tedious — everything from uploading products to changing images accordingly. It was time for us to find some help.”

The Solution

ChannelAdvisor provided SD Wheel Corp. with a comprehensive, easy-to-use platform for marketplace management. ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces allowed SD Wheel Corp. to standardize the process for increasing inventory listings, receiving orders and updating tracking information on shipments.

The ChannelAdvisor user interface provided a single dashboard from which SD Wheel Corp. could manage its inventory, make changes as necessary and have these changes applied immediately across online channels. “The inventory management functionality was a huge help,” said Hamilton. “We didn’t have to go through five thousand auctions and manually pull things down; now we can sync up our inventory automatically.”

In addition to allowing SD Wheel Corp. to automate many of its processes, ChannelAdvisor offered benefits that other platforms couldn’t. “ChannelAdvisor’s platform is superior to everything out there; other solutions are more difficult to manage,” continued Hamilton. “ChannelAdvisor is easy to use and increases our efficiency, making it clear why they are well known as the industry experts. ChannelAdvisor also provides established relationships with marketplaces such as eBay, which gives us a leg up on our competition.”

The Results

SD Wheel Corp. increased its marketplaces sales by 285% since launching with ChannelAdvisor, and the company expects to continue increasing both its variety of brands as well as its product listings. “After we implemented ChannelAdvisor Marketplaces, we immediately started getting better feedback from our eBay customers,” said Hamilton. “Being able to efficiently manage our inventory levels and push more products and new brands out to our customers increased our sales in just a few days.”

Increased revenue provided SD Wheel Corp. with the funds to maintain its high level of service that’s so important to its customers. Three years ago, SD Wheel Corp. had just six employees. Since partnering with ChannelAdvisor, that number has grown to more than 35. “We are thrilled with the results we’re seeing with ChannelAdvisor and are grateful for a more streamlined process for selling our products on marketplaces,” Hamilton said.