Europa Parts
Migration to Magento 2, UX/UI redesign and implementation of advanced filtering with several SEO-friendly features
When our partner Europaparts.com approached us, they had a Magento 1 store with one big pain: very limited filtering and search options.
But advanced filtering is immensely important for the Automotive Aftermarket industry. That’s why our proposition was to migrate the store to Magento 2 and develop an advanced Year-Make-Model filter. Furthermore, we agreed on a UX/UI redesign.
The result is a more SEO-friendly and conversion-focused eCommerce website for this dynamic car parts dealer.
Partner profile
Soon after opening their first and only physical store in Piscataway, NJ, back in 2009, the Europa Parts company recognized the growing trend of shopping for car parts online.
They target owners of premium European car brands like Audi, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, etc. Their mission is to “provide the best selection of OEM quality parts, at great prices, in-stock and available to everyone in the world”.
The old Magento 1 website was built internally, without hiring a dedicated Magento partner agency. It was actually developed by the owner himself.
New design
;Old design
Considering that he was managing the whole business at the same time, he did impressive work. However, there was room for optimization.
Navigation on the old M1 website was restricted to a large number of categories and subcategories. That made the user experience quite challenging, especially on mobile, where it was especially difficult to navigate the multitude of categories.
There was great risk of losing the customer because of that visual clutter.
New Year-Make-Model Filter
The basis of the navigation is now the new Year-Make-Model filter. It has been modified to Make-Model-Year to better reflect the logic customers use to search for specific car models.
The filter is robust and it enables the customer to drill down to even the most specific attributes in a couple of clicks.
Each time the customer selects an option from the filter, for example a make like Audi, the website dynamically creates a category page with its own URL.
This of course is very useful from an SEO perspective. These dynamically created pages are indexed on search engines with their own URLs. That way they can also target the users searching for these exact parameters.
Following up on the improvements in filtering and SEO, we turned to design.
Improved user experience
With new filtering and better SEO, the Europa Parts store got the tools to attract more demand and serve them the car parts that fit.
Our next goal was to do a redesign that would ensure a better user experience and lead to more conversions. The redesign focused primarily on the category and product pages.
Category page tweaks
Categories in the main menu represent the car brands that customers will most likely search for.
The process of navigating through categories reflects the filtering logic to enable the customer to drill down to the right car model.
The category page content is automatically populated with buttons that represent predefined options from the filter’s dropdown menu.
This is especially good UX on mobile. There it is much more convenient for the user to scroll between buttons than to navigate through dropdown menus.
Another customisation was the addition of custom breadcrumbs. They are also generated from the Year-Make-Model filter.
Customers who land on the category page from Google search get the category path displayed in the breadcrumbs. This is valuable source of information that makes it easier for these users to manage on the site.
Product page tweaks
On the right-hand side of a product page at Europaparts.com you can find the custom-made Check Vehicle Fitment widget.
This widget also comes handy when you land to the product page from a search engine. It’s a quick way for you to check if it fits your vehicle.
In case you find it doesn’t match your vehicle, the site doesn’t just leave you with that failed outcome. It presents a link to the Vehicle Homepage, from where you can more easily navigate to parts that actually fit your selected vehicle.
Lower on the Product Page is the Fitment tab, next to the Description and Review tabs. Here the customer can find all car models that this car part is for.
This is excellent UX for car mechanics for example. When they’re considering buying a certain car part, this is where they can easily find information about all the car models the part is suitable for. This is the kind of info that can bring such a customer closer to making the purchasing decision.
If you’d want to discuss your project, contact us without obligations through this contact form. We reply with a free consult as soon as possible.
Visit this page and download our Automotive Aftermarket eCommerce Success Guide to get started.