Digital sales channels for automotive suppliers: Asellerate and FIEGE create innovative infrastructure for end customer success
Under the slogan "infrastructure as a service", asellerate is positioning itself as an expert in digital commerce. Founded in 2016 as part of an innovation initiative by MAHLE, the company has developed a pioneering industry solution for automotive suppliers. With its high-performance infrastructure, asellerate enables its customers to enter digital end-customer sales and supports them in opening up new sales channels – with the help of FIEGE's extensive expertise and logistics services.
Highlights at a glance
- After asellerate was founded by Artur Oswald in 2016, FIEGE initially joined as a partner in 2021. The collaboration began in the same year. Since then, FIEGE has been supporting asellerate with all logistics issues and making a significant contribution to the company's further development.
- Important milestone: With the help of FIEGE's extensive expertise, asellerate opened a fulfillment hub in 2022 to meet the requirements of digital commerce in the automotive aftermarket.
- By adding new digital sales channels and fulfilment processes, asellerate is now shipping significantly more items per day.
asellerate started out with its online spare parts shop Retromotion.com, which focussed on classic and vintage cars. This was part of a three-stage process: In the first stage, customers could order their desired spare parts directly via the online shop. If the parts were not available from the online shop's range of over 40,000 products, they could be found in the second stage via a large network of parts dealers who are not represented in the digital market. If this route did not lead to success either, the third option was to reproduce spare parts using traditional and modern technologies, such as 3D printing. Even back then, asellerate was supported by a logistics partner and handled the dispatch itself using drop shipment and cross-dock delivery methods.
However, without an integrated fulfilment solution, these processes were expensive, error-prone and time-consuming and resulted in negative customer reviews, mainly due to the long delivery times. In order to develop further and meet the increasing demands of digital commerce, the company began looking for a new logistics partner. The goal: to shorten delivery times, reduce error rates and establish new processes in order to offer "best in class" fulfilment for automotive spare parts.
According to Seul, this not only speeds up the shipping process, but also reduces fixed costs for everyone involved. "To set up such a fulfilment hub and establish the appropriate digital processes, we needed a partner with extensive expertise in warehouse logistics and fulfilment to support us." asellerate finally found what it was looking for in FIEGE, because the company was the perfect fit for its requirements.
Mutual exchange of knowledge and expertise
The collaboration with FIEGE started with the handling of logistics processes, has made a significant contribution to asellerate's growth and has significantly changed the processes within the company. The business model has also changed in the meantime: asellerate now enables manufacturers from the automotive sector to tap into digital sales channels. The products range from oils and additives to coolers and engine and electrical components. In doing so, asellerate acts as an interface between the various digital platforms and the manufacturers and supports them with comprehensive services.
When establishing the fulfilment hub, FIEGE provided extensive expertise that was crucial for the project – on the one hand in the areas of e-commerce, fulfilment and shipping, and on the other in warehouse setup. Asellerate was able to benefit from FIEGE's expertise, particularly with regard to the storage of hazardous substances, including the corresponding legally compliant processing. FIEGE's services cover the entire e-commerce lifecycle: From the production of 360° product images in its own photo studio to fulfilment and after-sales services such as returns handling, quality assessment of returned goods, restocking and support with any disposal. The demands placed on logistics in the automotive aftermarket are particularly challenging: the integrity of the products is non-negotiable from a safety perspective. Hazardous substances and widely varying article morphologies also pose particular challenges. With FIEGE as a partner, asellerate is in the best possible position here. The collaboration always involves a mutual exchange of knowledge and expertise – FIEGE also benefits from asellerate's profound expertise in the automotive aftermarket.
Innovative fulfillment hub
After a detailed planning phase, the consignment warehouse was put into operation in Apfelstädt in 2022. "The structured project management was a particular highlight. FIEGE was always available to answer our questions and provided us with the best possible support – that really helped us as a young company," says Seul. With the new fulfilment approach, asellerate creates economies of scale that benefit all parties involved. Savings are made during storage, order picking and dispatch as well as in technical integration. As a result, asellerate offers its customers a high next-day delivery rate, which is essential for high customer satisfaction in e-commerce.
Digital infrastructure and growth
In recent years, asellerate has grown significantly and maps a wide range of logistics processes – completely digitally. "It was particularly important to us that our partner was open to digital processes and that we could work together in our respective system landscapes. FIEGE has fulfilled these requirements from the very beginning and continues to facilitate successful collaboration with innovative ideas to this day," says Seul. As a result, asellerate was recently able to expand its service portfolio together with FIEGE to include new fulfilment processes in order to reach new, previously untapped sales channels with a high level of efficiency.
This allows us to react more flexibly and quickly to changes in the market.
Another particularly big success is the clearly measurable increase in productivity and shipping performance: "Whereas we used to ship a maximum of 200 items per day, we can now ship up to 60,000 items a day via the fulfilment hub," explains Seul. FIEGE's modern set-up has also significantly reduced the workload for employees.
Partners on equal footing
"For us, FIEGE is not just a service provider, but a development partner on an equal footing," explains Seul. "Our collaboration is not only due to FIEGE's role as a shareholder – the motivation to develop innovative solutions together is firmly anchored in FIEGE's DNA." Overall, the partnership is therefore a complete success - for FIEGE too. Torben Stegemann, Customer Manager for asellerate at FIEGE, is equally enthusiastic: "We have been supporting asellerate's impressive journey for more than three years now and look forward to enabling further growth through customised logistics concepts in the future." In future, asellerate would like to use this support to grow even further and tap into new markets. To this end, the infrastructure will soon be expanded with additional logistics models. However, the focus of further development will always be on one thing – the satisfied end customer.
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