Parts Town has a vital B2B ecommerce presence behind the nearly $2 billion in annual revenue it projects this year. That would be almost double 2021’s amount.
Ecommerce accounts for more than half of that revenue.
The company, a commercial kitchen parts and accessories distributor, runs on a policy of constantly innovating how it serves customers. Its latest innovation: running a pilot program with ride-sharing company Uber Technologies. Through it, they will provide deliveries within two hours from when customers place orders through Parts Town’s marketplace. The “Parts In Town” B2B marketplace is where chefs and commercial kitchen operators can order original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts from Parts Town’s certified service firms.
A booming marketplace, and a first for ridesharing
The pilot program, conducted with the Uber Eats service in the Chicago metropolitan area, “represents the industry’s first collaboration between a parts distributor and a ride-sharing provider to offer replacement parts delivery,” Parts Town said in a statement issued today.
Emanuela Delgado, senior vice president, Parts Town
Emanuela Delgado, Parts Town’s senior vice president of revolution, growth and innovation, says the Uber program is intended to help manage the Parts In Town marketplace’s “double-digit growth.” Since launching in January 2020, the marketplace has grown to process nearly 10,000 orders per month, the company says.
“We are very excited that our marketplace is scaling rapidly,” Delgado says. “This partnership with Uber is just one of the ways we will support local service companies and our manufacturer partners by getting OEM parts into the local market faster than ever.”
Delgado notes that “more than 87% of the orders coming in through Parts In Town are new customers” for Parts Town’s participating service firms.
A boon for service technicians
When customers order products through Parts In Town during the pilot program, Uber Eats delivery people will pick up parts from the Parts Town distribution center in the Chicago suburb of Addison, Illinois, the distributor’s base of operations, and deliver them to a job site.
The Parts In Town marketplace, however, features about 90 service provider locations in the United States and Canada. If Parts Town expands the Uber service after the pilot, Uber drivers will pick up and deliver products from service firms in this network, Delgado says.
Surging revenue
The Uber program and the Parts In Town marketplace are among the innovative strategies Delgado and her group have launched through Parts Town’s Red Lightning Group division. Parts In Town runs on cloud-based software from Mirakl, a marketplace platform provider.
Parts Town is on course for $1.9 billion in revenue this year. That would be up about 90% from $1 billion in 2021, the company says. About 60% of total sales transactions are through ecommerce. That includes sales on PartsTown.com as well as on the Parts In Town marketplace, the company says.
Meghan Musbach, general manager for Uber Eats In the Midwest, says Uber found it “exciting” to work with the “ecommerce innovators at Parts Town.”
The companies did not comment on the terms of the program.
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