Small Business Stories - PartPal

Ivy Hartman: Welcome to SBTV.com's coverage of the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, SEMA stands for a Specialty Equipment Market Association, which basically means the whole automotive aftermarket and our guest on SBTV.com right now is Jeff Pihach, who is the owner of partpal.com a completely internet based small business. Jeff Pihach: That's correct, yes. Ivy Hartman: Tell us something more about PartPal. Jeff Pihach: Well, PartPal is a cross reference and sales website that allows the consumer to find the parts that fit their vehicle; it lists the manufacturers that produce them and where they can go to buy them from. Ivy Hartman: I sounds like I know a lot of people who use internet for research before they even actually go and buy those things, but you've also created a retail component on PartPal, talk about that. Jeff Pihach: That's correct, yes, we also allow the consumer to buy and sell their own parts on the website, and it matches those parts with all the vehicles that the part fits. So the current options, you just list it under the one vehicle that you know, but the PartPal database knows what parts fit what vehicle. Ivy Hartman: Wow! Jeff Pihach: So, yeah it's --. Ivy Hartman: What's your background that you started this and came to be known as the brainchild of PartPal, so where did that come from? Jeff Pihach: Well, I actually owned my own performance aftermarket business for 5 or 6 years now, and just kind of sitting down a couple years ago, trying to find a part for a customer, and extremely frustrated that I had to visit Malco website, it's called Malco Distributors to find the right parts to fit his requirement. And I thought that it makes sense to have a single place where everybody can go to get that information. Ivy Hartman: Absolutely, especially when you are in your consumer - you are doing consumer research, and things like that Jeff Pihach: That's right, yeah. Ivy Hartman:. Talk about what you're doing here at this year's SEMA Show? Jeff Pihach: Well, at SEMA right now we're trying to talk to manufacturers, explain to them what we do, and to get their database information to input into the website. So, because without their information the consumer can't find them. Ivy Hartman: Yeah, I would imagine that's probably the biggest challenge you're facing. Jeff Pihach: Yeah. Ivy Hartman: Talk about some of the challenges and successes. Jeff Pihach: Yeah well, see with PartPal lot of manufacturers don't have their information in a ready easy-to-use format, a lot of them are still sitting with the catalogs or at best a pdf version of the catalog, which somebody has to sit down and type all that data out. So we're really encouraging manufacturers to use the ACES and PIES format to get their product information out to their retailers and as well to us. Ivy Hartman: ACES and PIES format. Jeff Pihach: It's -- Ivy Hartman: Now put that in layman's words for us, will you? Jeff Pihach: It's essentially a format that some retailers use to input data into their Point of Sale Systems, that it has everything that we need to know, so that who makes it, the part number, descriptions, prices, all that kind of stuff. So somebody doesn't have to sit there all day typing. Ivy Hartman: It's often heard that to small business owners the internet is a great resource but there's also this big challenge of trying to get the financial aspect, they're trying to break into or develop a website and --. Jeff Pihach: That's correct yes. Ivy Hartman: And especially retail. So how does your site help small business owners with that aspect? Jeff Pihach: Well, we spent over 2 years of development on the website, and what we're trying to do now is, get more retailers on to the website, saying, okay, if this manufacturer produces that part for you, sorry, produces that part, and you're a retailer of it, we want to get you on to the website listed as a retailer, so that you can sell more parts. Ivy Hartman: Okay, what are the numbers for you as far as the potential for PartPal, as far as the potential for people to participate; these manufacturers, but also the potential of users? Jeff Pihach: Well, to be honest, there are a lot of very big eCommerce websites out there right now, and we're hoping to be just as big if not bigger, because we're very specialized. There's, we only deal in automotive that's OEM and aftermarket. Ivy Hartman: Okay. Jeff Pihach: So you know that when you're going to that site, everything is built specifically for that. So we're really going to try and get as much as possible. Ivy Hartman: As a consumer research or even a small business or whatever, parts of research database, and also retail component, do you see, or even foresee fluctuations in the amount of people using PartPal? Jeff Pihach: Oh certainly. Ivy Hartman: And what are those reasons, is it the seasons, how is that? Jeff Pihach: Well, it is very seasonal, of course, in spring people are getting very hyped up about it. Right on the SEMA Show we get a huge increase, because of course, I believe it's our promotion going on at the SEMA Show. Ivy Hartman: Yeah. Jeff Pihach: But also it's for advertising, if a manufacturer or a retailer has a certain magazine ad or certain ad on the website, there is a noticeable increase in traffic to that manufacturer. Ivy Hartman: That's interesting, talk about the visibility you have at SEMA, are you, do you have a booth, or are you marketing here? Jeff Pihach: No, right now we are just going from booth-to-booth to explain to manufacturers. We were planning on setting up a booth this year, but we kind of figured that it's better for us to go and do one-on-one with the manufacturers, and then next year we're going to focusing more on the retailer point of view, and we'll be having a booth then. Ivy Hartman: How is this show more beneficial to you, than as far as your marketing goes, like you said, than maybe other trade shows? Jeff Pihach: Well, the SEMA Show is the end all and be-all I hold of aftermarket, we know that pretty much everybody we need to talk to is here, and so it's just a great investment for us to be here. Ivy Hartman: Fabulous, and you have -- that was interesting, is that you can go to a manufacturer's booth. Jeff Pihach: Yeah. Ivy Hartman: And talk to the decision makers. Jeff Pihach: That's right. Ivy Hartman: Where if you call their office, you may not get them. Jeff Pihach: Yeah, it's, we've tried to get to talk to some of the big guys, and that's very hard on the phone, but right here you talk to somebody, and they'll point you right in the direction of the guy you need to talk to, and it's very less time consuming to actually be here at the show, than to be on the phone calling all the time. Ivy Hartman: There you have perfect marketing. Hey, nice to be having you here Jeff. Jeff Pihach: Thank you very much. Ivy Hartman: Absolutely, best of luck with partpal.com that's www.partpal.com, you check it out. It's a small business internet based business. Jeff Pihach: That's right. Ivy Hartman: And as it's going, it'll become a household name before we know it. We will keep bringing you to the SEMA Show here in Las Vegas right here on SBTV.com, where small business is our only business.