How SpareIt®'s platform is disrupting the traditional automotive aftermarket supply chain

There is a significant gap in the automotive aftermarket supply chain, with most manufacturers relying on traditional means for supply of spares, thereby resulting in limited accessibility. SpareIt® is empowering small and medium garages as well as suppliers in India through technology. Utilising proprietary technology, the company has built practical solutions for each stakeholder ranging from procurement, sales, logistics to credit.

According to SpareIt®, an estimated 1.5 million aftermarket garages in India control more than 97 percent of the country’s $50 billion spare parts market. SpareIt® is at the forefront of this opportunity, emerging as one of the largest aftermarket platforms in India.

“We are seeing rapid adoption of our platform and services from garages and suppliers across all geographies. More than 5,000 garages to date are using SpareIt® and realising the benefits of this digital transformation. These garages that had no digital identity are now able to leverage the power of a full-stack platform that allows them to raise digital job cards, access a wide range of spares at the best prices, generate GST compliant invoices and deliver delight to their customers,” claims Romi Chugh, CoFounder, SpareIt.

SpareIt®’s garages network is growing fast, and a large number of automotive brands are signing up to sell to the network.

SpareIt® has also brought distinct advantages to the EV segment. It offers trained and certified EV technicians and is already working with EV manufacturers and enablers who are using SpareIt®’s garage network to service their EVs.

Connecting the dots

Started in July 2020, SpareIt® is digitally transforming the highly inefficient automotive aftermarket supply chain in India by aggregating garages and adding cutting-edge technology and services stack. They are focussed on garages as they are the key link in the entire value chain, connecting suppliers and vehicle owners.

Garages find it extremely difficult to get a steady supply of spare parts at a time when the servicing requests are continuously shooting up with people relying on their own vehicles for short and long-distance commute.

“This is where a platform like SpareIt^® has become increasingly relevant and timely for them. With integrated logistics on our platform, these garages get the spares delivered to their doorstep in two hours from the time of the order, thus heightening the experience and TATs,” shares Prashant Kamdar, Founder, SpareIt^®.

Elaborating on how SpareIt^® aids the suppliers, Romi says, “We consolidate demand on our platform which translates into an opportunity that the suppliers can tap into. SpareIt^® ensures that every supplier on the platform is verified and enables them to sell directly to the garages. They also can use the integrated logistics support offered by the platform, which eliminates the pain to find the right logistics partner for every delivery. Soon, suppliers will be equipped with tools to optimize and move inventory, and access to credit on the platform.”

SpareIt^® has been able to tech-enable an inefficient and opaque ecosystem in the automotive aftermarket supply chain.

Journey so far

Having conceptualised and developed the platform to address core problems of the industry, Prashant and Romi, friends from 17 years, channelised their efforts in the initial months towards aggregating the demand on the platform to make the proposition very viable to other stakeholders.

The last 12 months have seen exponential growth and scale in the number of garages signing up on the platform. It was also a year of key partnerships and collaborations.

SpareIt® was incubated with Nasscom’s 10000 Startups in 2020. Right after that, after careful scrutinization and several rounds of evaluations, SpareIt® was selected for the Shell E4 accelerator program. This opened up the opportunity to collaborate with Shell India, a key partnership to strengthen Shell's offline network coverage by offering SpareIt^®'s platform as a value-added bundled offering to aftermarket workshops, distributors and retailers. SpareIt® also partnered with TVS Automobile Solutions to enable the TVS Group subsidiary to augment the supply of OEM/OES spares on the SpareIt® platform and bridge the gap between demand and supply of automotive aftermarket spares. Both these partnerships with major players validates the strength of the solution that SpareIt® is bringing to the market today.

Revving up: The road ahead

SpareIt® aims to have 150,000 garages and 25,000 suppliers across 20 cities and towns on its platform by December 2023.

“We are working on an acquisition strategy that focuses on efficient onboarding, lower customer acquisition cost (CAC) and better usage of the garages. Right now, it’s a feet-on-the-street model but we have started seeing a lot of word-of-mouth onboards and referrals. We are doing something right for them to recommend us and the number of job cards raised means stickiness for our platform,” says Prashant.

SpareIt® is in advanced discussions to raise its Seed round. It aims to be India’s largest aftermarket platform and expand reach in more cities. It is poised to disrupt the aftermarket and effectively rebuild the ecosystem while constantly preparing all players for a new digital economy to create value across different parts of the supply chain.

The SpareIt app is available on the App Store as well as Google Play.