Since beginning in 1979, Australian company Speedmaster has grown from a hobby shop to an international brand serving customers across the globe. RetailBiz spoke to CEO Jason Kencevski about how the company found success by selling on Amazon.
Speedmaster is a manufacturer of aftermarket automotive components. Established in 1979, the company has grown from a hobbyist engine shop to an international business delivering high-quality products to a mass market.
It is one of the few automotive companies that design, develop, test and manufacture products in their own facilities, and the company’s products range from standard V8 replacement parts through to cylinder heads for Top Fuel Dragsters.
The company operates bricks-and-mortar facilities as well as an online store, with a main office in Campbelltown, New South Wales and distribution centres in Sydney and California, US. It employs over 400 staff dedicated to e-commerce, including product development, customer service and marketing.
Speedmaster has distribution centres in Sydney and California.
Speedmaster first went online in the early 2000s and expanded internationally in 2013. CEO Jason Kencevski said after going global the company’s aim was to not only sustain its growth but to become the largest automotive aftermarket brand, leading it to launch on Amazon US in 2014 with the help of ChannelAdvisor.
“Our aim is to be globally recognised as a brand,” said Kencevski. “Being a certified and approved brand on Amazon adds credibility to that.”
Although it wasn’t an overnight success, Speedmaster has had strong growth on the platform and is now showing in excess of 30 per cent growth on Amazon year-on-year.
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“It’s been really interesting. We had instant success with eBay—it was really strong at the start and then continued to show slow growth. Amazon was a slower start but we’ve had consistently strong growth year-on-year.”
Once it had expanded and positioned itself as a market leader, Kencevski said Speedmaster needed ChannelAdvisor’s support to ensure it retained its spot on top.
“Marketplaces keep raising the bar and we need to keep rising to the challenge. We need to ensure we provide the best customer service and keep delivering on our value proposition and we needed a solution that would support us and scale with us.”
The company now uses ChannelAdvisor’s Marketplaces Module, Digital Marketing Module and the NetSuite Connector to support its growth as it expands globally across marketplaces.
Using Fulfilment by Amazon for around five per cent of its inventory has also helped Speedmaster scale.
“It’s easy for consumers—you need something, you buy it. We use Prime ourselves as a business. We needed computer parts the other day because we’re updating our IT infrastructure and it was quicker to get them from Amazon because they had it in the Prime system than from the wholesaler or brand directly. They’re adding value and that’s helping brands.”
When it comes to succeeding on marketplaces, Kencevski said automation is the key.
“Complying with everything and worrying about changes that happen all the time isn’t something that keeps us up at night. If we weren’t with ChannelAdvisor, remaining compliant would be a huge headache and cause for stress.”
To read more about Speedmaster’s journey and how your business can succeed on marketplaces, check out our free Special Report: A Retailer’s Guide to Amazon Australia.