Parts Town has taken the wraps off of a new e-commerce marketplace to provide customers access to a one-stop shopping experience for its OEM foodservice replacement parts as well as products across a variety of new categories.

By creating the marketplace, Parts Town is providing an online shopping experience for its customers instead of them having to log-on to multiple websites to find the parts and equipment they need. Instead of offering local pick-ups, Parts Town sellers will ship their products directly to customers.

Distributors have started to embrace e-commerce marketplaces as a way to combat large online sellers, such as Alibaba and Amazon Business. Company-owned marketplaces could also give sellers a better tool for capturing new customers. Parts Town said its marketplace improves the supply chain and increases the sales of genuine OEM parts while providing customers easy access on its mobile app.

Addison, Illinois-based Parts Town started developing its new marketplace in 2019 with the launch of Parts In Town, which enables 1-hour local parts pick up from independent service companies. Parts Town’s new Marketplace is an extension of Parts In Town.

The Marketplace was developed by Red Lightning Group, which is a division of Parts Town that launched last year to accelerate innovation in the foodservice industry and other verticals. Marketplace is based on Mirakl’s platform, but the strategy, development, seller acquisition and other elements are handled by an internal team, according to Emanuela Delgado, senior vice president and general manager of Red Lightning Group.

“We are excited to continue to add to our Marketplace,” said Delgado. “This technology will ultimately expand our reach into several new product and service categories. Our customers have been asking us to supply products beyond foodservice replacement parts, and our new Marketplace allows us to partner with experts in those categories and move much faster to get customers the items or products they need to keep their businesses running.”

In addition to foodservice parts and products, the new Marketplace will also offer parts and other related products from adjacent market sectors including HVAC, janitorial, water filtration, technician supplies and residential appliances. The Marketplace currently includes over 23,000 residential appliance parts from brands such as Whirlpool and Frigidaire, as well as 6,000 janitorial and sanitation products.

“We have already launched residential appliance parts through Marketplace and will be launching additional industries by the end of the year, which will include HVAC, janitorial, water filtration, technician supplies and more,” Delgado said in an email to MDM. “We currently have sellers in the onboarding stage that will increase our available products by 3X compared to our in-stock products, and we still have large categories to execute on.

“We will be adding additional product categories, allowing customers to ask for quotes for larger quantities, and creating additional marketing opportunities for sellers. In the future we plan to expand internationally and add additional services.”