Randy Koch, Fixed Operations Director at Scherer Mazda, contacted OEM Interactive in 2016 to facilitate the creation of a new online store.
At that time, Scherer Mazda was a small Illinois Mazda dealership with no e-commerce infrastructure. With customers in his own region increasingly turning to online vendors, Koch knew he would have to expand his own audience. He wanted to grow his department by tapping into a thriving digital market that would allow him to sell to consumers across the country.
When Koch came to us for help with his site, we started out by developing a brand for their new online parts site. After some brainstorming, we came up with the name “Mazda Swag”—separating the ecommerce brand from the physical dealership in Illinois. Just five years later, Mazda Swag is now the largest seller of Mazda parts and accessories in the United States.
The OEM Interactive team worked tirelessly to create a comprehensive marketing strategy for the new Mazda Swag site. During monthly strategy meetings, we covered everything from PPC and retargeting campaigns to SEO, email marketing, and conversational AI.
While the online market gave Mazda Swag a new audience, it also came with much more competition. As an unknown ecommerce brand, they needed to give consumers a reason to choose them over other vendors. Our goal was to develop an exceptional customer experience from the ground up as quickly as possible.
Mazda Swag was able to generate an amazing $65,000 in online orders in their first month of selling parts online. They delivered more than 300 orders in the first 60 days and received Google’s “Trusted Store” badge within 90 days of getting started with OEM Interactive.
Incredibly, this was only the beginning of Mazda Swag’s newfound success in ecommerce. Today, the store generates over $150,000 in monthly sales—more than double the figure from their first month online. Similarly, their return on ad spend increased from $35 in the first 60 days to over $60 as of August 2021.
We work with Mazda Swag on a monthly basis, so they could take the store into their own hands at any time. Five years after the beginning of the contract, our relationship with their team is stronger than ever. We have no doubt that they will stay on top of the Mazda OEM Parts ecommerce market for years to come.
Randy Koch, Fixed Operations Director at Scherer Mazda, put it better than any of us could: “These guys are simply the best. They are in consistent communication with us, everything is 100 percent, and they continue to push me and our team to the next level.” With no signs of slowing down, we’re excited to see what the future holds for the Mazda Swag parts department.
