23andMe Inc. (No. 309)

Revenue was down 8% year over year for the fiscal fourth quarter, but it grew 10% to $272 million for the full fiscal year ended March 31, 2023. The biotechnology company grew its customer base 11% in the fiscal year to 14 million genotype users.

It also grew its subscription membership, 23andMe+, CEO Anne Wojcicki told investors. Subscription membership grew 51% year over year to 640,000 members. More customers are also opting in to the subscriber program with their initial purchase, though she did not give a specific figure.

Advance Auto Parts Inc. (No. 101)

Advance Auto Parts reported a “double-digit sales increase” in ecommerce for its first quarter. Over the same period, net sales grew 1.3% year over year and comparable store sales decreased 0.4%. The auto parts retailer also reported that DIY omnichannel sales grew, without sharing specifics.

Bark (No. 173)

Revenue was down 2% year over year in the fiscal fourth quarter to $126 million, coming out ahead of Bark’s guidance. Direct-to-consumer revenue also decreased 1.5% to $116 million. For the full fiscal year, direct-to-consumer revenue increased 5.3% over fiscal 2022.

Bark broke down DTC revenue by product category. Toys, beds, and apparel generated $307 million in revenue in fiscal 2023. Consumables including treats and food generated $165 million.

Best Buy Co. Inc. (No. 7)

Domestic online revenue declined 12.1% for the first quarter to $2.69 billion, Best Buy said. Online sales made up 30.5% of total domestic revenue in the quarter, down slightly from 30.9% last year. About 40% of those sales were buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) orders, the retailer said.

Online sales have doubled since 2020, CEO Corie Barry told investors.

Big Lots (No. 251)

Net sales were down 18.3% year over year to $1.1 billion the first quarter, Big Lots reported.

“Our lower-income consumer was hurt by inflation, lower tax refunds, and higher interest rates, and their confidence has been shaken by banking failures,” CEO Bruce Thorn said in a statement.

The discount retailer declined to share specific ecommerce data.

“We continue to improve the [online] customer journey through a more curated experience, better site navigation, and eliminating friction,” Thorn told investors.

Deckers Brands (No. 167)

Direct-to-consumer net sales grew 19.5% in the fiscal fourth quarter to $343.1 million, up from $287.2 million the previous year. Much of the growth came from a few specific brands. Sneaker company Hoka net sales, including in stores and ecommerce, grew 40.3% year over year to $397.7 million. Teva sales also grew 14.6%, while Ugg sales were down 16.1%.

“Fiscal year 2023 was an exceptional year for the Deckers organization, delivering 15% revenue growth and increasing earnings per share nearly 20%,” CEO Dave Powers said in a statement. “We continue to deliver record results, including the HOKA brand adding more than half a billion dollars of top-line revenue.

Lululemon Athletica Inc. (No. 27)

Lululemon reported ecommerce sales grew 18% in Q1 over the year-ago period. Online sales contributed $835 million in revenue in the quarter, 42% of total revenue, the retailer said.

Traffic grew 30% year over year both in stores and online, chief financial officer Meghan Frank told investors. 

Macy’s Inc. (No. 17)

Online sales were down 8% year over year in the first quarter. Ecommerce sales made up 33% of total sales in the quarter, CEO Jeff Gennette told investors. Digital penetration remained flat from 2022, down from a high of 40% during the pandemic. 

Nordstrom Inc. (No. 21)

Ecommerce sales were down 17.4% in Q1 due to eliminating digital order fulfillment at Nordstrom Rack stores and closing the Trunk Club in 2022, the retailer said.

Nordstrom reported that digital sales made up 36% of net sales in the quarter, down from 39% of net sales in the year-ago period. Digital sales were approximately $1.1 billion in the quarter.

Sportsman’s Warehouse (No. 361)

Net sales decreased 13.5% year over year to $267.6 million in the quarter. Sportsman’s Warehouse didn’t provide specific information on ecommerce sales. CEO Jeff White told investors that online sales are a “continually growing highlight” of the business even as overall sales were down.

Ulta Beauty (No. 48)

Ulta comparable sales were up 9.3% year over year in the first fiscal quarter. The beauty retailer didn’t specify what percentage of sales were through ecommerce.

Ulta also finished the two-year rollout of its updated website and app in the quarter. 

Victoria’s Secret & Co. (No. 53)

Net sales decreased 5% year over year $1.4 billion in the fiscal second quarter, Victoria’s Secret reported. Web traffic for the apparel retailer remained flat from 2022, though conversion rates and average unit retail both declined over the period. 

Casual sleep and beauty were the best performing categories both online and in stores, CEO Martin Waters told investors. Sales in China showed “outsized growth in digital,” he said.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post Earnings recap: What you missed from Best Buy, Macy’s and more appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Enzo Rabante, head of global digital solutions, Dayco

Just ask Enzo Rabante, head of global digital solutions for Dayco, an engine parts manufacturer for automotive, truck, construction, agriculture and industrial vehicles and equipment. Dayco sells primarily to small and mid-size distributors in a hurry to find what they need, so it decided to develop the “Dayco digital garage” as a B2B ecommerce site at DaycoAftermarket.com that its customers would find helpful for purchasing such Dayco products as engine belts, front-end drive system components, hoses and tools.

“Our customers expect a personalized journey that generates value at each touchpoint,” he says.

The starting point for designing and building the Dayco digital garage was getting a deep understanding of buyer expectations. Those expectations lay the foundation for delivering a customer experience that triggers initial sales, as well as repeat sales, and generates customer loyalty, Rabante says.

To Dayco, the reason for making the buyer experience central to its plans for developing the new ecommerce site was simple: If buyers consider the digital experience inferior to the in-store experience, odds are they won’t come back to digital.

Getting multiple departments involved

The internal digital team, and any third-party digital consulting firms brought in on the project, play a critical role in developing the blueprint for an ecommerce site, Rabante says. But he asserts that one department that also needs to be involved is marketing, because it delivers a brand’s message to the target audience to develop leads and post-sale follow-up and service opportunities.

“Marketing is important to the digital experience, pre-sale and post-sale,” says Rabante, who spoke about the Dayco digital garage at the Sitecore Symposium last fall. “Buyers expect a journey that generates value at each touchpoint and enhances the brand in every [line of] business, without barriers.”

Dayco’s primary customers are small and medium distributors who expect to find what they want quickly on the site and not feel their time spent online is being wasted. “That’s why marketing and customer profiling need to be clean and push promotions and products that are relevant to the customer,” Rabante says. “Our customers expect a personalized journey that generates value at each touchpoint, enhancing the brand in every business, without barriers.”

Web content for end customers

While Dayco determined that it needed to build buyer experiences unique to its target audience of distributors, the manufacturer also realized its content needed to address the needs of the end-users of its products,  mechanics and do-it-yourselfers. That way it would reassure its distributors that they were purchasing the right product mix for their customers. “We sell to the distributors, who sell to the garages [and parts retailers], who make the products available to the mechanics or do-it-yourselfers,” Rabante says.

This strategy also means providing easy online access to the product catalog, product pages and related documents. “Our mission is to turn buyers into loyal customers by providing the pre- and post-sale digital services buyers expect,” he adds.

Dayco’s largest markets are in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, or EMEA, which generates 48% of its revenue, and North America, which generates 35%. Asia-Pacific and South America account for 9% and 8% of revenue, respectively. In its fiscal year 2020, which ended February 2020, Dayco posted revenue of $1 billion, the latest figures the privately held company was willing to share. The manufacturer has 18 manufacturing sites, 16 distribution centers and six technical centers.

Setting key performance indicators

Having settled on the parameters of the what the customer experience should be, Dayco laid down a set of key performance indicators for the new site. Those KPIs include increasing the conversion rate for marketing campaigns, measuring how well push promotions perform and customer loyalty.

When it came to selecting the digital experience platform to power its new site, Dayco chose Sitecore because it offers a fully integrated platform, a headless ecommerce solution, and takes an API- first approach, Rabante says. Dayco also liked that the Sitecore platform was cloud-based and the knowledge the Sitecore team brought to the development process. To build its new B2B ecommerce site, Dayco is using the Sitecore OrderCloud headless commerce platform integrated with the Sitecore Experience Manager content management application and Sitecore Send email management system.

“An API-first approach is very important to us as it makes changing the front-end very easy,” Rabante says. As an API-first, headless design, the Sitecore platform was built with application programming interfaces to integrate the independent customer-facing front end interface with the ecommerce engine.

Integrating Microsoft technology

He says Dayco also brought in digital agency Cluster Reply to consult on the project, largely because of its expertise for integration of Microsoft applications, including Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform for application management.

With its digital team still putting the final touches on its planned digital garage, Rabante expects the new website will provide a valuable experience for buyers that helps win sales from competing sites.

In summarizing Dayco’s approach to building its digital garage, Rabante quotes Bruno Vallilo, Dayco’s president of global aftermarkets: “We change the way we think, keeping customers at the center of our digital transformation.”

Peter Lucas is a Highland Park, Illinois-based freelance journalist covering business and technology.   

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact editor Paul Demery at paul@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @pdemery.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 B2B News publishes content.

The post How a manufacturer planned a B2B ecommerce site project appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The company, based in Dallas, has expanded its online inventory to include 1 million parts and made other ecommerce site updates. FleetPride has deployed a new search engine updated with artificial intelligence applications to help customers perform faster and more relevant searches and doubled the number of part cross references to 10 million to help customers find the exact part they need, the company says.

FleetPride ecommerce features

Darren Taylor, senior vice president, marketing and digital, FleetPride Inc.

“Our customers told us they need more available products and more delivery options to keep their trucks on the road,” says Darren Taylor, senior vice president of marketing and digital. “They expect to find the right product fast and easily order it with confidence, and we listened to them.”

FleetPride also is adding more new features. They include a “Complete The Job” tool, which helps customers find all the parts they need in one order based on technician repair data, real-time stock availability through a network of more than 300 locations, cash-back rebates on their online purchases and free standard shipping on select parcel orders of more than $200.

The company distributes heavy duty truck and trailer replacement parts. It offers products such as brakes and wheel ends, drive trains, suspensions, air conditioning, starters, alternators, and engine components.

Taylor will speak on a panel about B2B customer experience at the EnvisionB2B 2023 Conference & Exhibition in June in Chicago.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when new Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content is published.   

The post A trucking parts distributor revs up ecommerce appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Josh Brazil, vice president of supply chain insights at project44, a supply chain visibility platform, says last-mile delivery service has dramatically improved since the worst of the pandemic — when 20% or more packages arrived later than promised. But persistent labor shortages have kept delays above pre-pandemic levels during 2022. That’s likely to continue for the rest of the holiday period, Brazil says.

“Labor is an issue across all supply chains,” Brazil says. During the pandemic, numerous workers in all parts of the supply chain left the industry. And those departures — and a generally tight labor market — have put stress on last-mile delivery, he says.

The “last mile” refers to the final leg of a product’s journey. That’s when it moves from a transportation hub to its destination, generally via a common carrier like FedEx Corp., United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS), or the United States Postal Service (USPS).

A good sign for shippers is that average weekly parcel transit times during the second half of 2022 has improved since peaking at 3.01 days at the end of June, according to project44 data. For the week ending Sept. 28, transit time was down to 2.07 days.

Retailer and consumer expectations for parcel delivery

During the 2021 holiday season, consumers found themselves frustrated by out-of-stock inventory. This year, many retailers have too much stock. But merchants expect consumers to take nothing for granted.

According to a Digital Commerce 360 survey of 70 retailers, conducted in July-September 2022, half said they expected shoppers to buy earlier this holiday season to avoid finding inventory out of stock. And 36% of retailers said they expected consumers to demand faster shipping than in years past.

A survey of 1,088 consumers conducted by Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights in September 2022 confirms that consumers remain worried about inventory levels. 57% of those surveyed said they planned to check product availability before placing an order for delivery.

Delivery speed and in-stock are important

The Digital Commerce 360/Bizrate survey also found that 32% of consumers  ranked speed of delivery among the most important factors when choosing an online retailer. More than a quarter (27%) selected “product in stock and ready to ship” as an important factor.

Having orders arrive late is always a problem, says Calvin Kim, CEO of Coverland, an online retailer of vehicle covers and other automotive, motorcycle and boat accessories. But, when delivery is slow everywhere, customers can be forgiving.

“Having my customers experience delays is indeed a major issue,” Kim says. “However, I don’t find the delay during the holiday season to be a major issue since the reason behind this delay is something justifiable and expected, and all retailers are suffering.”

“Of course we are expecting delays in shipping during the holidays; it is the same case every year, as it is a busy season,” Kim adds. “However, we expect the delay to be within the reasonable period of time and we make sure that our customers are informed about the maximum delay that could occur so we don’t shake their trust in us.”

But this year, consumers are confident and don’t expect retailers to suffer from slow shipping by parcel carriers, according to a project44 survey of 1,603 consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany.

The project44 survey, conducted in August 2022, found 71% of consumers expect holiday gifts to arrive on time in 2022. Also, 64% of consumers polled said they still wouldn’t pay higher prices to guarantee their purchases arrive in time for the holidays.

Upgrading and diversifying parcel delivery

During the 2021 holiday season and the period before Valentine’s Day in 2022, Moriarty’s Gem Art received “a ton” of customer complaints about late parcel deliveries, said Jeff Moriarty, marketing manager of the family-run jewelry merchant. The retailer, which had always used USPS as its primary domestic carrier, decided to switch to offering free USPS express delivery on all orders, which solved the problem.

Moriarty said the switch raised the price of shipping orders to about $30 per parcel from about $10. But, because Moriarty Gem Art has an average order value of about $2,500, it was easy to cover the extra shipping costs by slightly raising prices.

“The good news is that it hasn’t affected sales, and customers are thrilled to get their packages so quickly. Almost every shipment arrives in one to two days (guaranteed) instead of five to seven. We don’t expect to see any issues this holiday season,” Moriarty said.

The retailer offers FedEx service to domestic customers who want to pay extra for it, Moriarty said. For non-U.S. orders, it uses FedEx exclusively.

Moriarty’s Gem Art sells online at MoreGems.com and operates a physical retail store in Crown Point, Indiana.

But not all retailers can upgrade their shipping services and simply work that extra cost into product prices. On average, companies that ship parcels — including e-retailers — are working with more last-mile carriers than in the past.

According to project44, the average shipper worked with four carriers in September 2019. That number grew to 5.7 in September 2022, a 42.5% increase. From August to September 2022 alone, carrier diversity grew 9.6%, up from an average of 5.2.

“This could be a sign that retailers are bulking up their carrier networks proactively in preparation for peak season starting in November,” according to a project44 report.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.

The post On-time parcel delivery still lags pre-pandemic levels appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The post Online automotive parts and accessories retailers grew sales 21.3% in 2021 appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

To achieve its new ecommerce strategy, Ford is borrowing a page from the playbook retail chain Target Corp. developed and uses to keep pace with Amazon.com.

Amazon ranks No. 1 in Digital Commerce 360’s database of Top 1000 e-retailers. It ranks e-retailers based on web sales. Target Corp. ranks No. 5.

2022 Top 1000 Report

Analysis of North America’s leading 1,000 online retailers. Includes over 100 charts, rankings by 2021 web sales, benchmarking data, growth analyses by category and merchant type, and an executive overview on the current state of ecommerce. 

View Details

“It’s kind of like what happened between Amazon and Target. Target could have gone away, but they didn’t,” Farley told attendees at the Alliance Bernstein 2022 38th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference on June 1. “They bolted on an ecommerce platform, and then they use their physical store to add groceries and make returns much easier than Amazon. They use their expertise as a physical retailer to their advantage, but they modernize the ecommerce piece, so it would be easy to do business with them.”

Online sales strategy

Now, Ford will use the same online strategy to change how its network of dealers sell vehicles, Farley says.

“It’s exactly what we have to do on the retail side,” he said. “We got to go to non-negotiated price. We got to go to 100% online. The vehicle, there is no inventory, goes directly to the customer, 100% remote pickup and delivery.”

Ford and Farley did not reveal many details on the vehicle maker’s ecommerce plans, but ecommerce is a big part of Ford’s enterprise-wide digital transformation — and how they do business as a car company.

“We spend $600 or $700 on a vehicle to promote it, and we spend nothing post-warranty on the customer experience. And the problem is on a parts business, which historically has been very profitable, we only get maybe 10% or 20% of the customers come back to us,” Farley said. “It would be much better if we tried to develop an ecosystem where 100% came back, and we gave them experiences, and that is our marketing. You buy Ford Model E, and after a year, we are going to give you a complete detail of the vehicle, check all your software’s up to date. You get a complete birthday for your vehicle.”

Ford first looked at selling direct online to consumers in 2000 but met stiff resistance from its dealer network. Instead, Ford launched Ford Direct as an organization to use the web to drive foot traffic to dealerships. But now Ford is looking to change the way its dealers sell to consumers with a digital-first approach.

“The vehicle, there is no inventory, goes directly to the customer. 100% remote pickup and delivery,” Farley said. “But then we have this opportunity to use our physical presence to outperform them (the competition).”

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when new Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content is published.   

The post Ford hits the gas in race to go fully digital commerce appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The newly updated ecommerce site for FleetPride, which operates a network of 281 stores, 55 service centers and five distribution centers, features an online inventory of 176,000 parts and enables buyers such as dealers and mechanics search by part number, cross reference, year/make/model/engine type, or vehicle identification number (VIN).

“Now customers can click, talk, chat or visit FleetPride to immediately access the expansive inventory of parts and vast network of stores, service centers and distribution centers to get the exact products and services needed to keep their trucks moving,” says FleetPride senior vice president of marketing and digital Darren Taylor.

Other new features let buyers:

• Store vehicle information to find needed parts.
• Create favorite parts and find alternative parts.
• Check the availability of real-time local inventory.
• Select how to receive product through branch pickup, local delivery, or direct shipping.

“We have invested a lot of time and resources to collect and organize mass amounts of data so our customers can make the best choices for their parts purchases,” Taylor says.

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week, covering technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

The post A big distributor of truck parts revamps its ecommerce site appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

In addition to growing revenue and the number of active marketplace buyers, Xometry also made a pair of deals to acquire innovative technology.

Randy Altschuler, CEO, Xometry Inc.

On Nov. 5, Xometry—a marketplace for digital manufacturing that connects thousands of buyers and suppliers—acquired for $6.3 million in cash and stock key assets of FactoryFour, a Los Angeles developer of cloud-based applications and services aimed at improving factory floor productivity through real-time manufacturing data. FactoryFour’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications help manufacturers plan, prioritize, and monitor production orders and help automate scheduling for operations and distribution schedule changes.

Xometry made the deal to add more marketplace services that help manufacturers use digital tools and data to make production more efficient, the company says.

Specifically, FactoryFour’s applications enable manufacturers to configure a unique production process, capture real-time labor and quality data, and analyze the results to better understand production floor problems and challenges. “FactoryFour will provide a SaaS-based solution to help manufacturers in the Xometry marketplace improve lead times and make strong, data-driven decisions through real-time production tracking,” Xometry CEO Randy Altschuler told analysts on a recent earnings call. “We expect these acquisitions to make an impact on our product offering beginning in 2022.”

On Nov. 1, Xometry purchased assets from Big Blue Saw LLC, an Atlanta online waterjet and laser cutting service in a cash and stock deal valued at $2.5 million. “It’s a very small company and was founded over 15 years ago by a software engineer, and he has built some terrific instant quoting capabilities for laser jet and for water jet,” Altschuler said. “We want to take that technology, that great instant quoting technology, as well as the data that he’s accumulated and use that to enhance our instant quoting engine for our large customer base or a large user base.”

Xometry has grown steadily since launching in 2013 as an online marketplace, where more than 43,000 buyers from companies—including auto manufacturer BMW, pharmaceutical company Moderna and ABL Space Systems—purchase manufacturing services through an international network of more than 5,000 manufacturers of all sizes.

The company continued to grow in the third quarter. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Xometry reported:

• Revenue grew 35.3% to $56.7 million from $41.9 million in the third quarter of 2020.
• The number of active buyers was 26,187, compared with 16,266 in Q3 2020.
• Net loss was $14.7 million compared with a net loss of $6.2 million in the prior year.

“Seller services had a strong Q3 as we made improvements to our supplies business and drove increasing adoption across our basket of fintech products,” Altschuler said. “In August, we relaunched Xometry Supplies, including a site redesign and implementation of a new ecommerce software platform. The new site expands our product offering from 30 to 145 categories, and we plan on significantly expanding our SKU selection in early 2022.” Manufacturers that provide manufacturing services through Xometry.com can use Xometry Supplies, at Supplies.Xometry.com, to purchase manufacturing materials and supplies.

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week, covering technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when new Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content is published.   

The post A B2B marketplace acquires assets of two digital technology companies appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Bridgestone Americas, a unit of Bridgestone Corp., the world’s largest tire and rubber company based in Japan, is acquiring a 10% stake in Wrench, a Seattle-based mobile vehicle services and technology company. Terms of the deal weren’t announced.

But the key reason for making the deal is to help Nashville-based Bridgestone Americas, which merged with Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. in 1992,  use digital technology to pair Bridgestone’s more than 2,200? company-owned automotive service stores with Wrench’s complementary mobile services marketplace, which include on-site automotive maintenance, access to roadside and towing, vehicle detailing, and Lemon Squad, used-vehicle inspection service.

“With the rise of ecommerce and on-demand services, consumer preferences for car maintenance and car care are changing,” says Bridgestone Americas president of mobility solutions Brian Goldstine. “Wrench, combined with our company-owned retail stores and affiliated dealer partners, will create a service platform that gives consumers trusted automotive service with added convenience and flexibility.”

Bridgestone and Wrench will launch their initial integration plans later this year, allowing Bridgestone retail stores to plug into Wrench as a referral business, the company says. Wrench customers will be able to book advanced vehicle service appointments at a local Firestone store, and existing Bridgestone retail customers can book future mobile service appointments using Wrench.

Wrench was founded in 2016, primarily as an ecommerce and mobile vehicle service for consumers that wanted to book appointments for vehicle repair at a convenient location. But in recent years, the company also expanded into B2B ecommerce with a similar business model for fleet operators, such as for trucks, buses, taxis, and delivery vehicles. Wrench also operates a truck maintenance scheduling and logistics platform.

Wrench has been consistently raising money to fund its growth even before its new deal with Bridgestone Americas. To date the company has raised more than $40 million, according to Crunchbase.com. But the deal with Bridgestone gives Wrench access to a much broader consumer and business market, says CEO Ed Petersen.

“Bridgestone will help accelerate the industry’s digital transformation,” he says. “This allows both companies to expand our customer offerings, while growing our technologies and vehicle care expertise together.”

Wrench is the latest in a series of digital technology applications acquisitions. In 2015, Bridgestone Americas acquired TireConnect Systems, a software company that supports tire dealers and distributors in North America (primarily Canada) with ecommerce capabilities.

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week, covering technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when new Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content is published.   

The post Bridgestone Americas puts a wrench in its plans for digital commerce appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The post ChemDirect experiments with a new marketplace formula appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.