Parts companies that sell on Shopify will often utilize year, make model searches on the front of their store to reduce friction for customers looking for an exact part. If you work for an aftermarket parts business, you have probably heard the phrase: ACES and PIES. ACES stands for aftermarket catalog exchange standard and PIES is product information exchange standard.
ACES and PIES are the industry standards that power the year, make, and model search you see on most automotive websites. When a customer visits your site looking for parts like exhaust systems, clutch kits, or tires, they use that familiar dropdown menu to select their vehicle's year, make, and model. Behind the scenes it’s likely ACES data ensures the parts shown actually fit their specific vehicle, while PIES data may provide all the product details like descriptions and specifications. Without these standards, customers couldn't easily find compatible parts for their specific vehicle.
ACES and PIES data is maintained in the Vehicle Configuration Database (VCdb) and covers fitment information for light and medium vehicles, powersports and equipment sold in the US, Mexico, Canada and South America. The Auto Care Association is the industry trade group that maintains and updates the VCdb monthly with changes from manufacturers and distributors in the aftermarket parts space. The VCdb contains over 150,000 unique combinations for parts dating all the way back to 1896.
If you don’t already have a robust catalog backend, Ambaum can build a product-data management system (PIM) to ingest, normalize and enrich ACES/PIES feeds, legacy vendor databases, and your own product/stock feeds. That system can validate fitment, manage images and marketing copy, store versioned PIES content, and push data to Shopify, and other trading partners.
If you are an aftermarket parts company maintaining your own database of parts and would like to explore ways to represent that on your Shopify ecommerce site, reach out and talk to us. Ambaum has done all kinds of year, make and model implementations!
