About Us

They say that "Necessity is the Mother of Invention".  The ASAP Network had a huge need and boy what a Mother it was to invent the solution that could take the Aftermarket Products Industry into the future as an industry rather than a free for all, "Wild West" mentality that was the way it was handled prior to 2015.

Late 2013 a group of website developers was tapped by a large Manufacturer to help their dealers with better quality websites with the goal, of course, being that those dealers would be able to better represent this manufacturers products and in turn sell more of the product line and increase revenue for both parties.

With no knowledge of the task hurdles that were to be cleared with the data for these sites, the developers puffed their chests and agreed to the "simple" task of creating the first site for one of their dealers.  It took all of 15 minutes to understand that there was going to be some big issues.

After the first week of reaching out to the various manufacturers that the new dealer client requested for their new site, the developers started pacing the floor and regretting the choice to accept the project.

Here are a few of the standard answers that were giving by no less than 100 Manufacturers that were contacted with the simple question: Who do I speak with to get your product line data sheets for import to a new site?

Here is what they were told:

• We don't have a data sheet, you can get the parts off our Facebook
• We don't have the weights and dimensions but we ship for free
• We don't have our images in a file but you can get them off our website
• I have to check, the guy that did that isn't here anymore
• I have a .pdf with our parts but not in an excel sheet
• We won't have images for a year, we don't have time

The fun didn't stop there, because you have to remember that the developers were contracted for this job and the conversation with the client to let them know that they would not be getting full product lines was not a fun time at all.

The next bundle of hurdles came from the data sheets that did get sent over.

The developers understood that a website is not physic and to get these products imported correctly, the data sheets had to have consistent, complete information or it's just junk.

Issues with the data:

• Image files with names like image1.jpeg and bluemustangimage.png turned into nightmares trying to line up the image with the part for importing
• Part numbers that duplicated at least 1 of the other manufacturer line that the client asked for, causing an override in the system with a mix/match of two brands data
• Part title names for strings of different parts but all titled the same.  This created displays with the random names like "Air Filter" for dozens if not hundreds of unique SKU numbers
• Categories that were all over the board.  Zero consistency from manufacturer to manufacturer as well as zero consistency from dealer site to dealer site based on each site owners choice of which manufacturer they wanted to emulate on their category tree.  Again this became a huge time consumption when that dealer wanted to import another product line that had no category designation or a category that was not the same as the category tree that was on the new site. 

The frustration level was palpable on both the dealer client and the developer side. 

By the end of the 6th dealer website the developers had an "all engines stop" meeting to discuss the challenges that faced the Aftermarket Industry, how those challenges impacted the developers business, how those challenges impacted the bottom line for both dealers and manufacturers and if the developers had the will and desire to put all resources into creating a solution that could be taken into the future of eCommerce for the Aftermarket Industry.

The decision was made, interestingly enough because of a call from a dealer that was such a genuine request for help that it just couldn't be turned away.

The development of the ASAP Network was conceived to bring consistencies and structure to the Aftermarket industry for better distribution of data to the online eCommerce platform.

The Manufacturer Members are those industry leaders that understand that the dealers and distributors are the driving force for moving their products into the hands of the consumers.  Each manufacturer in the ASAP Network is committed to getting clean, useable, consistent data to their dealers for a mutually successful future.