Checkmate Update: Car-Part Interchange Plus

By Jeff Schroder, CEO

Car-Part Interchange Plus has additional Interchange for 100 parts, including Running Boards.

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ar-Part recently made major enhancements to the Checkmate Inventory Management system in Checkmate 2019R1. One of the biggest was the incorporation of the latest Car-Part Inter- change Plus. This version includes Car-Part Interchange Plus (CPI+) data for over 100 parts (including 2009+ Mitsubishi and 2015+ Mazda models) for sub- scribers. If you were at the ARA Expo in Orlando, this is the release everyone was talking about! This release is just the latest development in Car-

Part’s long history of interchange innovation. With each release of industry standard interchange, Car-Part reviews and analyzes the standard data. Car-Part modi- fies and enhances interchange to improve features such as SmartVin, which decodes VINs directly to inter- change numbers (Hollander™, Car-Part Interchange, and Car-Part Interchange Plus). and then releases Car- Part Interchange. Many of Car-Part’s modifications and enhancements are available on Car-Part.com and to all Checkmate users as part of Car-Part Interchange, but the additional interchange for over 100 parts is only available to recyclers who subscribe to the CPI+ add-on. Recyclers who subscribe to CPI+ are more competitive when buying vehicles and selling parts. CPI+ is an inte- gral part of how your customers search for your parts in online marketplaces like Car-Part.com, mobile Car-Part. com, Car Part Pro, Trading Partners, and your website hosted by Car-Part.com. When a user looks up a part on Car-Part.com, we use CPI+ to power both the search and the results. Buyers see CPI+ parts by default and if they want to see more results, they can do a non-interchange search and manually sort through the results to deter- mine what’s compatible. In situations where CPI+ merely extends interchange year ranges, all recyclers’ parts dis- play, regardless of whether they have CPI+ or not (e.g., 2011 Lancer Hood).

When determining which additional part types to include in CPI+ data, we based the decision in large part on the marketplace data from Car-Part.com and Inte- grated Car Part Pro (iPro) users, and from our overall automotive intelligence. We wanted to make sure that CPI+ allows you to buy, inventory, and sell more of the parts that your customers are looking for (and make sure

Automotive Recycling

that we helped them find the right part while shopping). CPI+ is inte- grated into Bid- mate, Partmate, Photomate, Checkmate, CrashLink, Coremate, and Core Pricing. Recyclers using CPI+ can better

Checkmate Sales Pro gives you fast access to your inventory, images, and Car-Part search statistics on one screen.

keep up with the changing vehicle technology and evolve their inventory to meet the users’ requests for different recycled part types. CPI+ also enhances recyclers’ ability to sell other part types such as aftermarket, remanufac- tured, surplus OE, etc.

CPI+ comes bundled with CrashLink, which includes OE-based interchange, pricing, and diagrams. A new CrashLink version will be released in the Spring with many exciting new features and better integration with the new CPI+. CrashLink works across various Inventory Management Systems. If you are NOT on Checkmate®, our new CPI+ release has an option for Powerlink™ and Pinnacle™ users. Jeff Schroder, CEO of Car-Part.com, said: “Car-Part Interchange Plus is a big step moving our industry for- ward. We’re thrilled to release this new capability to the industry, fully integrated with Car-Part.com marketplaces and our product suite. The future of our industry is all about adapting to rapid change. Buyers are requiring our industry to deliver better automotive intelligence, user buying experiences, and part fulfillment. Our iPro mar- ketplace’s success has demonstrated the importance of improving automotive intelligence to maximize recycled part sales (with a 50% increase in recycled parts sales on iPro estimates). We look forward to continuing to tackle current and future industry challenges.” To learn more about CPI+ and how it can help you increase part sales and vehicle buying, contact your sales rep or call Car-Part’s main line at 859-344-1925.

March-April 2019 // 57