We have made a change to Car-Part Marketplaces that will result in more accurate searches for online shoppers. Your listed headlamps may or may not be affected by these changes.

 

We have gotten feedback from insurance companies and shops that they're frustrated when they search for headlamp assemblies, but their search results often include many parts that are clearly not a complete assembly (e.g., the descriptions say “ballast only,” “bulb only,” etc.). With this recent change, if a headlamp assembly is listed as undamaged (000 Damage Code), but has a description that indicates it may not be a complete headlamp assembly, that part will be ungraded (marked as "Grade X").

 

(This effectively means it is not visible to insurance companies and shops, because most of them filter their results to only see parts of a certain grade.)

 

This means some of your headlamps may become ungraded in Car-Part marketplaces, even if they had grades before.  Fortunately, it’s easy to see if any of your parts have been affected. There are tools available to identify which parts have these inconsistencies, so you can fix the part information in your inventory management system and correct the issue.

 

When your inventory is uploaded, Car-Part checks your descriptions. If something in the description does not align with other part condition information, Car-Part cannot be confident in the condition of the part and will therefore downgrade or ungrade the part in online listings. (The part grade is not affected in your management system.)

 

Any parts that have been downgraded or ungraded for this reason, are reported on the Part Grading Inconsistency Report in the Objectionable Words section.

 

To access this report:

 

Once you've found the listings with problems, you should go into your inventory management system to correct the part information. For example, if you have a headlamp assembly with a description that says "bulb only," correct the problem by re-inventorying the part under the correct part type, headlamp bulb (HLB in Checkmate). With the inconsistency corrected, the part will be graded, once your inventory uploads to Car-Part.com. (These uploads happen nightly for most Car-Part.com sellers. If you're unsure about your upload settings, or you wish to change your settings, please contact your web support tech.)

 

If you haven't opened your Part Grading Inconsistency Report in a while, you may have many parts in many categories that need attention. But if you have many hundreds or thousands of parts on this report, please contact your web support tech, before editing all these parts one-by-one. If you have thousands of ungraded parts on Car-Part.com, it is highly unlikely that this update is the cause. It's much more likely that there is another problem in your settings related to your questionnaire (which you completed when you signed up for Car-Part.com). Your support tech can take a look at your settings and adjust them if necessary.

 

On the Part Grading Inconsistency Report, click the Objectionable Words link at the top-left of the screen. You'll see a list of all the words that can cause parts to be ungraded on Car-Part.com. These are not words you need to avoid in part descriptions - if a word describes the part accurately, it should still be included in the part's description. You just need to make sure the description is consistent with the rest of the part information (e.g., the part's condition and damage code).

Checkmate users can also find inconsistencies in part information using Checkmate Inventory Pro's Views feature. The UNDAMAGED UNGRADED BY KEYWORD, DOWNGRADED BY A KEYWORD, and INCOMPLETE Views help you search for parts that have been ungraded or downgraded, due to inconsistencies. Check out the video below to see these Views in action.

April 18-19

Fridley, MN

Booth 109

Roger Schroder Speaking: "Updates on Software Options from Car-Part"