Suzuki partners with automotive startup Glovebox preparing for launch in 2018

GloveboxDirect.com, a pre-launch online automotive marketplace to offer consumers access to a wider range of car and bike parts, has completed its first round of fundraising.

The startup has raised more than £180k from 119 investors in three days on equity crowdfunding platform, Crowdcube.

Investors will share 18.53 per cent equity in the startup, which is the brainchild of three entrepreneurs who have worked at eBay and with some of the automotive sector’s major ecommerce clients and manufacturers, including Mister Auto and Nissan.

Glovebox’s co-founder and CEO, Joe Tarragano, led eBay’s automotive sales division. He said: “We noticed how difficult it was for consumers to buy authentic car and bike parts online. Until now, no manufacturer makes their entire inventory available online.

“We are building an easy-to-use, trusted marketplace that unlocks parts and accessories ecommerce for every major car and bike manufacturer in the UK.”

Only five per cent of the €26bn market for car and bike parts sales are said to be online, therefore Glovebox is hoping to disrupt the norm by driving more sales this way.

Glovebox will use the investment to roll-out a full launch of the site and hire new staff for product development and marketing. The online marketplace is looking to confirm at least four more manufacturer partnerships in the coming months.

Suzuki is the first official partner for Glovebox. It has more than 20,000 parts available for sale on the site as part of a live beta test with a further 150,000 being processed.

Graham Broughton, who managed the eBay and Amazon ecommerce activities for parts retailers such as Mister Auto and the Parts Alliance, said: “The sheer complexity of cataloguing millions of car parts has effectively acted as a barrier for the development of ecommerce in the auto space.

“We’ve spent 3,000 hours of product development to create an easy to use platform that will make the cataloguing and management of car parts an easy extension of manufacturers’ own inventories.

“We also plan to offer click and collect and, uniquely, click and fit services in the future; something that really benefits dealers and also extends the benefit and value for manufacturers.”

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