Works | Digital Unification for a North American Automotive Brand
How Codilar Delivered a Unified Commerce Solution for a Leading Automotive Accessories Manufacturer
Company
Overview
One of the most reputable names in the North American automotive accessories industry faced a technical hurdle with their previously successful multi-site architecture, which put an obstacle in their scalability and success.
It was one of the top warehouse distributors of a wide variety of parts and accessories for SUVs, trucks, and passenger vehicles, running nine independent eCommerce stores with their unique brand identity and audiences. But managing nine brands separately quickly became a nightmare, with varied tech stacks, disconnected data systems, and huge operational costs.
The business needed to break free from the fragmented digital environment and shift to a unified commerce to succeed in today’s fast-paced digital commerce. That’s when they got in touch with Codilar.
Objectives & Challenges
The company was dealing with a collection of highly interrelated technical and business challenges in its digital business. The challenges stemmed primarily from years of running brand-centric sites on multiple platforms and dealing with decentralized systems for data, inventory, and fulfillment.
Siloed Architecture
The enterprise’s nine brands ran on a mix of platforms like Magento Open Source, Shopify, and various custom-built solutions. This created:
- Duplicated codebases
- Inconsistent user experiences
- Heavy maintenance requirements
Any system-wide change had to be implemented individually across all nine stores, significantly increasing time, cost, and effort.
Manual Data Operations
Core product data, fitment logic, and Amazon listings were all updated using spreadsheets. This manual workflow introduced:
- Frequent human errors
- Data version mismatches
- Slower time-to-market for product updates
Integration Sprawl
The backend was a patchwork of legacy systems. The company operated four different ERP systems – Sage 200, Sage 100, Sage X3, and BPCS, each speaking a different integration language (REST, SOAP, FTP). These differences required:
- Bespoke connector development
- Complex error handling mechanisms
- Time-consuming troubleshooting
Additionally, ChannelAdvisor was used for marketplace listings, adding another layer of technical fragmentation.
SEO and URL Fragmentation
Each brand’s domain carried substantial SEO equity. Migrating to a unified platform came with the risk of losing search traffic, which would have cost the brand a lot of potential revenue and branding. This called for implementing a precise 301 redirect mapping.
Deployment and Release Risks
Since the brand owned a number of domains, the traditional deployment methods posed high risks, which could turn the dream unified commerce journey into a nightmare. Every release invited
- Potential site downtime
- Rollback complexity
- Revenue impact during campaigns
Scalability Gaps
The organization’s existing system wasn’t just outdated, it was actively limiting business growth. The existing architecture could not support:
- Real-time inventory updates
- AI-driven recommendations
- Modern search and analytics capabilities
Solution Approach
Codilar’s approach was rooted in centralization, modularity, and performance. The transformation unfolded in three primary phases: data consolidation, commerce platform unification, and customer experience enhancement.
Data Platform & Integration
Codilar established Pimcore as the master data platform to centralize and standardize the business’s data architecture, consolidating:
- ACES/PIES/ACA master data
- Fitment logic (YMM filters, VIN lookups)
- Digital assets
To eliminate manual workflows, We implemented RabbitMQ-based asynchronous pipelines (product.update, inventory.update, and pricing.update) to drive:
- Real-time product sync
- Inventory updates
- Pricing logic between Pimcore and Magento
ERP integrations were modernized through:
- REST-based adapters for modern ERPs
- Scheduled FTP/CSV jobs with checksum validation for legacy systems
For marketplace operations, Codilar integrated the Amazon marketplace using RabbitMQ queues and ChannelAdvisor’s API to normalize orders and sync shipments—effectively bridging Pimcore and Magento with seamless data flow to Amazon.
Unified Commerce Platform
The enterprise’s nine brands were consolidated onto a single Magento Commerce On Prem platform, drastically reducing complexity.
Key implementations:
- A parent theme with nine child themes for individual brand styling
- Leveraged Magento’s multi‑website, multi‑source inventory (MSI) for unified inventory management across ERP sources
- Advanced Elasticsearch for powerful faceted catalog search and auto-complete
Enhanced Customer Experience
Codilar rebuilt the customer-facing experience to drive engagement and conversion. Highlights include:
- Custom YMM filters and VIN search modules to surface fitment-specific results quickly
- An efficient AJAX-based one-page checkout with guest/registered flows, cart save/share capabilities, and mobile-first design
- AI-based product recommendations ("People Also Viewed" and "People Also Purchased") using Magento's MessageQueue and GraphQL
- Enhanced user utilities: Out-of-stock notifications, Yotpo reviews & ratings, Social logins (Facebook, Google), Zendesk Chat for instant customer support
Solution Highlights
This wasn’t a cosmetic overhaul—it was a deep architecture redesign. Codilar engineered each layer to support future-proof scalability, performance, and automation.
Platform Migration with Zero Downtime
Codilar sunset all legacy platforms (Magento Open Source, Shopify, and custom builds) and migrated the whole ecosystem to Magento Commerce On Prem. To support this, the team created powerful ETL scripts using Python and pandas to extract, transform, and load legacy data into Pimcore and Magento, ensuring proper continuity of data across the new architecture. We used:
- Blue/green deployment strategy via AWS ALB weighted routing
- Terraform-managed rollback configurations for faster disaster recovery
DevOps & CI/CD
Codilar used a branching strategy based on GitFlow for the implementation and used AWS pipelines for automated builds, tests, and database migrations, which ensured topnotch code quality and deployment consistency throughout the multi-site ecosystem.
Robust Middleware Layer
A custom Symfony-based middleware was developed to sit between Pimcore and Magento, handling:
- Message validation and transformation
- Routing across systems
- JSON Schema enforcement for field-level accuracy in RabbitMQ payloads
Deep System Integrations
Third-party systems were stitched together seamlessly:
- ERP Systems: Integrated via REST and FTP/CSV (with checksum validation)
- CRM: Microsoft Dynamics integrated via REST API for customer and lead sync
- Marketplaces: Amazon Seller Central through ChannelAdvisor + AWS-backed queues
- Shipping & Tax: FedEx API for live rates and tracking, Avalara AvaTax for tax compliance
Commerce Add-Ons and Widgets
In addition to all of the core functionality, Codilar created a number of features that enhanced the user experience:
- Out-of-Stock Alerts and back-in-stock notifications
- RMA and order cancellation workflows inside Magento
- “My Garage” module to store customer vehicle preferences
- “Check My Fitment” interactive widget for product pages
- Amazon SES for transactional emails
Results and Impact
The transformation delivered massive measurable gains across the board—from operational efficiency to customer satisfaction.
Operational Efficiency
- 75% reduction in deployment time
- Zero downtime during releases thanks to automated blue/green deployments
Data Accuracy and Latency
- <2-minute latency across systems for product, inventory, and order data
- <0.05% message loss with RabbitMQ + JSON schema validation
System Reliability
- Integration failures reduced by 90%
- Dead-letter queues and circuit breakers ensured smoother data flow
Scalability & Performance
- System now supports horizontal scaling via ECS auto-scaling groups
- Search throughput increased by 60% due to dedicated Elasticsearch shards
SEO & Traffic Retention
- 98% of top-10 keyword rankings maintained
- 30% increase in organic sessions within six months post-migration
User Experience & Conversion Rates
- 27% improvement in conversion rate
- 12 % increase in average order value thanks to AI-enabled personalization and a simplified checkout
Conclusion
From struggling to manage a fragmented eCommerce model to dominating the global market with a unified digital platform, the success story of the automotive accessories manufacturer truly showcases Codilar’s incredible expertise in tech and eCommerce. Codilar not only rebuilt the company’s digital backbone using Pimcore, Magento Commerce, RabbitMQ, and a future-proof middleware layer but also helped the company become the market leader. The re-platforming was nothing short of a digital renaissance that met and exceeded expectations.
