User Guide: Slingshot Automotive App 

by Data Here-to-There

 

Thank you for installing the Slingshot Automotive app. Here's what you need to know to get started!

 

 

When you first login to the “Slightshot Automotive” app by Data Here-to-There, you will see this:

 

 

Settings

 

First, click on the "Settings" tab. From there, you will see Distributors and Catalogs tabs. With the Solo plan and above, you will need to connect Slingshot to at least one Warehouse Distributor and one Catalog data source before you can begin loading complete data sets for the brands of your choice. The Distributors provide the price and stock data, but the Catalogs provide the additional data you will need to sell parts from your store - images, titles, fitment, descriptions, and so on (depending on the Catalog). You must already have accounts with any Distributors and Catalogs you wish to connect to via the Slingshot Automotive app.

Distributors

 

Under Settings, choose Distributors. Click “Connect”, fill in your details for that Distributor, and test to make sure your FTP login is working. 

 

 

You can also enter your shipping or other details such as which fields you would like to stay synchronized to Slingshot (i.e. receive updates).

 

 

You can click around in any Distributor and it’ll show you more about it - which brands and catalogs are available, basic stats, and so on:

Catalogs

 

Next connect to one or more Catalogs:

 

 

- Click on the Settings tab at the top of your screen

- Click on Catalogs

- Select whichever Catalog data sources you want and enter your account information.

Partners


Data Here-to-There has a number of trusted Partners we can recommend to our own customers. If you would like to add a YMM search to your site, you can choose between Nexus EasySearch (good option to get started), Convermax (advanced search), Govedia Automotive Parts Search, Capacity Solutions Year Make Model Advanced Search, or PartFinder (for BigCommerce stores). For marketing help check out Motorhead Digital, and for a competitive and reliable Payment Processing alternative you can get in touch with 100 Group. 

 

Preferences

 

Any and all of the following Synchronizations can be checked on or off: Title, Description, Store price, MSRP price, Weight, UPC Code. This allows you to preserve manually edited data for any of these fields, without having that data overwritten by the Slingshot Automotive app. This can be useful in cases where you have an established business where you were using manual processes for updating your products or enhancing the SEO by changing the text in, for example, the titles or descriptions.


Brand Explorer

 

At any time you can access the Brand Explorer by clicking on it.

 

Go through and pick the brands you want. If you have not added a catalog data source, a banner will pop up and say “No catalog connections” You cannot add any brands until you have selected at least one  catalog.

 

In this example, ACCEL and Amp Research are both Authorized, and have been added to the store. 

 

You can see detailed information about each brand including a) where you can get the relevant catalog data, and much more. Here is an example:

 

 

If you Disable a brand, Slingshot will keep that Brand in your list, but products will not be updated or remain synchronized.

 

You can also use the Search to filter down, since your Brands list can get quite long. You can filter your Brands search by any of these: Brand name, Distributors, Catalogs, Categories, Vehicles and more.

 

My Brands

 

Once you have picked and added some Brands, they will show up under the My Brands tab. In this example you will see that BD Diesel has been Enabled (that is, connected to a Catalog where you have been given access to that Brand), you have applied Filters and Enhancements (using the Filters and Enhancements tabs). Belltech is Enabled in your store, but no Filters or Enhancements have yet been applied.

 

 

You can single- or multi-select brands and then Enable, Disable, Remove, or Reload them.

 

 

As you select Brands, you will be able to see more and more products loading in (check under “Products” in the left hand Shopify menu bar). 

 

If you remove a brand, it will remove the brand from your list - but not actually delete those products which have already been loaded into your store. You can still delete those manually from your Shopify admin Products list, if you like. 

Filters

 

As a store owner you often need to trim down or “curate” your catalog. Maybe your store is focused on JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) automotive parts. You can use a Fitment filter which focuses on Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru, and similar makes. The app will therefore not load any products for Jeeps, Ford F-150’s, BMW’s, etc.


You can also filter by other criteria - price, categories, shipping details, keywords, and specific part numbers. Some novice users won’t use this tab until they have a specific need to remove products. For example, let’s try a price filter.


  • Go to the Filters tab

  • Scroll down to the “Include products by MSRP price range, between:” section and enter “1” in the first box and “100” in the second box:


         


  • Press the “Preview” button at the top of the page.

  • The app will generate a filter report below.  It will show which products will be removed based on the new price filter:

                               


  • Press the “Discard” button to ignore the filter change.


If you like what you see in the preview results, you can commit those changes by clicking “Save Changes” and the app will adjust the products in the store.

 

In this example I de-selected “Allow products without images” from Bushwacker and you can see the effect in the report below:

 

 

There are two ways to get to Preview Filters:

  • By clicking on Filters

  • Or, under a Brand, clicking on the ellipsis, then Preview to the right of the Brand.

As you work with the Filters, you can Save Changes either to All Brands, or just Individual Brands by clicking on the “Save Changes to” button after you have selected either “All Brands” or the individual brand.

 

Common


You can filter by Common or most popular Filters including: Allow products without images, Allow special order products, Remove products that are not CARB compliant, Import products that are out of stock, Remove products that do not have UPC codes, Include products by MSRP price range, or Include products by MAP price range.

 

Categories

 

You can choose to include all Categories, or just some of them, by clicking on Categories, and then additional checkboxes if you wish. If you select some, then parts belonging to all other (non-selected) categories will not be loaded into your store.

 

Once again, you can do this brand by brand, or for your entire store. You can also choose to include Uncategorized products, or not.

 

Don’t forget to discard, or save your changes!

 

Fitment

 

You can apply Fitment filters as well. If you choose to leave this as is, then parts from all makes and models of vehicles will, by default, load into your store. But if you select certain makes, models, submodels, and years, then all parts not in the list you create, will be eliminated from your store. And once again, you can choose to include Uncategorized products, or not.

 

 

Don’t forget to save your changes to single brands, or All Brands, when you are done adding your desired Vehicle Fitments. You can also hit the “Preview” button if you want to see the effect this will have on your store before committing.

Shipping

 

This is where you set your Filters for Shipping. Again, you can go brand by brand or for your whole store. If you choose to Preview before Save Changes, you will see something like this:

 

 

The Preview Filters will allow you to “tweak” your Filters and other settings before making your final decisions about which changes to push out to your live store. 

Keywords

 

Use this tab to filter out parts based on Keywords. Separate your keywords by commas. Here is an example:

Part Numbers


Use the Part Numbers tab to list only the part you want to include - or exclude. 

 

Enhancements

 

Enhancements allow you to adjust your pricing rules and strategies - and much more. It is not essential that you adjust these - in fact, depending on your goals for your store, you may never need to use any Enhancements! But this is something you may want to take advantage of once you become more familiar with your Slingshot Automotive app. Most of the time you will want to use Filters and Enhancements to fine tune the catalog data you’re getting from your chosen Warehouse Distributors. 

 

Your store data Enhancements can be done by Pricing, Titles, Stock, Categories, Attributes, Visibility, and Catalogs.

Pricing

 

Click on the Pricing tab under Enhancements, and you will see a powerful array of pricing strategies available to you - adjustable, once again, brand by brand or across your entire store!

 

Titles

 

 

Titles is one way you can fine-tune the data in your store. Data quality and conventions will vary between suppliers and brands. You can use Titles Search & Replace to clean up the data and make it appear more consistent and professional. Best of all, you only need to make these adjustments once, and then as long as you keep your Slingshot Automotive app installed and operational, you never need to go in and update your titles manually!

Stock

 

Stock enhancements allow you to modify the available quantity based on your preferences.  For example, you can set a maximum stock so that the store shows the same value while the stock levels are higher. 

 

 

If you hit the Preview button you should see results in this format (actual parts shown will be based on your choices):

Categories

 

By default, Slingshot Automotive will create collections from the categories in your connected catalogs.  You can also rename categories if you want to build your own Shopify collections.  

 

Let’s say you have a brand which has the category “Tonneau Covers” - only you want that category to be called something different - maybe “Truck Box Covers” or “Tonneau Covers & Bed Accessories”. The Categories tab gives you the ability to choose. You can Turn off category synchronization, put uncategorized products in the ‘Uncategorized’ collection, create a collection for each category, create a tag for each category, or map pre-existing Categories onto Shopify collections!

 

Attributes


Manufacturers often provide additional information about their products.  This information doesn’t fit into the standard title, description, UPC, and other Shopify slots.  Things like Bolt Spacing, Material Type, Diameter, and other part-specific features are therefore created as Shopify tags.


Slingshot Automotive also creates additional tags that are useful for web designers.  Special order status, Core Charge fees, CARB status, and other tags can be automatically created for you, depending on which ones you have selected.


You can enhance or “clean up” your product data with Attributes. This will save you tons of time you might otherwise have to spend on manual data cleanup. When products are created in your store, then tags are created along with those products. You can see the tags available to you, which you can switch on or off, under the Attributes tab. Tags can be used by developers to customize your store and enhance your product listings. 


Visibility


With the Visibility tab, you can choose to hide (or not hide) products that have images or stock. This can be handy when you want to keep certain products in your store, but only show when they’re available to fulfill immediately or when images get added.


Catalogs


Do you have a favorite catalog data source? With Slingshot Automotive you can move this one to the top of the list (and sort all the others at will). Don’t forget to connect all the catalogs you plan to use first, in your Settings tab.

Orders


Finally, a way to manage your orders across multiple distributors and catalogs, for a reasonable price! By automating this part of your business, you may even be able to expand your reach internationally.

 

Most couriers will require a phone number for delivery. Therefore it is important to enable the “Shipping address phone number” option in your store. To do this, go to your store’s Admin Settings -> Checkout and accounts Under Customer Information should be set to “Required”.

 

General Settings

 

In the Slingshot Automotive app under the General Settings tab, you can Enable order automation, Enable tracking automation, allow or disallow orders being split across multiple distributors, or ship orders to a waypoint you specify, if you want to ship to international destinations. This will allow you to save on shipping and handling costs while still satisfying those distant customers!


Order Routing


Under Order Routing, you have the option to Fulfill all orders from a single distributor, or leave this unselected to Fulfill from more than one distributor. (Please note: this is Version 1 of the Slingshot Automotive app, which only allows single distributor routing. Stay tuned for Version 2 for multi-distributor routing).

 

Status


The Status window shows the progress of your orders. 

 


Account


Our Slingshot Automotive pricing plans are transparent and easy to switch between. You can get started with the Free plan and use the Brand Explorer to figure out which Warehouse Distributors carry your favorites. The Base plan gets you connected to one Catalog data source, which allows you to bring in and synchronize all the enhanced data (titles, descriptions, images and MAP pricing where available) from the brands carried by that Catalog. The Solo plan lets you add one Warehouse Distributor of your choice, enabling stock and price updates. Solo plus Orders includes all of the above, plus you can automatically send orders to your distributor, and tracking data back to your store. The Pro Plan allows you to add more distributors and catalogs. It also includes Smart Filters and Smart Enhancements. Finally, Pro plus Orders adds Zipline™ Advanced Order Routing!

If you try to use features from a plan you’re not currently subscribed to, you will see a message like this near the top of your screen:

 

 

Just press the link to upgrade and you can instantly get access to any additional suppliers and/or catalogs that you have accounts with.

Activity

Store Activity


This is where you can see what’s happening with your store. Status updates will appear in time-stamped messages as Slingshot adds, deletes and enhances your products. If there is an issue you may see a “warn” message; you can click on “Details” and get more information.


Help

We have written a comprehensive User Guide for the Slingshot Automotive app; just click the Help tab. If you can’t find the answer you are looking for, reach out to support@dataheretothere.com.


Thank you for using the Slingshot Automotive app. We hope it will prove to be a powerful enabler for you and your automotive business!