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Digitize to Innovate
Since its foundation, Bridgestone has carried the banner of technological innovation and aims to become a global company, positioning itself as the world’s number one brand in both name and essence. Today, in partnership with Alephee, it celebrates the creation of its official store on Mercado Libre and makes all its affiliated tire shops available to form a value chain that provides the best service to its customers. What are the possibilities when operating in the online universe? How does creating a digital product catalog and digitizing a brand’s sales contribute?
Alephee is the solution that supports Bridgestone’s new e-commerce strategy.
At the beginning of 2018, tire manufacturer Bridgestone, together with Alephee and Mercado Libre, launched a solution that allows buyers on the platform to choose the option "pick up at a Bridgestone branch" at the time of purchase. Unlike home delivery, where the brand ships the product via postal service from the Official Store, the buyer can select the desired pick-up location. More than 100 tire shops across the country participate in this new shopping experience.
Bridgestone has two solutions implemented:
- Alephee Brand, software that allows managing the product catalog, creating price lists, and updating inventory.
- Alephee Official Store, a module responsible for managing Official Store operations and synchronizing information with the Mercado Libre platform with each catalog, price, and stock update.
In addition, as a major innovation, each tire shop now has the Alephee PickUp Point, a software module that allows receiving orders generated on Mercado Libre and directing them according to the buyer’s choice. In addition to preparing and delivering products, these locations can offer additional services such as installation, alignment, balancing, and rotation, among others.
Pick-up points as an option on Mercado Libre
Now, e-commerce buyers can decide where to collect their purchases. Meanwhile, brands and manufacturers have the opportunity to take control of managing official stores to offer delivery convenience to their customers. Cases like Bridgestone’s demonstrate a successful path on Mercado Libre.
Digitizing sales in a new official store: what does this enable?
Through their official stores, brands can now offer multiple locations with product availability, enabling marketplace users to choose where to pick up their purchases.
About Bridgestone: a brief history of growth and innovation
Bridgestone is a tire manufacturer founded in 1931 by Shojiro Ishibashi in Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. His goal was to become one of the top three rubber product manufacturers in the world. As part of this strategy, the company acquired Firestone Tire & Rubber Company and a plant in Tennessee, which became its first factory in North America. Production of radial tires for trucks and buses began in 1983. In 1988, by officially acquiring Firestone, Bridgestone consolidated itself as one of the largest tire and rubber companies in the world.
In Argentina, the story began in 1915, when Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. from the United States opened a branch in the country to sell tires and accessories.
