Dan's Performance Parts
Consolidating seven fragmented specialty automotive sites into one faster, clearer and more scalable e-commerce experience.
- Role
- Creative & Strategy Director
- Focus
- Brand strategy · UX/UI · E-commerce · SEO · Performance
- Platform
- WordPress · WooCommerce · Search & CRM integration
- Live project
- dansperformanceparts.com ↗
Situation
Dan’s Performance Parts is one of the earliest online VW and buggy supply stores, serving enthusiasts across a large and highly specialized catalog.
The business had grown into seven distinct websites, each serving different categories and many running on outdated, slow and difficult experiences. I was brought in to decide how the business should brand and market itself.
Strategy
Consolidate. VW and buggy parts drove the business, so we merged those primary brands and folded the remaining specialty businesses into the same platform. That gave the company one clear identity without abandoning important product categories, and let us design the experience around the core audience.
Execution
- Product discovery. Navigation, filtering and search redesigned around how customers shop for specialized parts by vehicle, category and application.
- Commerce experience. Homepage, listing, product and cart templates brought into one design system, with related-product recommendations for cross-sell.
- Performance and operations. Caching and CDN tuning, bulk editing workflows, CMS improvements and CRM integration for targeted marketing.
- Search readiness. Clean, crawlable architecture built to support ongoing SEO and catalog growth.
My role
I led stakeholder sessions to find both the unique qualities and the shared attributes across the seven brands, analyzed the business data, and designed a UX/UI that respected the existing customer base while creating one journey.
I set the visual language and experience strategy, defined the technology stack and assembled the team. I stayed hands-on through development, CMS integration, bulk content management, performance optimization and SEO.
What changed
Customers get a coherent path through a complex catalog, with the specialist depth that made the individual businesses valuable still intact.
A unified brand, reusable design system and maintainable commerce foundation give the business a platform that can keep evolving across search, merchandising and customer experience.
