Backstock
A revolutionary digital platform for RV dealers to buy & sell wholesale inventory.
Backstock – more than a marketplace.
A new way for RV dealers to turn aged stock into revenue and access inventory year-round.
For as long as anyone can remember, RV dealers looking to offload excess and wholesale inventory have been limited by geography and their personal connections. Dealer-to-dealer selling was a slow, manual process conducted via phone calls and emails. Backstock, founded by Josh VanValkenburg, was created to streamline that process.
AKOS created Backstock as a web application that allows dealers to buy, sell, and trade inventory with other verified dealers. With the web application, the Backstock team is equipped with the foundation to grow their service platform and the tools to manage the experience for each dealership.
One of the reasons AKOS was uniquely qualified for this project was our experience with SMS/MMS regulatory compliance. Providing realtime notifications to users was a high priority for the Backstock team, and they wanted to ensure that those notifications would be seen. Text messages have the highest open rate of any communications format, but the regulations can be restrictive. Thanks to our experience building SMS/MMS apps, AKOS was fully equipped to ensure the consistency of notifications with full regulatory compliance. And considering that noncompliance can get a number blocked by the major carriers, this was a pretty big one!
What We Did
Business Strategy & Consulting
Brand & Logo Design
App UX/UI design
Dealer Marketplace
Dealer Inventory Management App
Backend API development
Manufacturer & Models Database
Application Tech Stack
The Objective
To drive RV sales out of the past and into the future. The Backstock team partnered with AKOS to develop and refine their ambitious vision for what Backstock could offer dealers nationwide. The goal was to introduce ease, speed, and modernization to an inconvenient, outdated system. The Backstock team set out to offer a high level of searchability and segmentation of listings, rapid notifications for users, and admin control that would guarantee the highest level of security. AKOS set out to make all their dreams come true.
The Solution
AKOS created a custom web app that prioritized the user experience, providing an intuitive, modern interface for quick user adoption. Since dealers come to the app having primarily used outdated methods like phone calls and email, the app is designed to make onboarding and creating listings as easy as possible. Ultimately, Backstock went live as the newest and most innovative way for dealers to buy, sell, and trade excess inventory.
Buyer Marketplace
An intuitive and robust interface specifically for dealership buyers to effortlessly navigate Backstock inventory. With advanced sorting and filtering capabilities, buyers can quickly find listings that match their specific needs, including options to filter by proximity, features, and specs – making it simpler than ever for buyers to source and close the right deals.
Listing Notifications
With a commitment to enhance operational efficiency and communication, we incorporated instant listing notifications into the Backstock app as a key value-add. The feature ensures that users receive immediate updates on relevant activities, like new listings that match saved searches for buyers and new inquiries for sellers. Crucially, our implementation of all notifications adheres strictly to TCPA and FCC regulations, ensuring all messaging is compliant with streamlined opt-in and opt-out processes.
Seller Central
This is the administrative hub of our platform, carefully crafted to empower dealerships and their staff with comprehensive control over their sales operations. The app’s robust backend interface allows sales managers to seamlessly post and update listings across one or more locations, engage with potential buyers through an integrated communication system, and customize their tiered notification settings – all from one centralized dashboard.
The Challenges
Data Consistency
To streamline searchability and listing creations, we standardized RV & Trailers naming conventions in Backstock by building our own datasets of 500+ manufacturers and 150,000+ models going back 30 years. Dealers, using our auto-complete feature, can breeze through while creating new listings with the assurance their listing data will be accurate and consistent with industry standards. Currently, we have more than 150k models of RV to choose from, and searching is seamless.
Ensuring Growth
Backstock was built to go viral in the RV Dealer community. From onboarding to listing creation to instant notifications, our team carefully crafted journeys to encourage dealers to recommend Backstock to their community. Thanks to this focus on growth potential, Backstock added 200+ new users in their first 30 days.
The AKOS Difference
Training and Onboarding Support
When it comes to setting our partners up for success, our goal is empowerment and autonomy. AKOS is always available to provide support for large-scale issues, but we wanted Backstock to have full ownership of the app, including being empowered to deal with the day-to-day administration. That’s why, during and after the app build, we provided Backstock with all the materials they would need to continue to run their app independently, including making changes and troubleshooting any issues. From the nitty gritty code details to instructional videos on admin features and demos for onboarding new users, we made sure the Backstock team was fully equipped to run their app. Because ultimately, it is their app, and no one is a better expert on how it should be run than they are.
Consult Our Experts
Outdated portals and communications platforms can lead to industry-wide disconnect and lost opportunities. Let’s talk about how AKOS can help you, and your entire industry, move into the future with confidence.
