Goal: To provide legitimacy to the business while also increasing sales by responding to customer requests.  

The automotive wholesale and resale industry is dominated by large brands and It can be an intimidating market to start a business in. But West Smith wasn’t deterred. He was determined to bring something different to the automotive space: a smaller, more unique automotive e-commerce site. That’s when he began Auto Mafia Racing, where he is now the CEO.

“We are a very young company,” he said. “We have grown purely from the internet, from what started out as a passion project to over one million in sales.”

Affirm helped provide legitimacy

Auto Mafia Racing acquires most of its customers through social media and word of mouth.  And while they are able to match prices of larger conglomerates, and sometimes even give their shoppers a discount, they needed a way to prove they were on the same level as the behemoths in their industry.  

Affirm was the answer.

“People kept asking ‘do you accept Affirm?’” Smith said. “All the bigger companies had Affirm first, so adding Affirm to the website gave us a legitimate stamp when it came to selling to customers. It compared us to those more established companies.”

While Auto Mafia Racing initially offered Paypal Credit, Smith didn’t feel it was meeting the needs of his business or the needs of his customers.

“Not many people were using or could figure out Paypal Credit,” he said. “It was always kind of convoluted. It didn’t seem as good of a choice for us."

Integration was quick and easy

While deciding on Affirm was easy, Smith was concerned that the integration process wouldn’t be.

“I was ready for the integration to be pretty rough,” Smith said. “But it was incredibly simple. I don’t think I could have asked for it to be any easier.”

Auto Mafia Racing was one of the first business to take advantage of Affirm’s new self-service feature. Now businesses who were initially too small to work with Affirm can start the process right away.  

For Auto Mafia Racing, the fact that they were on Shopify made the process even more automatic. With only 30 minutes of actual integration time for Smith, they were up and running with Affirm in under 24 hours. And they got their first purchase with Affirm the next day. These days, they are attracting as much business with Affirm—sometimes, more—than other, larger companies in the industry.

While Smith’s primary goal with Affirm was to validate his business and answer the demands of customers, he also hoped Affirm would grow his bottom line. They advertised on social, put “starting at” Affirm messaging on their product pages, and made sure to mention it to customers purchasing items over $500. In July, 13 percent of their total orders were completed with Affirm and their average order value increased by 25 percent.

Auto Mafia Racing’s motto is parts, passion, performance. The site already had the parts. Smith supplied the passion. And now with Affirm, the performance starts at checkout and finishes on the road.