Vehicle VIN Lookup: X-Cart’s Native Tool for Automotive eCommerce

Published: March 31, 2023

Updated: March 28, 2025

Just as high reliability on the road is crucial for any car, smooth parts search in an online automotive store is essential for building customer trust and driving sales growth. 

One of the most accurate and trusted methods for verifying car parts is using the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). The vehicle VIN lookup search feature is tailored specifically for the automotive aftermarket sector and uses the identifiers common to the customers in your industry. The unique code of 17 digits gives detailed information about your customers’ cars, enabling them to easily find compatible parts without hassle.

When it comes to enabling parts search by VIN, automotive businesses have two choices: either opt for installing a third-party VIN lookup tool or take advantage of having it prebuilt in the core functionality of their eCommerce platform. And the second option seems to be far more beneficial. 

Let’s find out how part lookup by VIN works, what benefits it promises, and why having it as a built-in feature is more cost-efficient than using outside services by taking the X-Cart VIN lookup tool as an example.

VIN Lookup Tool by X-Cart

An advanced X-Cart auto parts search by VIN accurately captures all the features and specs of a specific vehicle to help customers identify the auto parts for a particular car with maximum accuracy.

How do you decode a VIN? Each character in the Vehicle Identification Number contains specific data about the vehicle’s origin, manufacturer, engine size and type, plant location, and unique serial number.

Released in March 2023, the X-Cart filter by VIN is designed to ensure a high-performance auto parts search that lets your customers find parts for their vehicles in record time.

How Does Parts Lookup by VIN Work?

Customer side

After entering their VIN into the search bar and clicking “Find the Vehicle,” shoppers get refined search results for only the parts that fit their car. Customers can also add the vehicle to their “Garage” and create a customized car profile that can be used to filter specific auto parts in the future.

Technical side

The specified VIN requests information about the car through the Decode VIN service integrated into complex auto parts catalogs. According to the data received from the service, the car’s characteristics are determined (Year, Make, Model, Submodel, or Trim) to identify the parts that fit the query and immediately return accurate search results to the customer.

Year/Make/Model + Vehicle VIN Lookup

Providing high-quality product data is critical for maintaining high profits. Conversely, inaccurate auto parts orders may result in lost sales, costly returns, and a significant drop in customer loyalty. 

The most effective method to ensure shoppers purchase the correct parts is to enable them to filter your catalog by using a unique identifier for the vehicle they own. This is why VIN lookup and Year/Make/Model (YMM) are essential search features for the automotive eCommerce industry, especially when you have them both.

X-Cart provides VIN lookup combined with our native Year/Make/Model fitment search to offer a faster way to refine search results for your customers and find the exact fits quickly and hassle-free.

The YMM tool, designed by X-Cart, empowers sellers to:

• Remember filters for non-logged users
• Save vehicles for the registered customers
• Build custom landing pages 
• Import and export vehicle fitment data in bulk
• Collect and present valuable statistics

Working as a killer combo in your X-Cart store, VIN lookup and YMM search filters ensure a high-quality user experience for your automotive eCommerce website customers. In addition, the VIN Lookup can be used as an alternative to the Year/Make/Model selectors and automatically decode the year, make, and model of a shopper’s car for maximized search accuracy.

What You’ll Get with VIN lookup and YMM in Your Corner

• Ease of search and filtering – customers get instant, real-time access to your rich product catalogs 
• Enhanced auto parts search accuracy – search results are filtered for the exact car model your shoppers own
• Increased order accuracy – your customers get exactly what they need, which results in lower return and cart abandonment rates
• Additional options for personalization – with the Garage feature, customers can save a certain type of vehicle and access the stored list for the facilitated car parts search in the future. 
• High-quality customer experience – fulfilling your buyers’ needs is the right way to improve customer loyalty and trust 
• Reduced costs due to built-in functionality – prebuilt search functionality frees you up from third-party fees and costs associated with maintenance.

Summing Up

Fitment data is critically important for any automotive eCommerce store. And the advanced product fitment verification tools give your customers peace of mind, ensuring that certain parts will be functional with their vehicles.

Given the impact that the buyers’ decision-making process has on the conversion rates, it is extremely important to eliminate the guessing of the auto parts specs and provide a superior shopping experience.

With this in mind, X-Cart made ensuring your website has the quality fitment search tool its #1 priority.

FAQs

So, my users are looking for a part for their car. Why is using VIN such a big deal for finding the right one?

Using a vehicle identification number is the most accurate and trusted way to ensure your users get the exact right part. This unique 17-digit code holds all the detailed information about a specific vehicle, like its manufacturer, engine size, and even the plant it was built in. When you use an X-Cart VIN lookup tool, it acts as a VIN decoder to instantly filter down to only the parts that are a perfect fit for your particular vehicle’s VIN.

Beyond finding parts, can X-Cart’s VIN tool help users get information about a car’s past, like a vehicle history report?

X-Cart VIN lookup tool is primarily designed for parts fitment – helping customers find compatible auto parts for their car based on its VIN. While the VIN itself does encode a lot of information like the vehicle manufacturer and the vehicle’s plant, our tool doesn’t generate a full vehicle history report or a free vehicle history report like you might find from dedicated services.

Those reports typically involve pulling data about a used car’s past accidents, title issues, and service history, which is a different scope than ensuring correct part fitment for your current needs.

How does the VIN lookup tool actually ‘decode’ the VIN? What kind of information is it pulling when users enter an identification number?

When users enter a VIN number, our system essentially acts as a sophisticated VIN decoder. Each character in that 17-digit code is significant! It allows us to identify specific information encoded about the car, such as the world manufacturer identifier, the engine size and type, and even the build plant. This information helps us pinpoint the exact characteristics of the car, ensuring the search results users see are only for parts that are a perfect match.

It’s much like how the information NHTSA’s VIN decoder works to provide details about a motor vehicle for highway safety purposes, though our tool is specifically focused on finding compatible parts.

What’s the main advantage of having VIN as a native feature compared to using a third-party tool?

Having it as a prebuilt native feature within X-Cart’s core eCommerce platform means significant cost savings for businesses. Unlike third-party tools that often come with ongoing fees and maintenance costs, X-Cart’s solution is available for free as part of their Automotive subscription. This built-in functionality frees you up from extra expenses, streamlines your operations, and ensures a more integrated and reliable experience for both you and your customers without relying on outside services for your vehicle identification number VIN searches.

Where can I find my VIN on my car if I want to use this tool, and is there a way to do a quick ‘free VIN check’ to make sure I have the right number?

Finding your VIN is usually pretty straightforward! You can typically find the VIN number on a small metal plate visible through the driver’s side of your windshield, near the dashboard. It’s also commonly found on a label affixed to the driver’s side door jamb. While our tool doesn’t offer a standalone free VIN check before you search for parts, entering your vehicle identification number directly into the search bar is how you initiate the lookup.

If there are any issues with the format of your VIN, the system will usually let you know, effectively giving you a quick confirmation that you’re on the right track to finding your parts.