Parts and Accessories Without a Fits-What List

Will it fit mine

Someone needs a new door gasket for a smoker, a blade for a mower, a filter for a range hood or a case for a camera. They find a page with a photo, a part number and a price.

What they do not find is the one thing they came to check: whether it fits the model they own.

So they phone, if it is during business hours. Or they guess, and some guess wrong. Or they buy from a shop whose page answers the question.

For a part, the list of models it fits is the product description. Everything else on the page is secondary.

What a parts page usually offers

• A part number the shopper has never seen.
• A photo that looks like several other parts.
• A description copied from the supplier's catalogue.
• Fits most models, which is not an answer.
• Dimensions, sometimes, with no hint of how to measure.

The fourth is the one that causes returns. A shopper who reads fits most models assumes theirs is among them, and finds out otherwise with the part in their hand.

Shoppers know the model, not the part

A part number is printed on the old part, if anywhere, and is usually worn, greasy or out of sight.

The model number is on a label on the machine itself, in the manual and on the receipt. That is the number a shopper can find in a minute.

So the page has to work from the shopper's number towards yours: this part fits these models, listed by the name and number printed on the label.

Add a photo or a sentence showing where that label is, usually somewhere nobody has looked since the day the machine arrived.

A list in plain text

Write the compatible models as text on the page, not inside the photo or a downloadable diagram. Text can be read on a phone, found by the shop's own search, and found by Google.

List each model the way its owner would type it: the brand, the model name, the number, and the years where they matter.

Where a part fits one version of a model but not an older or newer one, say so on a line of its own. A short does not fit line prevents more mistakes than a long fits list.

For accessories not tied to one model, such as covers, thermometers or cases, give the measurements that decide the fit and say how to take them.

Search by model number

Many shoppers skip the menus and type their model number into the search box. On plenty of shops, that search reads only product names, so it finds nothing.

Ask whoever built the shop to include the compatibility text in what the search reads, or to add each model as a tag the search does read.

Then test it with real model numbers typed the way people type them: with and without spaces and dashes, and with the brand name in front.

A worked example

A meat smoker supply shop in a business park near the highway sells electric and pellet smokers, wood pellets and chips, rubs and sauces, and replacement parts, over the counter and online.

Its parts pages showed a photo, the supplier's part number, a price and the words fits most models. Customers emailed photos of their smokers asking whether a gasket or a controller would fit.

Some ordered without asking. Wrong parts came back by post, and the shop paid shipping both ways to keep the customer happy.

The answers existed. The owner knew which parts fitted which smokers, from the manufacturers' parts diagrams in a binder behind the counter, but none of it was on the website.

Each parts page now lists the models it fits and the ones it does not, with a photo of where each brand puts its label, and the search finds parts by model number.

The checkout asks which smoker the part is for, and each order is checked against the list before it is packed.

A page for each model

Once compatibility is written down, it can be turned around: a page for each model, listing every part and accessory that fits it.

That page matches what people type into Google: the model name followed by the word parts.

Link parts and model pages to each other, so a shopper landing on either can reach the other.

When the answer depends on the year

Manufacturers change parts partway through a model's life without changing its name. Two smokers sold under the same name a few years apart may take different controllers.

Where that happens, say how to tell them apart: a serial number range, a year, a label colour, or a photo of the part that differs.

And give shoppers a way out when they are unsure: a short form or an email address for a photo of their label, answered the same day.

Returns for the wrong fit

Some wrong orders will happen anyway, and how the shop handles them decides whether the customer comes back.

State the policy on the part page as well as in the terms: wrong-fit parts can come back unused, in their packaging, within a set number of days, for an exchange or a refund.

When the shop's own list was wrong, the shop should pay the return shipping and correct the list that day.

Keep a note of every wrong-fit return and the model involved. Each one points to a line on a page that needs fixing.

The counter-case

A shop with a handful of parts for one or two models can answer the fit question in a sentence on each page, without lists or model pages.

And a catalogue of thousands of parts cannot be written up in a week. Start with the best sellers and the parts that come back most often.

The rule holds at every size: say what each part fits, in words a shopper can match to the label on their own machine.

Before the next part goes up

1. Pull your wrong-fit returns from the last year.
2. Find the compatibility data for those parts.
3. Write the fits list in plain text.
4. Add a does not fit line where needed.
5. Show where the label is on each brand.
6. Make the search read model numbers.
7. Ask for the model at checkout.

Step six is the one most shops miss. A fits list the search cannot see helps the shopper who found the page, and nobody who typed a model number into the box.

What happens to a part's page once the part itself is discontinued is covered in discontinued products and the pages that ranked.

Frequently asked questions

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