Stephanie Benger: Data Here-to-There Is an Integration Company With a Focus on E-commerce Supply Chains

Data Here-to-There is an integration company with a focus on e-commerce supply chains. We specialize in automation for aftermarket auto parts. Our platform connects your data to your sales channels and keeps it up-to-date.

Automation eliminates the errors that are common with manual data entry and allows you to get products to market quickly.

Our solution is unique because we provide strong core components which can be customized. Each store is unique and we work hard to build long lasting partnerships with our clients.

Tell us about yourself?

I have a BA in English and an MLIS (Master of Library and Information Studies). I became interested in data while studying library science at the University of Alberta, and pursued this interest while managing a corporate library for Golder Associates, an environmental science consulting company.

My partner, Jay Funnell, has long experience as a software architect.

The more we talked about the possibilities around data entrepreneurship, the more we wanted to do it! He started Data Here-to-There by taking on consulting work. At the same time he was building up IP for the company.

I started working for DH2T part time and this gradually grew to full time as the business needed me more. Now we are up to 6 full-time employees and everyone is fully occupied!

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Hire more people sooner, and focus on shifting to being product-based, rather than services-based, much sooner.

What problem does your business solve?

Managing data manually, especially automotive parts data, is tough sledding and wastes a lot of time. We automate getting this data into clients’ stores and keeping it up to date, so they can spend their time growing and managing their businesses.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

“Data in the 21st Century is like Oil in the 18th Century: an immensely, untapped valuable asset. Like oil, for those who see Data’s fundamental value and learn to extract and use it there will be huge rewards.” — Wired Magazine, July 2014 https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/07/data-new-oil-digital-economy/

What is your magic sauce?

Data, especially automotive data, is still in its “wild west” phase. We along with our clients are pioneers in cultivating this unruly landscape.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We are building a next-generation app that will productize what has been our main service – getting data streams from multiple suppliers and catalogs into clients’ stores. This is a big, ambitious project that we think will change the landscape of automotive parts ecommerce.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

Each store we set up had its own unique data-based challenges, and each customer, we found, expected something different. We learned a lot in facing all these challenges. The main thing we learned from all that, is that it’s better to build products, than to deliver services! We have built a couple of apps since we started, and they’ve been game changers for us.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

We want anyone who owns a garage, speed shop, repair shop, dealership or mom-and-pop performance tuning shop to get in touch with us and find out what we can do for them.

We can set them up with an app that manages the data in your store – and we can even build your online store for you – for a very reasonable price and in much less time than it would take to hire a we designer.

Come in through our contact form here http://ecommerce.dataheretothere.com/contact-us.html and tell us what kind of auto-based business you have, and where you want to go with it! Chances are excellent that we can help get you there.