A niche importer with outdated tools
Celeste Motors imports high-end Japanese cars, mainly from auctions in Japan. The market: JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) enthusiasts, collectors, French and European brokers who want a R34, an MK4 Supra or a Type R in original condition.
Before SDR Web, their process was entirely manual. Vehicle catalog kept on Excel, shared by email to a client list. Live auctions in Japan? Copy-paste from source site to WhatsApp. No digital differentiation vs competitors, and impossible to scale: each new client meant more manual follow-up hours.
3 friction points blocking growth
No real-time visibility on auctions
Buyers learned about a vehicle too late. Japanese auctions move fast (24-48h), and a client notified the next day misses the opportunity.
Frozen catalog, slow updates
A new arrival could take 3 to 7 days to reach clients. Meanwhile, the competitor with a dynamic site was selling.
No structured lead capture
No smart form, no vehicle alerts, no client area. Interested prospects left without follow-up.
A real-time auction platform + complete back-office
We delivered an autonomous web platform where Celeste publishes each vehicle at auction in Japan in a few clicks. Clients see stock in real-time, can place a pre-booking request, and receive instant email alerts on new arrivals matching their criteria.
Delivered in 14 days, no scope creep
Brief & technical scoping
Audit of current process, identification of Japanese auction edge cases, MVP scope validation.
Mockups & validation
3 desktop + mobile mockups, client validation, adjustments in parallel with dev start.
Real-time auction MVP dev
Product core: Ajax push system, concurrency management on auctions, fallback if disconnection.
Catalog & admin dashboard
Complete back-office, training of Celeste team on go-live, onboarding videos for new employees.
Tests & production deployment
Load tests on 50 simultaneous auctions, HTTPS hardening, uptime monitoring, go-live.
+20% revenue measured, zero technical dependency
Revenue
Measured over the 3 months after launch. Vehicles sold via the site represent a growing share of total revenue.
Catalog update delay
From 3-7 days to real-time. A new vehicle is live and alerted to clients within the minute.
Management autonomy
The Celeste team publishes, edits, removes vehicles without contacting us. Zero support tickets on routine operations.
Critical bugs in production
Since go-live, no interruption on real-time auctions. PHP/MySQL stack chosen for robustness, not trends.
They built my two sites and from the first weeks I received requests via the form. Tangible result, professional and responsive team.
Mohssine El Mahir
Google review ★★★★★
[Video testimonial currently being recorded with the Celeste team, will be added here when ready.]
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