The following guest commentary was written by Fred Meyers, founder and CEO of One Stop Parts Source in California, Denver and Dallas. Meyers, a panelist at the 2008 Global Automotive Aftermarket Symposium in Chicago, feels there was a golden opportunity that he missed while speaking at the event. Today, he shares with AMN what that is.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author’s and do not reflect the positions of aftermarketNews or Babcox Publications.
On May 21, I was a panelist at the Global Automotive Aftermarket Symposium. My panel was asked to debate “What drives today’s independent repair shop owner to choose one parts source over another.” I was given this incredible platform to enlighten the leading parts manufacturers on what they should be doing to increase sales and I blew it.
On the previous day there was a discussion on Private label versus Branded Products and this should have given me the direction on how to present my topic to the attendees, however, I missed the relevance of this discussion and only realized my mistake a day later.
In discussing the topic that my panel was presenting I pointed out two important facts that manufacturers should take note of. The first fact was that as warehouse distributors, we are not in the parts business – we are in the service business and the demand from the professional installer for service in every context of the word has never been greater. With the downturn in the economy, the installers are making service demands the likes of which I have not experienced in the past 16 years in business.
So how did I miss a golden opportunity to present a new concept to the manufacturers?
I omitted to explain to them the needs of their channel partners, more specifically the WD and the professional technician.
Marketing 101 teaches us to identify a need and then satisfy that need better than your competitor and you will be successful. Starting at the point where the box gets thrown away – the technician, their greatest need in today’s economy is to keep their bays full. To do this, they need to pull consumers away from the new car dealer service departments. Unfortunately, they do not have the financial resources to spend on consumer advertising, not to mention competing with the dealership service ads that are more prevalent today than ever before. If the manufacturing community can assist the professional installer to increase his car count the benefits of this increased volume will flow through to the WD and the manufacturer.
I mentioned in my presentation that the warehouse distributor has the greatest influence on what brand the installer will use on a repair and in this regard we would support and promote the sale of product from manufacturers that support our initiative to promote the independent installer to the vehicle owner. Not making these points during my presentation is how I missed an opportunity to create awareness of the most important needs of the manufacturers’ channel partners. I also missed the opportunity to put forward an idea that could help manufacturers satisfy the needs that I have pointed out.
Neither the consumer nor the professional installer pays much attention to the brand name of the parts supplied to them to execute a repair. Many surveys have proved that, “A good experience with parts is the primary decision making process for all parties.”
This being a fact, manufacturers need to question their marketing departments if brand awareness advertising is giving them the best bang for their buck. Or, is it possible that if some of these dollars went toward driving consumers into the professional technicians’ bays would the end result be increased sales?
Using the Car Care Professional Network and the media, parts manufacturers would have a qualified organization to manage an initiative to sell the consumer on supporting authorized independent installers in preference to the new car dealer.
This is a win-win proposition for all parties.
