An initial visit last week to AAPEX—the annual Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo—opened my eyes to the worldwide expanse of manufacturers and suppliers of everything from transmission gears to seat coverings to glossy paint that go into the repair and maintenance of motor vehicles after their initial sale by automakers.
Among about 2,200 exhibitors at the show, there were so many from China that it was easy to spend a good part of a day in the China section alone. There were also many from places like South Korea, Thailand, Mexico and, of course, Germany and other European countries.
Among the 20 or so exhibitors I talked with—most of whom displayed a website address prominently—all were in various stages of developing, or in some cases just thinking about, e-commerce.
Many of them—including China-based SDZ Auto Parts Co., a maker of products including fuel pumps and thermostats (SDZ.com.cn), Taiwan-based electric products supplier Top Quality Auto Electric Products Co. (AES-autoparts.com), Brussels-based lubricants supplier Ardeca Lubricants (Ardeca-lubricants.be), and Ottawa, Ill.-based Mitsuboshi Belting Ltd. Group (mblusa.com), a manufacturer of belts used in running generators and water pumps—had websites designed only for marketing and information purposes.
In most cases, however, the operators of such sites said they could foresee introducing e-commerce transactions to let customers order when and how they pleased. “Our site now is only for marketing, but eventually we may sell to distributors online, to companies like AutoZone,” a spokesman for SDZ Auto Parts said.
This trend included some site operators who said their products were too complex to order without the help of a sales rep through self-service e-commerce, but who said they could eventually see going with e-commerce transactions for re-orders and other types of sales that don’t require the expertise of a sales rep.
Still, many were taking the time to think through what they saw as the advantages and disadvantages of operating a B2B e-commerce site. Robert Timm, assistant manager for automotive and heavy duty aftermarket sales at Mitsuboshi Belting, which uses Salesforce.com’s CRM software to manage customer account activity, said he thinks Mitsuboshi will someday migrate at least a portion of customer orders to e-commerce transactions as a way to process them faster and more efficiently. “Phone orders are hard to manage,” he said, noting that messages and order details can easily get misplaced.
But Sevan Gregorian, general manager of Ardeca’s Germantown, Md.-based unit Ardeca Lubricants USA, which operates the informational site ArdecaUSA.com, said Ardeca “could eventually” sell online but that it would have to first figure out how to properly engage its customers online as well as through sales reps. One of Ardeca’s concerns, he said, was how to be sure customers ordering through self-service e-commerce ordered the right products to meet their needs. Ardeca, which manufacturers its products in Belgium, offers dozens of varieties products in such categories as motor oil, automatic transmission fluid, heavy duty gear oil, power steering fluid and brake fluid. “An online customer might order the wrong product, and we might not know about it right away—the way we would if a sales rep handled the order,” he said.
Other AAPEX exhibitors were much farther along in e-commerce.
ACDelco, a unit of General Motors Corp. that makes car batteries, spark plugs and other products, is already taking a dual approach to B2B e-commerce: It operates ACDelcoShop.com to sell to motor vehicle repair shops mechanics’ tools, workbenches and items like ACDelco-logoed shirts and portable coolers for carrying food and beverages; and it operates ACDelcoConnect.com to sell to distributors and retail chain customers its full range of batteries, spark plugs and other items used to repair motor vehicles.
The company provides a link to ACDelcoConnect.com from the websites of those distributors and retail chains, which sell directly to repair shops and corporate fleet operations. The link allows personnel at the distributors and retailers to place orders directly from ACDelco, which provides them with multiple ways to search for products, same-day shipping and such data as demand for particular products and combinations of products in particular areas of the United States, saysKelli Abbott, ACDelco’s manager of e-commerce.
Lube-Tech, a Golden Valley, Minn.-based distributor of industrial lubricants, chemicals and other products, is striving to build online sales through customers that are original equipment manufacturers, said Erin Rodriquez, manager of business development. Its customer Polaris Industries Inc., which manufacturers Polaris snowmobiles and other motorized products, for instance, lets Polaris dealers navigate from a Polaris website to order motor oils and other products online directly from Lube-Tech.
Companies like ACDelco and Lube-Tech say they recognize e-commerce as an important way to grow sales to business customers—and to fend off what they expect will be growing competition from Amazon.com Inc. and other online sellers. That kind of competition means it’s essential to improve online operations and related services, such as providing fast order fulfillment and deliveries, to better compete against services like Amazon’s Prime low-cost, expedited delivery service, Rodriquez said.
By adding services like demand data on products by geographic area, Abbott says, ACDelco expects to build strong, lasting relationships with customers and “go beyond what Amazon can do.”
Amazon, of course, can be expected to also continue improving its e-commerce technology and services. But with their own mix of e-commerce technology and strategies, these automotive industry players appear to be on the right track for growth.
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