I remember months ago when Ron Larson, our Director of Sales and long-time industry veteran, said, “We should go to ACPN.” I said, “What is it?”
Well, now I know. It’s the data, the industry standards, the categorization, and ACES/PIES, and all the great men and women that make automotive, commercial, and heavy-duty parts possible to even have information about. It’s really more than an automotive content professionals network, it’s the backbone of parts data.
I was blessed to be introduced to so many important industry folks, people that have really dedicated their professional careers to ensuring data standards enable business. Both B2B and B2C are affected by these data standards. One of my favorite sessions was when someone actually pulled up ACES code to denote the country of origin of parts. That was some geeky fun.
ecommerce trends continue to grow, with Fitment Data being one of the most important pieces. And everyone is grappling with the Electric Vehicle market. The actual VIO – vehicles in operation, is smaller than you’d think, about 3-4% now, 12% by 2025, and forecasted 28% by 2030, but the scramble to have good parts data, categorizations, syntax, and general catalog is a strong effort.
One thing I noticed and appreciated about the folks at ACPN is their dedication to the industry. Some of the people I met have been in automotive data content work for 30-plus years. I even made a funny suggestion that we all not speak of things more than 25 years in the past, just to preserve our aging dignity.
I had the pleasure of hanging with some of the founders. Had a great dinner and time with (clockwise from me) Nick Porrini, Joe Zucchero, and Scott Luckett. All guys have made major contributions to the automotive industry. I might not be young enough to be the “next generation” but Sound Press will continue to help distributors, manufacturers, and online sellers in automotive with ecommerce and marketing to pursue improvements, optimizations, excellence, and business growth.
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What Distributors Are Doing Right
Equipping repair shops to grow their business
An automotive warehouse distributor’s success is deeply intertwined with the prosperity of its clients, especially automotive repair shops. Recognizing the challenges these businesses face is paramount and distributors must be committed to supporting their growth journey. Repair shops are on the front lines of the automotive industry and can be a key factor in a warehouse distributor’s business success.
The path to growth for an automotive repair shop involves a combination of exceptional service, embracing technology, diversifying offerings, investing in staff, building strong supplier relationships, implementing loyalty programs, analyzing performance metrics, and active community involvement. By following these strategies, an automotive repair shop can accelerate its success and become a trusted leader in the industry.
The question then becomes, how can you as a warehouse distributor equip your repair shop customers to succeed by using these strategies? If you are using a B2B ecommerce portal such as Nexpart or CONNECTION, you can make use of the Hometab website landing page or even your Nexpart/CONNECTION messaging that alerts users when you log into their account. Consider building out a “Grow Your Business” webpage that features training seminars, webinars, and resources to equip repair shops and their technicians. For ACDelco CONNECTION users, the ACDelco PFC program offers many of these training resources all in one organized and focused program.
The better your repair shops equip their customers, and the more clearly they communicate their services, the better those repair shops will be equipped to grow their business and keep their customers coming back for more.