The following comes from the July 2018 issue of Truck Parts & Service.
Not much longer after the dawn of the Internet and its initial primary uses for accessing information and sending email, retailers realized the enormous potential and reach the technology provided for selling products. Seemingly every day there’s news of another brick-and-mortar retailer going out of business — a victim of online shoppers.
Aftermarket parts distributors are not impervious to the e-commerce revolution. The 500 lb. gorilla, of course, is Amazon, a site where customers can order just about everything, from best-selling books, lip glosses and summer sandals to starters, radiators and air hoses, among many other parts for heavy-duty vehicles.
See the problem?
And, Amazon isn’t the only site. To lesser extents, there’s also auction house eBay along with other retail sites that compete with brick-and-mortar parts distributors.
However, the heavy-duty parts industry is not powerless against sites that are trying to siphon sales. On the frontlines of this battle for business are distributors’ outside sales forces and the parts department staffs supporting them.
The online threat
Opinions of how big of a threat Amazon and the like pose vary by distributor, but most agree online retailers’ presence is being felt in the industry.
Gregg Truelove, director of parts at Custom Truck One Source, says the online threat is “pretty huge. It provides a convenience. People can just get online and order. They don’t have to talk to anybody.”
Truelove adds, “The scary part is Google. You can put a part number in Google and it will bring up anything that’s available online, whether it’s eBay, Amazon or Joe’s Truck Shop. The information is out there and pretty readily available.”
Andy Schmitz, sales manager at Potter Webster Company, says online parts providers pose a threat for what he calls commodity items, in which a fleet might use 100 of a given item and the company is familiar with the part number and will order a week’s supply.
“Amazon does present a threat. We can’t ignore it. Pricing pressures will always be there as they always have,” says Randy Kray, sales manager at Sadler Power Train. “Also, there are more competitors just like us, so we need to deal with that, too.”
Matt Poeltler, Sadler Power Train’s marketing director, adds, “We’ve also run into people trying to sell parts on eBay. But, compared to Amazon and some of the chains … that’s not a huge threat.”
Online retailers might be able to undercut brick-and-mortar distributors on price, but Amazon and other online parts stores have their Achilles’ heel. Distributors’ outside sales forces have an advantage because they build customer rapport, use their expertise to help customers troubleshoot problems, ensure customers are ordering the correct part and provide a level of overall customer service that Amazon cannot.
Making it personal
Sadler Power Train’s sales force has an average of 25 years of service with the company and “they’ve developed a solid relationship with the customers,” says Kray, adding they embrace the company’s values of honesty, integrity and professionalism.
“They do a really nice job of communicating [those values] and customers appreciate that. [Customers] can look you in the eye and say, ‘This guy really does care about my business. He’s not here just to make a quick buck. He’s here to help me make my business more profitable,” he says.
“I am a firm believer that people do business with people. We’re fortunate enough to have a very strong customer base that still believes in that, too,” Schmitz says.
“When we’re out asking why people order from Potter Webster, it has to do with our value-added service that we provide — it’s the sales team’s expertise, their knowledge of products, the number of products we carry and moving very quickly to take care of the customer’s needs. I think all of that that give us an advantage over the online retailers,” says Schmitz.
Potter Webster’s customers mainly consist of small to medium-sized fleets made up of different kinds of trucks by different manufacturers. Because these fleets have a mix of vehicles, they rely on the expertise of Potter Webster’s sales staff to help them identify the parts they need, he adds. Also, Potter Webster provides same-day delivery of parts on its shelves.
“You have to have quality people who care,” Truelove says. “Your staff has industry knowledge that the online companies aren’t privy to. You have to provide a premium service. And, that’s how we’ve been successful. We outservice people.”
Another benefit sales reps provide is ensuring their customers don’t just order the correct part, but also receive the additional parts needed to complete the installation. “If [a shop owner] goes online to order a turbocharger, the [site] isn’t going to tell him to get the installation kit that goes with it, which includes the gaskets and O-rings. If they order it online, they wait the two days to get the turbocharger, then they have to wait another two days to get the hardware kit to install it,” Truelove says.
Mutual Wheel Company turned to technology to improve customer service by giving outside sales reps tablet computers. They’ve been using tablets, which are connected to the company’s main system, for approximately six years, according to Daniel Engstrom, marketing manager.
“They can see live inventory, create orders for customers and make up an invoice for them right there. Once they place the order, it gets sent back to our computer and we’re able to pull it and fill it,” Engstrom says. “Being able to give the customer that information upfront has helped a lot.”
The technology, however, doesn’t replace good old industry knowledge. “With the knowledge that our outside sales guys have and the ability to identify parts is pretty big” and keeps customers from having to take educated guesses on parts when ordering online, Engstrom says. “Some of these parts are so close. A customer might base his purchase on a generic picture online and then have a port size for an air line be different, for example. There’s a lot of fine details that you can miss online.”
Mayfield agrees eliminating guesswork is a big part of customer service. “We can’t compete on price, but what we do is provide piece of mind knowing customers are going to get the parts they need and know how to install those parts correctly because manufacturers often will provide literature we pass along to customers. That isn’t always available if you order a part from Amazon or somewhere like that,” he says.
Never stop learning
To maintain their advantage over the online competition, education and training never stops for outside sales reps, which can include company meetings to review sales strategies. Companies also rely on their vendor relationships to keep them up to date on the latest products and technical information. That knowledge can then be passed on to customers by the sales force and, oftentimes, the vendors.
Sadler Power Train extends the teaching to its customers. This spring the company began taking a training van to customer locations to train them on wheel-ends. Poeltler says the company is working on future training, which is conducted by the sales team and vendor experts, and is seeing customer interest in training on engine emissions, engine diagnostics, HVAC and ABS. “Feedback from customers has been very positive; they like having exclusive training on their turf,” he says.
Sales training at Mutual Wheel revolves around the Four C’s: Constant contact creates customers. “If you’re not getting any activity out of somebody, just keep trying and eventually the customer will see your willingness to help. We really try to sell the service part of it and establishing that relationship,” says Engstrom.
Mutual Wheel also invites vendors to train its sales force on new products and updates. In addition, the vendors will ride along with sales reps to provide customers with on-site training. As part of the company celebrating its 125th year in business in 2018, it’s promoting a different vendor each month, which provides sales reps and customers with plenty of learning opportunities on a variety of parts.
Custom Truck One Source and Potter Webster also work hard to make the most of their relationships with vendors through on-site and field training.
“We work closely with the vendors on providing [customers] technical information and training,” says Schmitz, adding that sales opportunities arise from that.
Truelove adds, “The other thing vendors do is when they get calls from the market, they send customers our way. We try to make it a good two-way street between us and our vendors.” When it comes to building a strong sales force, Texas Trucks Direct looks for people who are personable, have product knowledge and possess problem-solving skills. “Every customer has a problem they need solved, that’s why they’re talking to us,” says Mayfield. “We need to identify those problems and find the best approach to fix them.”
Mayfield adds any sales rep new to Texas Trucks Direct spends time in the service and parts departments learning all facets of how the company operates before they go out into the field.
“We work them on the front counter, which is probably one of the hardest places to work, but they have to know what we can get and where we can get it from so we don’t put ourselves in a position where we promise something and not be able to deliver,” he says.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em
Amazon doesn’t hold a monopoly on online sales and some aftermarket parts distributors have developed or are in the process of creating their own online presence to make it easier for their customers to purchase parts, find out about new products or learn how to make repairs.
“We are creating an online catalog for our local customers who prefer the ease that online ordering can bring. We are trying to simplify the process of looking up the correct part, and we hope that it will be a useful tool for not only our customers, but our sales staff as well,” says Engstrom. Mutual Wheel began the online project about a year ago and it’s scheduled to be completed in 2019.
Kray says Sadler Power Train still needs to have salespeople “on the ground,” but the company also has a website, in part, to appeal to its millennial customers. “We really feel the millennials want to be on their smart devices interacting with businesses and that’s OK. We’re all in, and I think we can do both and be twice as strong as what we are now,” he says.
In addition to online ordering, the website is expanding to offer its customers “training videos, tips — information sharing,” Kray says. “We need to make it easier for the customer to want to buy from us. Who knows what the next website feature will be? These are exciting times.”
Aftermarket parts distributors might be feeling the pressures brought by online parts retailers to varying degrees, but the industry as a whole is certainly aware of what Amazon and the like can do to businesses that can’t compete on price.
That said, distributors are capable of competing with the online sites by using an outside sales force that provides superior service, product and industry expertise, problem solving skills and customer trust that can only be established and nurtured through face-to-face interaction.
“I still think this truck parts business is a personal business and a handshake business, and I don’t know if we’ll ever lose sight of that,” says Kray.
