In a busy post-Thanksgiving video we cover a lot this week. We begin with the American Trailer Manufacturers Coalition, featuring Great Dane Trailers, Stoughton Trailers and Wabash National, who have petitioned the U.S. Dept. of Commerce about the dumping of dry van and reefer trailers into the U.S. market by producers from China, Canada and Mexico. Then we touch on November Class 8 truck orders and where they rank, note the large and sudden influx of merger and transaction activity in our sector before concluding with a look at AI search and how it will change marketing for your business.
Lucas: Hey everybody. Lucas here back again with another TPS Weekly News Roundup.
And today I actually want to jump back to something that happened right before the Thanksgiving holiday. The news that the American Trailer Manufacturers Coalition (ATMC), which is a new group, has filed a petition with the Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission over possible dumping of dry van and reefer trailers into the United States marketplace. The members of the American Trailer Manufacturers Coalition, which include Great Dane, Wabash and Stoughton, saying that trailers coming in from China, Canada and Mexico are making the U.S. market and U.S. produced trailers uncompetitive — or making the market unfair for domestic production of those drive van and reefer trailers. Now, this petition just happened at the end of November. It will be months, if not years before a decision is made by the Department of Commerce and the But that’s something we’ll be keeping an eye on moving forward because it have could have huge repercussions in the trailer market.
Also earlier this week, we got the results of November Class 8 truck orders. As I’m sure you can guess, they were down again. They were down month over month, but also down anywhere from 40 to 50% year over year, depending on what you’re getting your data from. So, just more evidence that the truck market continues to struggle and is not turning around. And that even with some clarifications regarding the EPA NOx regulations, we’re not seeing an increase in truck orders. Carriers are still very much prioritizing profitability and really maintaining their business right now as opposed to expansion and growth.
Other news this week, we had our November M&A roundup come out on Monday, and we had eight mergers or acquisitions announced last month and we’ve already had three this week. So, there seems to be an uptick in transactions across the dealer, aftermarket and supplier segments. We’ll keep an eye on that moving forward. But if you want to see the rundown of what happened in November and what’s happened thus far this week, check out the website. That is there.
And then we had another really good story that Beth Colvin our associate editor wrote around AI search and how AI search is really going change how readers and how possible customers engage with your business. Now the thing that you need to understand about AI search is it kills organic traffic to your site. AI search can result in up to a 50% dip in organic traffic to your site. But what it does is when someone does come to the site, they’re much more likely to convert. Beth says in her story conversation rates are 4.4 times better when somebody comes to your website through AI search as opposed to the prior or organic search. So, if you’re someone who has an e-commerce site, or you’re someone who wants to drive prospects to your business and then get them into your business to buy parts, to buy equipment, understand that AI search is going to reduce the number of people that are coming to your site. But if they get there, if they find your site, they are far more likely to do business with you.
There’s some really good guidance in Beth’s story about how you can prepare your business for AI search, how you can optimize your website to make sure it’s as successful as possible in an AI search world. And just some really good comments there as well about just digital marketing and how it continues to evolve, how website development continues to evolve. So, if you didn’t see that story, please check that out.
Please check out the M&A roundup, like I said, the Class 8 orders and then the trailer dumping story. We will continue to follow up on all of this. Check out the website.
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