The auto dealership industry is showing signs of life as we head into 2010, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to relax and stop looking for new ways to profit at your dealership. Dealerships across the country have been integrating their online and offline advertising, trimming waste from their budgets, and combing through their databases, all in an effort to bring more money into their dealerships. All of these efforts are important and necessary, but one profit center that is often overlooked is aftermarket parts and accessories.  We have assembled a panel of experts to offer some advice on how dealerships can increase their revenue from this often overlooked profit center.

 

Customers need to able to visualize the parts you want to sell them. This goes a long way towards smoothing the path to the sale. You have to “show them! Tell your customers you personalize by what they see on the dealer’s website, showroom, or service lounge. Tell them in advertisements. Dress up vehicles. Hang accessories on the walls and then create a process to present those accessories to every customer,” advises David Copp Stringer, president of the Insignia Group LC.

 

One way to do this, that all of our experts recommend, is to have at least one vehicle on your lot with every accessory you can fit on it. This may not make for the most attractive vehicle but, “even though when you slap it all on one car it doesn’t look that great, if a customer is considering a step-up [or another accessory], you can say, ‘You want to see what a step up looks like? Let me show you this one car, it’s got everything,” explains Famous Rhodes, director of parts and accessories for eBay Motors. “It will give customers an idea of what these things will look like when you put them on a vehicle.”

 

This works, because as Greg Basich, executive editor of Mobile Electronics Magazine, says, “When customers are shopping for cars, if they can see the actual accessories on the vehicle, and use them in a test drive, they are more likely to be interested in that vehicle and its accessory options.” He adds one word of warning though, “Don't add accessories to too many of the same model vehicle. You want the cars with accessories on the lot to stand out.”

 

Totally accessorizing one or two of the vehicles on your lot is probably the best way to convince customers at the dealership to purchase accessories for their new vehicle, but the vast majority of consumers start their accessories searches online, the same way they do for vehicles. “The overall percentage of online aftermarket is anywhere from six to seven percent of sales and it’s expected to grow to anywhere from 12-14 percent over the next five years,” Rhodes explains. And your dealership needs to capture its share of that market.

 

“Like all industries, the internet has provided access to information. Whether that’s products or pricing, customers are better informed and know what is possible,” David Copp Stringer reminds us. This is to the dealers benefit, because, “It has also provided a differentiation between OE accessories and aftermarket accessories. Information on aftermarket accessories is everywhere as is the availability. OE accessories are available, usually at the dealership only. So it provides dealers with a great opportunity to offer the OE accessories as a lead product and then the aftermarket to fill in the gaps or provide a good-better-best model.”

 

In addition to informing consumers of the superiority of OEM parts, online parts sales have one great advantage over local sales: they have a national (possibly international) marketplace. A larger marketplace allows you to sell the parts that are just sitting on your shelves taking up space. This is also a low-risk way to begin selling parts online, because you don’t have to buy any new inventory to start.

 

“Take a look at the parts that have been on your shelves for more than 365 days,” recommends Famous Rhodes. “Those are the parts you want to start with and try to sell online. They’re low risk, they’ve been in inventory, some of that inventory may have even been written off. It gives you a quick way to get some of the old products off your shelves that you need to sell to a national audience.”

 

Accessorizing vehicles so your customers can see what their new vehicle will look like and selling parts online are essential to growing your aftermarket parts and accessories sales, but in the end it still comes down to your salespeople. “If they [salespeople] are not involved in selling and explaining available accessory options, no amount of POP materials or cars sitting on the lot with a couple of installed accessories is going to help,” Greg Basich emphasizes. “Everybody involved in the vehicle sales process should be knowledgeable, to some degree, about the accessories sales process and what's happening with it.”