Online Automotive Car Parts Marketing

The sale of spare parts for cars online has become a clearly booming sector. The price, much more competitive than in the official workshops and houses, together with the excellent quality and service that these companies provide, is making many potential buyers begin to explore this emerging market.

If to these mitigating factors, we add that the scourge of the crisis, especially virulent in the automotive sector, has triggered the destruction, from 2007 to the present, of many auto wrecking yards, the perfect breeding ground has been created for the proliferation of companies specialized in online spare parts for the car.

It is a fact that online car parts are growing exponentially. The latest reports from studies are clear, 3% of users buy cars online, while accessories and accessories for cars receive a percentage increase of 14 points, which strengthens the presence of the automotive sector in Internet purchases.

And the forecasts were equally promising: over the next 12 months, 45% of potential customers will buy auto parts and accessories.  The main reason, as the report points out, and which we already mentioned at the beginning, is the low price of these products, which encourages their widespread purchase, such as that of windshield wiper blades, which is a great opportunity this year, to capitalize on the online market.

How and where do consumers buy parts for their cars?

Regarding the online channel, 35% of buyers buy accessories or auto parts for their car in second-hand stores, 34% on the websites of official national stores, and finally, 31% trust international stores ( there is great diversification in this market).

The main peculiarity of this sector is based on the demand of the consumer. Users who buy car parts and accessories require many comparisons to find the best price and quality.

Studies have shown, 42% of consumers dedicate several days to finding out and looking for details of the spare parts before purchasing them, although it is necessary to emphasize that there is 16% ensure that they make the purchase in just a few hours. In addition, there are also users who make the decision to consult information moments before the purchase  (11%) and only 2% even collect information.

With all this context, and helped by the generation of trust and reliability, the automotive auto parts sector has positioned itself as one of the sectors with the most growth potential for the coming years. Companies are aware of this, and competition is intensifying.

External factors that mark a new competitive environment

In a sector in constant movement, there are several factors that are influencing the creation of a new competitive framework. The main forces that are driving the growth of the sale of auto parts through the Internet are related to 2 points: change in consumer buying habits and technological evolution.

1. Consumer’s buying habits

The behavior of the buyer of car parts changes depending on different aspects: the time of possession of the vehicle, the price, the type of maintenance required and the age. Depending on all these variables, the consumer tends to favor the official workshop or auto wrecker.

Furthermore, almost 40% of car owners only take the car to the workshop in the event of a breakdown and only half carry out the relevant maintenance checks in the workshop itself. In addition, customers take their car to the official service when it is under warranty. Upon expiration, only a small number, around 20% continue to trust the official dealer.

2. Technological evolution

The notable increase in the range of cars on the market, as well as the substantial extension of their life cycle and the increase in more technological elements for their operation, has helped the market for auto parts to grow.

– An original spare part is a component of the same quality as the components used for the assembly of a motor vehicle and which are manufactured following the specifications and production standards established by the vehicle manufacturer for the production of components or spare parts for the vehicle’s engine in question.

One detail: unless proven otherwise, parts will be presumed to be original parts if the manufacturer of the parts certifies that they meet the quality requirements of the components used for the assembly of the vehicle in question and have been manufactured according to the specifications and production standards of the vehicle manufacturer.
– The regulation also introduces the concept of quality spare parts equivalent, which refers exclusively to parts manufactured by any company that can certify at all times that the parts in question are of the same quality as the components that are used or used for the assembly of the motor vehicles in question ( they can even offer higher performance than those installed in the vehicle’s assembly line.

3- Strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of the sector

WEAKNESSES

– Market excessively atomized.
– Not loyal customer and very sensitive to price.
– Problem with qualification (not everyone is able to replace a part).

THREATS

– Robustness of the new vehicles.
-Longer life cycle in the components.
-Independent workshops associated with a specific brand.

STRENGTHS

– Automated distribution channel
– Multibrand.
– Capture of potential customers (anyone likely to buy a complement can be a potential customer).

– OPPORTUNITIES

– Implementation of new technologies.
– Incursion in foreign markets.
– Big data: access to valuable information.
– Association with independent workshops.

4- The new online landscape: from branding to attracting potential customers

Companies in the automotive parts sector have realized that a digital strategy based on the Inbound Marketing methodology can transform the way they do business on the Internet. Until relatively recently, many managers and marketing directors of these companies, only bet on the digital channel to enhance the branding and brand image of their companies, but today, the landscape has changed radically.

Companies in the automotive auto parts sector have found in the digital channel a new way of relating to their potential customers and achieving:

– Visibility

It is the first step to prepare your Inbound Marketing strategy. At this time it is necessary to analyze the state of your business in the digital environment and that of your competition (benchmarking). It is very important to define what steps you will need to take in the following phases.

– Capture

Through the growth of qualified organic traffic, and increasing the number of keywords, related to the sector, and positioned in the first results of search engines, companies manage to position themselves as relevant companies within the automotive parts sector.

– Conversion

Once segmented business opportunities have been generated. It is time for them to advance through the sales funnel, until they become a simple prescriber, who was interested in a certain product, into an end customer. It is time to start generating valuable assets: quality articles on the blog, ebooks, success stories, trials, demos (always oriented to 3 typologies: TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU ) and start using all the tools that Marketing Automation offers you: CTAs, landing pages, workflows, forms, … to achieve this goal.

– Loyalty

The Cost of Acquisition of a Client (COCA) is 6 times higher than what it costs to retain an old one. Marketing Automation allows us to analyze a new approach to customer loyalty with the aim of involving companies in the automotive spare parts sector to adapt to the increasingly demanding customers.