There are five types of parts eCommerce in use for OEM automotive service parts today - as well as four parts eCommerce categories (market segments) and a half-dozen use cases. These two charts allow users to explore which eCommerce platforms work best by market segment of interest and use case.

OEM service parts performance is being challenged by a black swan – by COVID 19.  OEMs can respond to this disruption and prepare for future disruptions by investing in SPM platforms designed to (1) mitigate the increasingly brittle nature of OEM service parts supply chains, (2) to open online sales channels and (3) reduce stock-out impacts with order-referral.

In 2020, U.S. automotive dealerships are expected to consume or sell nearly $75 B in replacement parts – of which $24 B will be sold to external buyers.  This first-ever forecast of dealer parts eCommerce volumes by segment, predicts that over 27% – $ 6.5 B – of these automotive U.S. dealer parts sales will be via eCommerce.  The migration of OEM parts sales to online channels is creating winners and losers – with valuations for winning platform providers exceeding $ 1 B.

Right-to-Repair (R2R) is advancing in North America and Europe - already well-established in automotive it is likely to have the greatest impacts on adjacent vehicle and equipment industries. R2R seems poised to drive OEM parts eCommerce in new sectors and to new levels.

Billions in the Balance for Service & Parts. This is the first in a four-part series on legislation, litigation and regulation impacting digital solutions used by OEMs and dealers to run their replacement parts businesses.  The series covers: Right to Repair (R2R), Substances of Concern (SoC), Privacy & Accessibility. R2R is centered on expanded access to OEM information and tools facilitating proper maintenance and repair of vehicles and other equipment by owners and independent repairers.

This post is the third in a series of overviews of 15 digital solutions involving new OEM parts.

Parts locators are one of a few digital solutions for spare parts that fill both ‘selling’ and ‘supply chain’ roles. Critically, they convert many isolated individual inventories into large virtual inventories – increasing same-day and next-day fill-rates while allowing investments in individual physical inventories to remain flat or decline – and potentially curbing scrap. Parts locator extensions include: order referral and idle/overstock solutions and parts locator data sets often are the source of parts availability displayed in parts eCommerce and EPC solutions

Parts locators are inherently OEM-specific – dealers (with few exceptions) stock only parts distributed by the OEMs that franchise them.

On October 15, I published a comprehensive summary of dealership parts eCommerce solutions as an article. This post extends that article with three charts that place the content of the article into a structured, at-a-glance form and which provide further depth. These charts and the original article matter because sales of new OEM replacement parts have shifted dramatically away from phone and fax orders and to eCommerce orders. Furthermore, the industry is on an inexorable path towards eCommerce for the vast majority of OEM spare parts sales – driven by a number of factors that are revealed through these three charts.

Of all service-parts solutions, EPCs likely have the largest TAM – $100 million per year from car and light truck dealerships in the U.S. and Canada alone.

EPCs are an essential tool for dealers selling OEM parts – with near-universal market penetration – performing the task of precisely identifying part numbers to be used in repair in maintenance of specific vehicles. The market for EPCs is potentially lucrative but complexities – revealed and explained here – often block success.

This post is an introduction to digital solutions for OEM service-parts in use by franchised dealerships – the first in a series describing the market for service-parts solutions. The variety and complexity of digital parts solutions is high compared to the size of the market – surprisingly, this is the first (and to date only) freely available comprehensive survey of service-parts solutions. The market is experiencing significant growth and rising interest (due in part to the recent valuation of a pure-play firm in this space at over $1B). The challenge to understanding the market is amplified by the multitude of natural market segments for service-parts solutions – it’s far from one homogenous market.

This post covers 15 solution sets – a set may contain multiple distinct solution types (i.e., the parts eCommerce set covers several solution types including portal, eStore …) or a single solution type.