Returns. Everyone in the aftermarket will tell you that this is an ongoing problem that appears to have no resolve. The returns system in place is tedious and laborious. It is burdened by excessive paperwork, lack of trust between trading partners, inefficient parts tracking technology and few checks and balances. All of these contribute to more returns, parts proliferation and less profitability. Surely, someone somewhere in this system is accountable.
Well, ask the shops and their technicians about their role. They’ll tell you that the weight of the world is on them. And who can argue with that? Most of the time, shops have to repair vehicles within hours, no matter the complexity of the repairs. To make sure this happens, they have to buy the right repair data and keep their techs trained. And the techs’ role is even more demanding. They have to buy their own tools and work for a flat rate so they don’t make any money unless their bays are occupied. The techs have to put in the extra time (not over time) to complete a job. And most of the time, the techs take the rap if the wrong part is ordered or if they break one while installing it.
Making parts returns an even muddier issue for shops are labor claims when the parts they install fail. When failures occur, all parties are bound to be unhappy. The motorist is peeved because he has to return to the shop to get the same thing fixed again, which can call into question the shop’s expertise and quality of work. The shop owner isn’t happy that his reputation may be tarnished, and add to that the insult of having to undo the original work, go through an unpredictable return process, and then having to redo the work. The final insult is when a shop has to wait for weeks or even months for what is likely to be only a partial reimbursement or credit. In effect, the shop takes the blame for choosing these parts in the first place.
In our quest to find the villain in the returned parts process, let’s go to the other end of the distribution chain. Of course, these are the manufacturers who will tell you that for no reason other than it’s always been that way, they are expected to take back parts for almost any reason. It can be a legitimate reason, i.e., a faulty part, or it could be something outlandish such as a part that a tech installed, uninstalled, put back in the box and returned to his supplier. If a manufacturer takes back a part that’s obviously been compromised, is it a victim, a sucker or just fulfilling the parts prophecy? (Hmmm…maybe shops shouldn’t try to pull this in the first place.)
But before we let the manufacturers off the hook, we need to ask if they’ve done everything they can to provide the most accurate data possible to assure communication down the distribution channel. Are they ACES (Aftermarket Catalog Enhanced Standard) and PIES (Product Information Exchange Standard) compliant? If the language isn’t standardized, accurate and timely from the outset, how can trading partners communicate with one another to assure that the correct parts are ordered?
The other suspects enmeshed in parts returns are the resellers (distributors and stores). But wait, they’ll tell you that they are stuck in some sort of no man’s land where they are hard-pressed to please either their shop customers or the manufacturers. If they don’t take a part back, there’s a high probability that a customer will just deal with a store and distributor who will take back a part with no questions asked. The result is that manufacturers have to eat the cost of a return, which includes the logistics, the paperwork and the time to process each claim.
Although the resellers are the men in the middle and appear to be victims of a dichotomous system, we need to ask if they are aggressive enough in their search to find the reason for returns. There’s certainly a lack of consequences for resellers from the manufacturers. Likewise, resellers don’t exactly hold their shop customers’ feet to the fire either. Both inactions foster an environment of a parts merry-go-round that is anything but merry. And then there’s that issue of resellers who think that returning parts is a good way to pay their bills with stock they can’t sell. Although no data exists to determine exactly how prevalent this problem is, it’s widespread enough to be a concern.
Bottom line is that all parties — manufacturers, resellers and shops — share in the blame for a returns system gone awry. Each have extenuating circumstances to help them explain why they do what they do, but these reasons have become longstanding excuses that keep getting in the way of resolving the problem.
Perhaps the answer in righting the ship may lie in how online parts returns are handled. If the buyer is responsible for ordering the wrong part, he will have to pay to return it; if the seller made the mistake, it will absorb the cost of the part being shipped back. In either case, the part has to be returned in its original condition. And, of course, there is no question if the part is defective — another part will be sent at no charge or full reimbursement will be made.
Now let’s apply that process to parts sold to shops making the issue squarely one between the manufacturer and the shop. The middleman — the reseller — just bogs things down in situations where the box has been opened. When this occurs, they are asked to make a determination of a shop’s intent, ability and honesty in returning parts. They aren’t mechanical engineers, instructors or psychologists, so why put them in that situation?
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, the part in question (when the box has been opened) is going to wind up back at the manufacturer anyway, so why not send it back to them in the first place? Through the present process, the part would be returned to the store, then the store would send it back to the distributor and distributor sends it on to the manufacturer. The manufacturer of the part is the final authority because it made the parts and created the identifying data so it can quickly clear up misidentification or quality issues more quickly than any other channel entity.
As an advocate of a more streamlined process, I am not so presumptuous to think I have the answer to faulty parts returns. However, I do know that this issue has only worsened over time and that the industry should be open to looking at other resolutions rather than debating who’s to blame. Otherwise, we will assure more unwarranted parts returns that everybody in the channel says they hate.
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