Last year, the Auto Care Association released its inaugural E-Tailing in the Automotive Aftermarket report, revealing that the aftermarket e-tailing market is set to double in size by 2018. Since then, the organization has released a series of new E-Tailing Insights updates.
What has been the response to the study and E-tailing Insights reports so far?
There is a strong demand in the market for this information. What we've heard is that this has really opened people's eyes to how dramatic and rapid a shift in consumer and installer behavior is happening. I've also gotten calls from other research groups covering the space, and they want to provide more information to the market as well.
What was the most surprising data point in the research?
I think that would be the fact that more than half of the e-tailing activity is actually coming from technicians purchasing parts on publicly available sites. That starts to hit home when they think about their own behavior. The B2B shopper is using the methods of access and behaviors that they use for everything else in their life to do their job. They are buying parts online, potentially for less money.
The second things is that the growth trend we predicted may in fact have been understated, given the advances in technology and logistics.
What type of ongoing research efforts are occurring relative to e-tailing right now?
As I mentioned earlier, the research community has been coming together on this topic. We're talking to about a half dozen companies in the space that want to collaborate. We're in discussions about what the next research topics will be. We're hoping to answer some market questions in more of a branching research approach in multiple directions, rather than a linear path.
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