Although the market is still in its early stages, the aftermarket should prepare to support an increasing number of mobile applications by optimizing their websites for smartphone access and leveraging industry-standard catalog data to enable mobile parts look-ups and purchases. That was the message delivered by a number of presenters at this year's National Catalog Managers Association (NCMA) Knowledge Exchange, which took place in Las Vegas at the end of April.
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Mobility will be an increasingly important part of how aftermarket companies interact with their customers. In 2011, smartphone purchases outstripped PC purchases for the first time. According to research from Google, 68 percent of people age 18 to 34 use their smartphones while shopping in retail stores.
"A lot of people make their buying decisions using smartphones while in the store," says Mark Toebben, president at DCi. "This is a major trend."
Aftermarket companies are leveraging mobility via mobile apps and providing easy access to part information on their websites for mobile users. Apps are downloaded to phones, and often cost thousands of dollars (and hundreds of development hours) to create. Mobile website access, on the other hands, requires a different approach. "The website needs to be optimized for mobile access," Toebben says. That means the mobile landing page can't be graphics- or data-heavy, and should have a fairly limited amount of information to display.
Toebben pointed to a number of aftermarket companies that had well-structured mobile websites, including O'Reilly, Denso, Auto Parts Warehouse and Summit.
He also encouraged attendees to leverage their ACES data to provide parts look-up functionality on their websites. "And give them a way to find dealers or distributors," Toebben says. "Often once you find a product on these sites, it's a dead end. There's no way to find out where to buy the product or purchase it online. You have an opportunity at that point to capture the consumer and the sale, and you don't want to let that opportunity go."
Exactly how mobility will play out in the aftermarket is difficult to predict. Shane Evangelist, CEO of online parts distributor U.S. Auto Parts Network, says that he expects consumers will eventually have access to what he described as "Priceline for auto repair," quickly checking local repair shop prices and parts availability on their mobile phones, and approaching repairers fully armed with information about exactly what needs done to their car, what parts are required and how much it should cost. "Your world is going to change significantly in two years," Evangelist says. "Mobile and location-based services are going to be huge."
There are challenges. During his presentation on the development of the ShowMeTheParts mobile app, company president Jay Wright described the lengthy and often frustrating process of getting their app approved for use in the Apple store for iPhones. Mobile websites have to take into account the various screen sizes and resolution differences among the 500-plus different varieties of smartphone on the market.
Michael Stoll, catalog director at Robert Bosch, discussed the problems that the Android platform presents. Although Android is a more open environment, every device maker implements it differently, which means the user experience is often impacted negatively. "Android is a real problem," Stoll says. "You can't program something for Android and assume it will work. You can destroy [a customer's impression of the company] when something isn't working, even when it is not your fault."
Another key development that will impact the use of mobile devices in the aftermarket is the increased use of QR bar codes in catalogs and on product packaging.
Wright says that adding QR codes in a print catalog provides a link to the online world, and extends the life of the print product. "You can use the code to link to updated product data," Wright says, pointing to the example of Omega Environmental's Buyer's Guide. "That adds life to the buyer's guide."
Adding codes to a print catalog is straightforward. According to Michelle Bracali, vice president of sales at Macomb Marketing, generating QR codes for thousands of products takes just a few hours at a fairly minimal cost — just a few hundred dollars a year.
The codes can be linked to installation videos, Facebook pages, coupons, surveys, technical diagrams and other information.
In order for users to scan the codes, they have to download an application to their phone, and then take the time to focus on and scan the code. If a company is going to bother with QR codes, however, Wright cautioned that they should carefully plan out exactly what that bar code scan will provide to the consumer. "There had better be something good on the other end, because that's a lot of effort to invest," Wright says.
