OUT OF STOCKS LESS PROBLEMATIC, DATA SHOW

A SWEEP OF GLOBAL data shows there has been a significant

Names In The News

Jay Buckley will take on the role of director of marketing, catalogue and technical product support at Dayco. He was most recently director of product management..

Dayco promoted Jerry Reeves to manager of product management. He will oversee product launches across all applications and industries and lead the entire product team..

Jon Crawford is now senior product manager at Dayco with a focus on special projects. He was previously product manager for the industrial division.

Dayco has named Sheila Mann as financial controller for Canada. She will oversee budgeting and forecasting for the North American team..

Rosa Meckseper is now head of smart mobility business area for Continental North America. She takes over from Jim Bayley, who retired at the end of March.

Brent Hesje, executive chair of Fountain Tire, will be inducted to the Northern Alberta Business Hall of Fame for his lifetime achievements in business and community leadership.

Elite Worldwide announced Darrin Barney as its new president and owner, taking over from Bob and Karen Cooper. The deal was effective Jan. 1, 2023.

reduction in the number of out-of-stock vehicles and automotive products compared to a year ago.

DataFeedWatch reported that its Feed Marketing Report 2022 found 57.46 per cent of products were out of stock in the global automotive eCommerce market just 10 months ago. As of late February, that number sat at 26.46 per cent.

DataFeedWatch compiled the info from 17,000 online stores across 60 countries.

The group noted that even though the segment’s out-of-stock numbers are high — only sporting goods are suffering more — “its bad days of fewer products available … are well over,” it said.

The company also reported that vehicle parts have the largest median of products at more than 7,900, outdoing categories like health and beauty and home supplies.

And there have been fewer sales and discounts of parts than most other categories. Just 6 per cent of vehicles and parts have been discounted from regular prices, compared to 50 per cent of furniture, 40 per cent of apparel and 35 per cent of home and garden products

BUTTONS FAR SAFER THAN TOUCHSCREENS: STUDY

NEWER VEHICLES ARE seeing touchpads replacing knobs in everything from controlling the radio to the air conditioning.

“The screens in modern cars keep getting bigger. Design teams at most car manufacturers love to ditch physical buttons and switches, although they are far superior safety-wise,” was the conclusion of auto magazine Vi Bilägare’s magazine’s testing.

The human-machine interface of 12 vehicles were tested by trying various tasks, from to changing radio stations to adjusting climate control all while the vehicle was driven at 110 km/h. A 17-year-old Volvo V70 was used for comparison.

The four tests conducted were: Activate the heated seat, increase temperature by two degrees, and start the defroster; power on the radio and adjust the station to a specific channel (Sweden’s Program 1); reset the trip computer; and lower the instrument lighting to the lowest level and turn off the center display.

At the end of the day, the group found one vehicle that stood out from the rest.

“The easiest car to understand and operate, by a large margin, is the 2005 Volvo V70,” Vi Bilägare said. “The four tasks is handled within 10 seconds flat, during which the car is driven 306 meters at 110 km/h.”

The BMW iX took 30.4 seconds, by comparison.

DIFM SURGES IN THE U.S.

NEWER VEHICLES ARE seeing touchpads replacing knobs in everything from controlling the radio to the air conditioning.

Do-it-for-me services in the U.S. saw a big-time rebound after being hit hard during the pandemic — and at levels never seen before, according to new research.

Lang Marketing reported that the parts and labour volume of the DIFM light vehicle market jumped by US$30 billion in 2021 and 2022. That marks the biggest surge ever recorded by this market in the U.S.

“It reflects the strength of the DIFM market and the pentup demand for aftermarket parts and labour following the onslaught of COVID-19, which blasted a double-digit decline across the 2020 DIFM market,” the group noted in a recent Aftermarket iReport

But the good news wasn’t spread evenly throughout the aftermarket. There were winners and losers, Lang pointed out. Four outlet groups made up more than 85 per cent of the volume surge: repair specialists, vehicle dealers, service stations and garages and foreign specialists.

The biggest chunk (29 per cent) was taken by repair specialists, those focused on a limited array of vehicle repairs. “Most of this gain was the result of repair specialists expanding their repair scope, coupled with their growing foreign nameplate repair,” Lang reported.

Dealers were just behind, raking in a quarter of the pot. Specifically, however, foreign nameplate dealers were the ones that generated most of the repair growth in this group.

Service stations and garages, despite diminishing population, took in 17 per cent of the growth and foreign repair specialists got 16 per cent of the increase..