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As a former mechanic, I can explain this a bit. Dealer parts departments aren't really setup for retail sale, they are mainly there to support their shop and co
by zrobotics 5y ago
As a former mechanic, I can explain this a bit. Dealer parts departments aren't really setup for retail sale, they are mainly there to support their shop and commercial customers. I worked at an independent shop; but via fleet contracts we bought a large volume of OEM parts from the local Ford & Toyota dealers. The counter isn't manned because 80% of the parts go to the dealers shop, and the other 19.9% go to commercial buyers.
I would call up the dealership parts department and order something, they would either deliver it or let me know what the ETA was. All net-30 terms, and a stupidly low friction process. Even the chain parts stores have separate phone lines for commercial customers, I never had to hold when buying from Advance Auto b/c there was a different commercial number that they only gave to commercial customers. The garage mechanic isn't really the focus of even the chain parts stores, they make their money on commercial customers.
However, I'm glad they at least maintain the retail friendliness that they do. Try walking into your local Fastenal or Grainger without a commercial account, some of their stores just won't sell to the public. Dealer parts departments have a very similar model to a specialty industrial supplier, where retail sales aren't enough of a priority to really bother with.
And frankly, retail sales take a lot of time for them, since the customers need a lot more help. Half the time, if I was calling I already had the part number available and knew if they needed the last 8 of the VIN number and a $500 transaction only took 2 minutes of the parts managers time.
It isn't a conspiracy, they just prioritize their high value customers way more. Same applies in software. I get way better support from our specialty ERP provider than I do from Google. We pay decent money to Google, but they wouldn't notice losing us as a customer, while the ERP firm would.
It isn't some conspiracy to keep you from fixing your car. That conspiracy is their engineering management doesn't want the cars to be fixable at all, and they want any unfortunate mechanic who has to deal with the abomination to properly suffer. --insert stackoverflow post about using regex for html--
- silisili 5y agoFormer ASE parts guy, this is correct. My store used to invoice everything 20 to 50% off for commercial, with a 'value'(what they should charge customers) 20 to 50% over retail. Simple fact is competition is fierce, a good shop is worth thousands per day, and don't tie up your time. Compared to Jim who wants to explain the sound his car makes, show terrible pictures of nothing important, and buy just one off brand sparkplug...well you see where this goes.
- nwellinghoff 5y agoOk, let me get this straight. If I establish a “commercial account” with a dealer or a napa I get wholesale pricing?
- kingaillas 5y agoThere is probably a "minimum purchase annual volume" that goes along with a commercial account.
- zrobotics 5y agoYep. You need to buy a lot of parts though; we bought 100k/year from napa, which was the smallest account we maintained. The discount varies with how much your shop buys and how good you are at negotiating. Not sure why you have "commercial account" in quotes, wholesale pricing for business customers is available at lots of businesses. Your grocery store likely offers this exact same thing, commercial terms for businesses aren't exactly a secret.
- brewtide 5y agoJust to add to your example list, as I house painter, I pay perhaps 50% of what the major paint brands/retailers will charge out on the shelf for most of the products that I buy. I don't have to throw crazy 'volume' at them, but honestly, I'm sure any painter buys substantially more paint in a year than any homeowner. They provide tiered pricing -- If I tend to buy a lot of xyz, then I get better pricing on it, etc. Being a reasonable folk, I only mark up a handful of % off my price -- I hunch many in my industry do a similar markup off retail. Pricing is a very strange world.
- rolph 5y agoin my experience it works this way with electronic components as well
- silisili 5y agoYep! And to your door delivery, free. As others pointed out, they require a minimum purchase volume typically. We had one guy who wasn't a business per se, but we made him an account because he spent so much money. He was an enthusiast who was always working on other people's cars. We didn't deliver to him, though.