SS/Garage Foreign Repair Share Rises With Outlet Vehicle Volume
Lang Marketing, in its current nationwide brand share study among Service Stations and Garages, is finding that larger outlets average a substantially higher rate of foreign nameplate repair than do smaller operations. Dividing Service Stations and Garages according to average weekly vehicle volume reveals that Service Stations and Garages in the lowest quartile of repair activity have approximately three quarters less of their product sales generated by foreign nameplates than do Service Stations and Garages in the highest quartile: under 15% versus over 55%.
Rapid Growth during Next 5 years
With foreign nameplates comprising a majority of cars and light trucks in the repair-age sweet-spot across the U.S. within the next 5 years, the share of foreign nameplate repair conducted by larger Service Stations and Garages will dramatically increase which, in turn, will boost foreign vehicle repair among Service Stations and Garages as a group.
Different Brands Used for Foreign Nameplates
In addition to conducting an above-average share of foreign repair, larger Service Stations and
Garages also are more inclined than smaller operations to use different product brands when
repairing foreign nameplates than they do for domestic cars and light trucks. These two factors are combining to accelerate Service Station and Garage brand change.
Larger Service Stations and Garages
Increasing vehicle diversity and technology along with growing complexity of vehicle power plants and operating systems will combine to provide competitive advantages to larger Service Stations and Garages which are better able to adapt to the changing vehicle mix competitive landscape than are smaller Service Stations and Garages. The result will be above-average growth for larger Service Stations and Garages and a decline in the competitive position and population of smaller Service Stations and Garages.
Aftermarket Consequences
All this will have significant consequences for where and how Service Stations and Garages
purchase as well as product brands they install.
From Aftermarket Insight #153 by Jim Lang, President,
Lang Marketing Resources, Inc.; www.langmarketing.com
