What do European garages consider when selecting parts for repairs?
Quality, price, brand prestige or perhaps the way complaints are handled? What do garages recommend to their customers and what do they order from automotive wholesalers?
Which spare parts do garages recommend to their customers in the first place?
Workshop representatives in central Europe, as well as in western European countries (with the example of the UK and Italy), mostly recommend top-quality spare parts to their customers. In this way, service owners and mechanics want to ensure the highest possible quality of repair, which will translate into customer satisfaction and build an ongoing relationship. It is a focus on long-term cooperation rather than short-term, higher profits.
Only a small percentage of workshops recommend the products on which they gain the highest margins in the first place. An exception to this is Italy, where this approach is close to every fifth workshop.
What are car workshops guided by when ordering parts wholesalers?
Three criteria predominated in all countries where the study was carried out: quality, availability and price. Although it should be emphasised that price plays a lesser role in workshops’ purchasing decisions today than it did just a few years ago.
Currently, the popularity of indications of the accessibility criterion is particularly high. This has been the case since the pandemic and parts supply issues.
Admittedly, this problem can be expected to diminish.
However, in spite of this, availability will always be high on the agenda, as it usually turns out that additional parts are urgently needed during repairs.
When selecting spare parts, workshops are primarily guided by quality and availability. We are constantly seeing in the European markets that the quality of the services offered is increasing. No wonder, as the expectations of the end customer are rising. With the wide range of services offered by the workshops, it is essential to build long-term partnerships and the key to this is fast and professional service. Łukasz Wrona, Country Sales Manager of B2B at firmie LKQ ELIT. commented on the results of the survey.
Research methodology
The survey which served as the source for the claims in this article was conducted by MotoFocus.eu, in the form of an online interview among car repair shops. In total, over 1130 individuals took part in the survey.
