Want a Car Specialized to Your Interests? GM is Listening
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GM Shows Personalized OEM Aftermarket Products at SEMA
LAS VEGAS: To meet customer preferences, General Motors is considering parts packages for its products that would reflect their special interests.
So some day soon such groups as pet lovers, business travelers, sportsmen, tailgate partiers and others might be able to buy a package of equipment to transform their vehicle into something that better suits their tastes.
David Poole of GMs Specialty Parts Organization said in an interview at the SEMA aftermarket show here recently that hes thinking about such packages as a way to service consumer demand, though it probably doesnt hurt that such things might also help GM take a bigger slice of the ever-growing aftermarket business.
Whatever GMs motivation for offering more accessories (either singly or in packages), it will mean increased opportunities for buyers to personalize their vehicles to suit their tastes and to get the cost of that personalization on their monthly loan or lease payments, which is an important development for consumers.
If you order the vehicle from a dealer and then buy accessories for it from another business, you have to make arrangements to pay for the vehicle and then separate arrangements to pay the entire cost of the parts right away, in cash, check, credit card or whatever.
Ordering parts from GM or some other car companies when you buy your new vehicle allows you to put most or all of the parts (it depends upon the specific equipment) on the overall purchase price. You still have to pay for the extra parts, of course, but as an increment on your monthly car payment, and lately those payments are often zero-interest arrangements.
Parts acquired directly from GM might also play a part in your vehicles overall value, which help you get a better trade-in rate when you sell it. This aspect of the deal varies from model to model, so it needs to be discussed with a dealer when youre thinking of buying a new vehicle.
Parts from car companies can also be covered by the new vehicle warranty, and theres also evidence that they usually fit better and have higher quality ratings.
All of these changes are good for the consumer and, it follows, for GM, since they make it more attractive to buy accessories at the dealership.
Surprising as it may sound, doing things that might help increase their share of the huge aftermarket business is pretty new for just about every auto company, not just GM. In the past, they were content to make their money selling and financing vehicles, while the vast majority of the accessories market went to companies that specialized in such things.
Those days are gone, and GM for one is looking to upgrade the number of accessories it sells and, from that, the amount of money it earns.
In 2001, GM Accessories offered 150 parts and products. Right now they have more than 500, and they should have more than twice as many by the end of 2004.
Accessories are a growth business inside GM, the general manager of the firms Service and Parts Organization, Doug Herberger, explained in an interview at SEMA.
Herberger said GMs accessory sales grew by 60 percent from 2001 to 2002, and 40 percent from 2002 to 2003, and should go up 50 percent in 2004, which would bring them to $350 million. By 2006, hes expecting GMs revenues from accessory sales to be $1 billion.
Herberger and Poole know this will only be possible if the consumers like the accessory products GM is offering, which is why the latter is looking into the possibility of specialty packages and the former is looking to create more products.
“Now our problem is that we cant keep up with the workload,” Herberger said, and “so were adding people.” In the 1990s, he said, GM Accessories had “a person or two, and now it has about 150.”
Talking about adding staff actually makes Herberger something of a rarity in the auto business today, since every car company is anxious to do more with fewer people and GM and others seem to have a no-hire policy in effect.
But Herberger said that GMs senior management understands that the ability to create parts that make more money requires more people. “Its a more optimal deployment of resources,” he explained.
Selling more original accessories also required that they be created earlier in a vehicles development process, Herberger noted, and thats happening now.
“Three years ago we were fighting an uphill battle internally,” Herberger said. “Now that everyone inside GM gets it, were getting vehicle line executives and marketing managers (the people directly responsible for creating new vehicles inside GM) coming to us to talk about accessories for their products.”
Not every vehicle sold in a GM dealership comes with the same number of accessory parts, of course. Truck buyers and sporty car buyers are traditionally the biggest fans of such things.
“The best effort to date has been Hummer,” Herberger said, “but the upcoming Chevrolet Cobalt and Colorado, the (Pontiac) Pursuit and GMC Canyon, and some others are coming along.”
Things should heat up considerably now that GM is selling wheels, which is by far the most popular segment of the accessories market. Herberger was particularly excited by the opportunities involved there.
While GM is committed to adding more accessories, the worlds largest car company does have a unique problem it has to deal with. GM has world class standards when it comes to quality, safety, and reliability, Herberger said, “and were not going to compromise our testing and validation. However, we can do that faster. Everybody got on board and now we can make things happen faster.”
Herberger and his people have their eyes open for anything that might appeal to the buyers of any vehicle. To that end, Poole would like to know what consumers think of the idea of specialty packages for pet owners and tailgaters and whatever. Go to the website at www.gmaccessorieszone.com or call toll-free at 1-866-901-9001.