OEConnection LLC began as a joint venture with the Big Three auto makers to provide online selling and procurement of original equipment parts for auto makers, their dealer networks, and dealerships' wholesale customers.
Now, the seven-year-old enterprise counts 15 foreign and domestic automakers and more than 13,000 auto dealerships as customers for one or more of its online products.
OEConnection President and CEO Chuck Rotuno says the technology is a better way to market, manage, move and purchase original equipment parts. The technology addresses dealer concerns about lowering costs, improving customer service and finding new profit sources, he says.
One OEConnection product includes nightly cumulative parts inventory updating for all its dealer customers. The dealer-to-dealer parts procurement portal where this updated inventory gets posted every business morning is used over 4.5 million times each month.
Another product links dealerships to their wholesale parts customers, primarily collision shops. CollisionLink lets collision shops submit parts orders to their supplying auto dealerships online. Online orders can be processed faster than phone or fax orders and more accurately because of the automatic parts validation. CollisionLink also lets the dealers and shops send photos or schematics of hard-to-specify parts.
American Honda Motor Co. Inc. is the latest auto maker to sign up for CollisionLink. American Honda's signing “confirms the significance of this technology for the thousands of dealers and collision shops already on board,” says Rotuno.
OEConnection says CollisionLink enables participating dealers to realize:
- Reduced order-taking by phone.
- Faster order fulfillment by avoiding time-consuming parts data entry.
- Automatic and instantly verified parts numbers against vehicle identification numbers (VIN) to improve accuracy and reduce returns.
The cited benefits to collision and repair shops include an all-makes and all-models online ordering system, current original- equipment parts pricing for more accurate customer and insurance repair estimates and fewer parts returns.
OEConnection is based outside of Cleveland and says it facilitates an estimated $8 billion in annual parts trade.
