Aftermarket Insider Issue 78 - (Page 17)

Michael Swearengin Explains the Importance of Electronic Catalog Standards for O’Reilly O’Reilly Auto Parts is dedicated to providing the best customer experience possible to both our professional installer and DIY customers alike, and a key marketing tool to achieve this is our electronic catalog system. This is the first place our team members and online customers reference and rely upon to locate the correct products the first time. Having all of the most robust, rich and complete product information available to properly market a product based on its fitment, features and performance characteristics is a major plus in establishing an improved shopping experience for all consumers of our products. Using the established standards is one of the steps we take to ensure the information provided within our electronic catalog is concise, accurate and complete. This in turn reduces the overall cost of doing business by making our store team members more productive, our data processing departments more efficient, and reducing returns... which cascades into distribution efficiencies and even more labor savings. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to work with a lot of great people in our industry, including those who work within our industry association, AAIA. They provide support to everyone in our industry including warehouse distributors, retailers, manufacturers and installers – all of which allows us to successfully grow our businesses. One area, in particular, where their support has been beneficial has been in the establishment of these electronic catalog standards. O’Reilly currently supports ACES, PIES and AAIA Legacy formats for our electronic cataloging, as well as the IPO Web Service standard for special orders. We are working very closely with our supplier community to ensure all suppliers have successfully transitioned to ACES by the December 2012 Legacy Sunset date. O’Reilly supports ACES because we do not want to burden our suppliers by requiring them to map to an O’Reilly specific vehicle database. We feel ACES reduces both supplier costs and turnaround times for new catalog product introductions. IPO implementation with our suppliers has reduced turnaround time in inventory inquiry and has increased our special order sales while reducing the amount of labor needed to support sourcing these hard to find parts. We are committed to continued support of automating special ordering and would like to increase supplier participation in this area. At O’Reilly Auto Parts it’s all about the customer, period. Selling more of our suppliers’ product, while increasing efficiency and reducing supply chain costs, is a “win-win” goal for O’Reilly and our supplier partners. But more importantly it’s a win for our customers. Michael D. Swearengin Senior Vice President, Merchandise O’Reilly Auto Parts About the author: Michael Swearengin, senior vice president, merchandise, has been an O’Reilly team member since 1993, and has been in his current position since 2004. O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. is one of the largest specialty retailers of automotive aftermarket parts, tools, supplies, equipment and accessories in the United States, serving both the doit-yourself and professional service provider markets. Founded in 1957 by the O’Reilly family, the Company operated 3,859 stores in 39 states as of June 30, 2012. Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association (AAIA) :: 7101 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 1300, Bethesda, MD 20814 Web: www.aftermarket.org/technology :: E-mail: technology@aftermarket.org http://www.aftermarket.org/Technology/Executive-Perspectives.aspx

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aftermarket Insider Issue 78

Aftermarket Insider Issue 78
Contents
President’s Message
Association News
AAPEX 2012
Company Profile
Member Profile
Toolbox
Government Affairs
Technology Update
Executive Perspective
Association News
Market Intelligence

Aftermarket Insider Issue 78