I was privileged to be asked by Scott
Luckett of AAIA to speak at the National Catalog Managers Association
annual meeting, which just took place last month in San Antonio, Texas.
Their organization is comprised of the people who take all the parts
information and funnel it into the format you use at the counter,
whether it’s in paper form or electronically.
Prior to going to
Texas, I took a little, unscientific poll about how parts pros feel
about e-catalogs. I know how pretty much everyone falls on the topic,
but it’s always good to get a new read on the pulse. One of the first
comments I received said it all:
“Please don’t take away my paper catalog.”
Paper catalog?
I
didn’t even mention paper catalogs. I was asking about e-catalogs, but
that’s how deep these paper catalog emotions run. But if your
counterparts in Mexico have anything to say about it, paper isn’t going
anywhere. In fact, it’s essential to how many counterpros do their jobs
there. One Mexican counterpro, for example, said the absence of paper
would “kill” their business. (You can read more about it in the story
on page 52.)
But back to what you have to say about e-catalogs. For
some of you, there’s simply too much information that many of you say
you don’t need. For example:
“Do I need to see list price? Nope! I
need to see what I have, how many, and what the price is, before
anything else. For instance, I don’t need to scroll through loaded
calipers, powdercoated calipers, calipers that make toast, before I see
the plain caliper with hardware that I actually have in stock at the
bottom of the page,” wrote one reader.
Someone else feels the same way:
“Why
do the countermen have to scroll through a bunch of useless non-stock
parts lists while the one in stock is on the bottom? Not efficient at
all! Especially when the wholesale commercial customers get annoyed
waiting for two minutes for a quote.”
Another counterpro sees huge advantages to using VIN:
“If
parts houses had the VIN decoder that eliminated all the stuff not
specific to a vehicle, that would be seriously awesome. It would help
stop those wrong parts returns. A part locator would also help us to
tell customers where the ‘thingamagig’ goes and what it’s connected
to/beside.”
And finally:
“E-cats are just a tool. People don’t
really care how you look up their parts as long as they are the right
ones the first time, fairly priced, and in stock.”
Amen to that.
•••
We’ve
officially kicked off our call for entries for the Counter Professional
of the Year award, sponsored by WIX, Raybestos and Affinia. We accept
entries online year-round at
Counterman.com. Counter Professional
of the Year is open to ASE-certified and AIA Import Parts
Specialist-certified counter professionals, WD employees or jobbers.
The
award recognizes the best and brightest in the industry today. You can
either nominate yourself or someone you believe is worthy of the
recognition.