Talk to me about working in the automotive aftermarket parts industry

Just had a phone interview for such an outfit, and, if I could do something in an industry I have an affinity for - who among us doesn't love cool car parts? - it would almost seem too good to be true.  If anything comes of it, I'd like to make sure it's not too good to be true.

Is it like being in some sales industries where it's pretty cut throat and people will throw you under a bus so their lunch will be more appetizing, or one where most everyone you meet is salt of the earth?  For example, in electrical wholesale here in Tucson, most were salt of the earth types, from the owners of the contracting businesses, the foremen, suppliers, and the people I worked with.  Defense contracting has been more of a mixed bag, especially in terms of management.

Any companies in the aftermarket parts universe to stay away from?

Reveal the secrets of the universe, oh great GRM hive.

Would you be working for an aftermarket parts distributor (if so run away) or for an aftermarket parts manufacturer who does self distribution in addition to the necessary evil. 

Pretty broad question. It's a massive industry with huge players and little tiny players. There are a wide range of job descriptions in the industry. Some of those job descriptions have nothing to do with the industry overall - ecommerce is ecommerce, for example, doesn't matter what you sell.

One thing I will mention is that it can be very competitive. Not "we can sell our widget for 5c cheaper" sort of competitive, but the sort of people who are driven to create performance products tend to be competitive people. Some can handle the whole "rising tide floats all boats" concept where growing the market benefits all companies, some cannot and have to win even if it hurts the market overall. The latter group is a pain in the ass to deal with. It's like being at the racetrack, some teams will help you solve a problem so you can continue to compete against them and others will tell their drivers to punt you off the track.

There can be some egos involved as well.

But it has some good days. 

I've never actually been in the biz, but our shop (and myself) having been a member of SEMA, I found that at least that niche of folks tended to be pretty salt-of-the-earth.  You always get some subterfuge and head-butting, but that was mostly among the heavy hitters, and it was usually kept to a corporate-ly professional competition.  My perspective was more authorized dealer, or certified installer, or west coast distributor kind of thing, so I wasn't anything vaguely important.

It's also entirely possible that I was only seeing them during the funnest convention in the world in the funnest town in the world (Vegas) and it was all a facade, but I made many friends in the business and I never got the squirmies from any of them.

It's also making me realize how old I am.  Last time I was associated with that business was 2006.  Last time I went to SEMA was 2008.

In reply to captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

Distributor, but they're getting in to mfg.  How much would be a question, there's a lot to production in what seems to be competitive environment, so they must feel they have something to offer.   They also do consumer direct, which seems to be a hard position to be in, but maybe not.  When I was electrical wholesale, we'd sell to the general public, but it wasn't the core of our business.  I don't know how much of each this company does.

If it goes anywhere, I'd be back end, not customer service.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Job would be on the "wholesale" end of things, best I can tell, and I'd guess they're on the larger end of things (?); I asked about competitors, and the way it was told to me is that sometimes there is interplay between them and other distribution houses; that's not unusual to me, and is not unlike what we did in electrical - on occasion, you'd go to another supply house because they had something you needed to fill a customer order.  You were getting juiced for it, but you kept your people happy.  Sometimes branch managers would talk, and you might get to "borrow" some basic stock until yours came in and you'd send it back.

And of course, you'd deal with all types in electrical, after a while you learn who's good to deal with and who to watch out for; you'd get some outfits, usually in a specialty product, that would cut some prices and lower everybody's margin, but generally everybody knew there was a bottom end to things, and you didn't race there because even though we were all competitors, we all had to make money at the end of the day.

The job would entail the "industry" side of things, which is what makes it interesting.  Business model wise, I think they're trying to be diverse and get vertically integrated - that's a lot of different stuff to scale, and I don't know how well they manage.

I do hope to hear from them again, and I think I have a couple new questions to ask....

For anybody else that has industry knowledge, please chime in.  Defense contracting pays reasonably well, and is fairly stable over time, but I'd get out of it if I can be reasonably assured I'm not going frying pan to fire.

I had two tours in the parts industry.  Fresh out of college, I worked as a counterman, night manager and ultimately store manager of an auto parts store.

I learned a lot, worked with some great people but it didn't pay much.

My second tour I was managing director of a large, well-known seller of aftermarket and restoration parts for a very popular model of car that uses a horse on its badge.  In that role I made a lot more money, but was subject to whims of the owner and pitted in a secret battle against the other director who had been there longer.  It was secret because the other party did not know the owner was attempting to undermine her.  In many ways it was a dream working for this well known company, but it was so toxic I left exactly at 6 months there.

Your question is super broad and I think the answer lies in one simple fact:  the dynamics of the specific organization you are considering are more important than any broad-brush analogies about the field as a whole.

Ask lots of questions about who you will report to, what their style is, and what the corporate culture is.  Ask if you can speak to someone who has been there for a while in a similar role.

Best of luck to you!

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

The more insights, the merrier.  I got in to SEMA over the course of a couple years, and it is super cool - I guess as long as the people you dealt with didn't seem too fly by night, that's a step in the right direction.  

In reply to Loweguy5 (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, I did ask a few of those questions, but most HR types are going to err on the side of "yeah, it's a great company to work for!" and it may well be awful.

The hope is to see if there's a general trend, so to speak - most sales specific positions or organizations will be a little more cut-throaty given the pressure in a lot of sales organizations.

Most trade contractor types don't have time for BS given schedule pressures and the nature of the work, but there are a few shiny happy people. 

There defense contractor I work for now as had a very large number of them in management, but the other outfit I worked for wasn't terrible, so your point is well taken.  Some of the other defense contractors we teamed with, whooboy, there were some doosies, so my view of defense management in general is they're at least as likely to be SHP as not.

I might dial up a few of their service people, see if I can glean a little that way.

With regards to the manufacturing that they are getting into, would they be contracting the manufacturing to be sold under their brand, or doing the engineering, R&D and production 100% in house and stateside?

I will say if their name rhymes with either yearn for team or hebone to walk away. 

In reply to captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

Re: how they're going about the mfg, not sure.  If the latter, that's expensive, so depends on how price sensitive the market is and what volume they expect.  The former seems like it'd be harder to control for quality, and that presents it's own problems. 

I have a sudden urge to read and discover some poetry and rhymes...

Perhaps go onto LinkedIn and identify someone in the company maybe in a different area geographically that could give you honest feedback?  Maybe even somebody IN the department you are considering?

Loweguy5 (Forum Supporter) said:

My second tour I was managing director of a large, well-known seller of aftermarket and restoration parts for a very popular model of car that uses a horse on its badge.

Kamaz?  Overnight parts from Moscow? :)

320i, I don't think the industry itself will matter for what you're describing. Sounds like a widget seller, and widgets are industry-agnostic :)

The SEMA show is not a peek at the industry if you're attending as a tourist. Don't confuse SEMA the organization with the show. It's a fun show to visit but not a fun show to work!

Keith Tanner said:

320i, I don't think the industry itself will matter for what you're describing. Sounds like a widget seller, and widgets are industry-agnostic :)

The SEMA show is not a peek at the industry if you're attending as a tourist. Don't confuse SEMA the organization with the show. It's a fun show to visit but not a fun show to work!

Widgets may be, the corporations that produce them are not.  Corporate culture is not trivial. 

Extrapolating to industries might be a stretch, but my experience between defense cultures and the trades in mining and electrical suggest it's not implausible.  

Setting up for SEMA has to be a logistical nightmare!

There are a lot of different corporate cultures in the aftermarket parts world. At one extreme, especially with companies that focus on repair parts or very large organizations, you'll have something that's typical big corporation culture, with HR, benefits package, and bureaucracy.

At the other extreme, you have the owner's hobby that has suddenly grown big enough to require some extra people. Culture at such a place will usually reflect the boss's personality. You can have a shop that's laid back and salt of the earth type, or one run by someone who carries the "anything to win" mentality to the office. In a small company, if there's dysfunction at the top, there's not much to stop it from spreading through the whole organization. If you're looking at something like that, it's best to check the reputation of the individual company. Large companies can be dysfunctional in their own ways, but they typically have rules and checks and balances to keep limits on dysfunction.

I've noticed that a lot of "gurus" of a specific generation of car or motorcycle can be wacky to deal with but it might not necessarily be bad to actually work for them. Like they go off the handle if you say something slightly wrong and get in bitter feuds with their competitors. The more generations/models a company deals with that eases up a little since it adds complexity and forces them to say "no kidding" when something goes wrong.

OldGray320i said:

Keith Tanner said:

320i, I don't think the industry itself will matter for what you're describing. Sounds like a widget seller, and widgets are industry-agnostic :)

The SEMA show is not a peek at the industry if you're attending as a tourist. Don't confuse SEMA the organization with the show. It's a fun show to visit but not a fun show to work!

Widgets may be, the corporations that produce them are not.  Corporate culture is not trivial. 

Extrapolating to industries might be a stretch, but my experience between defense cultures and the trades in mining and electrical suggest it's not implausible.  

Setting up for SEMA has to be a logistical nightmare!

I think there's so much variation in the automotive aftermarket that you really can't generalize. Even across the different areas of the aftermarket there's a huge difference. The racing suppliers are highly function driven and live for competition, the wheel manufacturers are almost purely fashion driven with big fat margins. For the big distributors, they're just distributing stuff. I suspect you'll only see industry-specific culture once you get into the design and manufacture.

Working the SEMA show is about what's going on behind the scenes. It's meetings and seminars and more meetings, usually all set up in advance. The fact that the meetings are spread over a massive convention center that is jammed to overflowing with tourists gawking at the pretty cars makes it that much more challenging, it's hard to just get from one place to another. Imagine trying to get to multiple meetings around the edge of Times Square after dark on New Years Eve. It's easier for SEMA members, then you have access to the SEMA lounge and can get away from the crush. That's where the real work gets done :) It would be great to separate the spectacle from the business but I don't know if that can be done. 

The aftermarket is likely to change a fair amount in the next 10-15 years. In the near term, aftermarket companies that make drivetrain products or software are going to have to comply with more strict enforcement of emissions regulations. This has already begun, and isn't likely to go away. In the longer term, with the industry heading toward electrification there's likely to be less demand for aftermarket parts, and the scope of those parts is likely to narrow. There will still be some demand for body parts and wheels and suspension things, but there's going to be a lot less demand for ICE specific parts like intake/exhaust components, turbo chargers, aftermarket tuning, etc.

So, since this is a sales position, I think you need to decide if the widgets you're selling are likely to have a larger or smaller market moving forward than they currently do. If you only need the job for a little while, then entering a shrinking market may still be viable. But if the plan is 5+ years, then the outlook could be more bleak depending on what the potential employer relies on to keep the doors open.

Car guys are good.

Corporate guys are bad.

STM317 said:

The aftermarket is likely to change a fair amount in the next 10-15 years. In the near term, aftermarket companies that make drivetrain products or software are going to have to comply with more strict enforcement of emissions regulations. This has already begun, and isn't likely to go away. In the longer term, with the industry heading toward electrification there's likely to be less demand for aftermarket parts, and the scope of those parts is likely to narrow. There will still be some demand for body parts and wheels and suspension things, but there's going to be a lot less demand for ICE specific parts like intake/exhaust components, turbo chargers, aftermarket tuning, etc.

So, since this is a sales position, I think you need to decide if the widgets you're selling are likely to have a larger or smaller market moving forward than they currently do. If you only need the job for a little while, then entering a shrinking market may still be viable. But if the plan is 5+ years, then the outlook could be more bleak depending on what the potential employer relies on to keep the doors open.

I'd thought about this as well, and need to think more about it. 

Electric is going to get bigger, and intake and exhaust stuff will go the way of the dodo; "when" is the question. 

Several auto mfgrs say they're going all electric in 15 years,  I'm not sure infrastructure will keep up with that, but as it is, engines will probably have less and less to unlock via a tune and IHE, and it'll be a little sporty at a HP per dollar at that juncture, so the point remains. 

The position isn't sales, but sales of widgets is how anybody gets paid,  so....

Even if the entire industry goes 100% electric tomorrow, there's still going to be a demand for a bunch of aftermarket parts. Just look at Unplugged Performance's catalog. Suspension, brakes, wheels, tires -then there are all the shiny pretty things that really pay the bills. There will also be millions upon millions of ICE vehicles remaining as well, and it is possible to build parts for them that are emissions legal. So I don't think we're heading for a collapse of the industry. A realignment, maybe, but we survived the death of the carburetor and the dawn of "untunable" and "unfixable" EFI :)

My main standard..............what is there turnover rate for both management and mid-level jobs.

My secondary..............is it a sales driven business, i.e. they are all about the sales numbers rather then the actual net numbers? Sales driven companies are constantly making rash business decisions, which is why these companies constantly struggle to be profitable.