IMR Inc., a full-service automotive market research firm, found that rising inflation is determining what parts brands they buy. According to the company, as of August 2022, shop decision makers indicated that the foremost reason for a projected increase in private label/store brand parts purchasing over the next year is inflation pressure impacting customer choice (53.5%). In both January 2021 and August 2020, inflation was not cited as a factor (0.0%), indicating how much the landscape has changed for aftermarket customers.
The amount of independent shops buying private/store brand is set to rise from 75.4% last year to 77.4% over the next year.
The second most common response from shop decision makers regarding the projected increase in private label/store brand parts purchasing over the next year was customers proactively asking for less expensive parts (47.9%), followed by private label/store brand parts being less expensive/more affordable for the shop (42.2%).
The survey data was taken from 500 independent automotive repair shops.
Thus far in 2022, only 0.2% of independent repair shops reported decreasing their private label parts purchasing, while 75.8% of those surveyed reported that they expect to increase their purchasing of store brand/private label parts over the next year, and 24.0% of shops projected that over the next year, their private label/store brand parts purchasing will stay the same. Additionally, smaller shops reported purchasing more private label brands (39.5%), while larger shops purchased fewer (35.9%) of those parts.
