In times of poor retained margins on new car sales, a focus on other income opportunities must increase – and one of the most overlooked and underutilised is accessory sales.

One of the keys to maximising your opportunities involves choosing the right partners. Indeed, choosing partners not just accessory suppliers is the key to maximising your profit potential.

Here’s a brief checklist Dealers can use to assess current and future accessory partners:

• Will they make the effort to source solutions that are not part of their off-the-shelf range, even if the products you need are outside their normal scope?
• Do they guarantee overnight delivery at a minimum?
• Do they have a dedicated touch point for order placement and follow up, or are you dealing with a long, faceless process?
• Do they have any experience in providing Original Equipment (OE) products? After all, you’re selling OE vehicles, so why should accessory quality be any different?
• Do they provide warranty replacement programs so that customers do not have lengthy waits for repairs?
• Is there a local repair service and/or local technical support available?
• If you are tied to a loyalty program, have you recently checked market prices for your products?
• Are clear fitting and installation instructions provided for more complex accessories? Do they have their own fitting service?
• How long has it been since you’ve had contact from one of their representatives? Do you have direct access to the head of the business?

If you’ve been complacent about the way your accessories department is operating, now is as good a time as any to review your accessory department’s performance as well as the relationship you have with key partners.

Sak Ryopponen
Director, Business Development – Go Technologies