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Attention to detail in the online parts sales world has never been so important to your business. Here is sage advice from ARA’s associate members to give you food for thought.

An Open Letter to Automotive Recyclers: Increasing ROI for You and

Your Business Partners By Ginny Whelan, ARA Educational Foundation, and Charley Quirt, CIECA

R

ecycled Parts selected by independent and collision industry appraisers continue to decrease as a percentage of the total collision repair parts spend. What can we do to

reverse this trend? Who should be involved? Procurement parts software providers and recyclers

both need to take appropriate action to reverse this trend. How can this be accomplished? This information is directed to the auto recyclers who enter the inventory information into their indi- vidual inventory management systems. This also

includes additional information entered into the free form text field(s). We will also address the Procure- ment Parts Software Providers (see next page) regarding the creation of new fields to replace much of the information now placed in the free form text fields. The major concern is the information entered by recyclers into this free form text field(s). The infor- mation is then uploaded and scrubbed by procure- ment parts software providers which often results in the reduction of parts presented to parts purchasers. Data contained in this field may include negative words and part damage descriptions which are inconsistent with the ARA Parts Grade and Damage Codes originally assigned to the specific part (see chart on page 20).

One example that demonstrates this issue involved

a search that initially produced 42 individual part records. After the procurement parts software provider scrubbed the free form text field, only two recycled parts were presented to the parts purchaser. Removing parts, subsequent to scrubbing the data

The information presented in this collection of articles was provided directly by the associate members for your information. 44 Automotive Recycling | November-December 2016