April 23, 2014—PartsTrader announced Wednesday that it has completed the national deployment of its electronic parts procurement system. When PartsTrader first rolled out in 2013, a considerable amount of opposition was met almost immediately. The reason for this opposition was due to the system’s inclusion of State Farm Insurance’s Select Service DRP.
State Farm was quick to get on-board, so much so that their Select Service shops are required to use the parts procurement system in a number of states. This was met with a great deal of negative response and two associations in particular, Automotive Service Association and the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers of New Jersey, jumped right in voicing their opinions.
This is exactly what the state of Ohio is fighting. They have created a Bill that will not allow insurance companies to have favorites such as the Select Service Shops list mentioned above. If the Bill passes, all collision repair shops will be able to have DRP affiliations with the insurance companies. You may want to read up on that before you get too excited. Insurance companies pay so little for the collision repair that they may bleed you dry.
Now, regardless of direct repair program affiliations, PartsTrader fairly provides a platform that positions repairers at the center of the parts procurement process. As a matter of fact, PartsTrader CEO Rob Cooper says “We are committed to giving repairers and suppliers a product of choice by continuing to adapt it to their changing needs. Earlier this year we introduced the industry’s first system for tracking two-way repairer and supplier performance feedback. For example, repairers now have the ability to rate suppliers based on service and quality of the parts delivered. This ensures that each party can make a fully informed business decision before placing or responding to an order. Most recently, we’ve enhanced vehicle mapping capabilities and improved integration with the estimating systems, and have many more exciting features on the near term horizon.”