Destruction of an Industry

           When you spend years helping in the creation of a market, which helps you sell more product, you would think that you would never do anything to harm it.  Destroying something that you created would seem a bit of a waste of time and money.  But if you could make a full profit off of this market and your original market, then why not take advantage.  Well for the big 3, this has been the case for the past decade.  If you’re wondering which market we are talking about, and then look no further than the Ford Mustang line-up of specialty models.
            Producing more and more specialty aftermarket versions of your car is good for moving more products off of your dealership floors.  But where does that leave the aftermarket industry in total.  Well out of the loop for one of the best selling muscle car line-ups, that’s where.  Making specialty models of cars and trucks is nothing new, but more and more are coming out these days.  Allowing more and more people to have powerful, customized cars without doing it themselves, may seem like a good idea, but this can erode the image of the industry as a whole.  Since nowadays any high school kid with a big enough pocketbook can get a Shelby Mustang, which allows them to think they are king of the streets.  Newsflash for these consumers, if you don’t do it yourself, then you don’t know what you and your car are fully capable of doing.  Most consumers, who purchase aftermarket cars, have no basic knowledge of performance products, aerodynamics, tire grip, handling or even how to shift properly.  A true tuner is someone who builds their own ride, not buys their own ride.  As for the auto industry, all they are doing is helping rich kids kill themselves.
            This new trend of aftermarket versions of automobiles is slowly going to eat away at the bottom lines of the aftermarket industry.  Why might anyone say this?  Well if you don’t get a contract with an automotive company for your product, then where does that leave you?  Fighting for a chance within the shrinking aftermarket industry.  Now if more and more auto companies gave people more options for aftermarket parts, then the industry would be a lot better off.  This would allow for competition among sales staff and companies within a dealership.
            Of course we know that something like this won’t happen within the doors of the big 3, but it could happen within the dealers of Japanese and South Korean dealerships.  We have already seen aftermarket displays at certain Scion and Hyundai dealerships.  Now if we could get some more companies on board we could reverse the effect of aftermarket model destruction.

March 28, 2011