The New Aftermarket Customer
January/February 2001
Nice Car.
Would you like some octane booster with that?
While we werenít looking, a new aftermarket customer has
arrived. This customer is male and usually under twenty five. More often
than not, he has a fairly high income for his age, no girl friend and
more than likely lives at home with mum and dad. Thereís a good chance
heíll be of ethnic background, but not always. Heís a big Nike or Adidas
customer. And heís into Hot Fours.
These customers are spending big money to make their four
cylinder cars go faster, look like theyíll go faster and feel like theyíll
go faster. Theyíre putting on turbochargers, exhaust extractors and
hot chip sets. Next come racing seats, flares mags, suspension kits
and maybe ten grandís worth of stereo equipment.
"I was at the street drags at the Eastern Creek Raceway
a few weeks ago," said Wynns Automotive Manager, Grant Duffy. "A
young guy turned up with a street registered Hyundai Excell on a trailer.
It was a $14,000 in the show room. Heíd spent an additional $225,000
on that motor car.
"These kids arenít doing the work themselves. Theyíre
getting the work done in specialist workshops. These arenít the V8 fans
that hang out at Bathurst or spend a weekend under their car. Itís a
whole new subculture and a whole new market. They polish their car,
fuel it up and put in octane booster, but everything else is done by
professionals. These customers are concentrated mostly in Sydney and
in Melbourne."
Mr Duffy said that there was a strong market for middle
range octane boosters for customers with sportier cars. Most sales for
these products were at a $10 price point. Now a new market has emerged
for a higher performance octane booster at double that retail price.
"These are not price sensitive customers," Mr
Duffy said. "Like all of us, they want value, but they also want
convenience and itís obviously more convenient to grab their octane
booster while theyíre buying their fuel. Our new Race Formula Octane
Booster is going exclusively into this new market."
Want some fries with
that?
Every supplier will tell every console operator to ASK the customer
if theyíd like an on-special pack of chips or a two for one chocolate
bar whatever. In the real world, very few console operators do that
because theyíre not trained to, they find it embarrassing and it sounds
stupid anyway. But it can make you money.
Go back to the top of the page and re-read the description
of your new age aftermarket customer and his car. If your sites are
in Sydney or Melbourne, these customers are regulars on your driveway.
They might be one in a hundred or more, but they ARE there and they
are very easy to spot.
"It makes sense, when they come to the counter,
to ask them if they need some octane booster because they will almost
certainly be an existing user," said Mr Duffy. "It wonít be
a waste of time and will regularly result in a $20 sale at 40 per cent
margin. Thatís $8 profit, which is better than youíll get on a hamburger
and a drink. And he might buy a hamburger and a drink as well".