More than 15,000 collision shops in the U.S. are active on CollisionLink, said Jon Palazzo, general manager of e-commerce for OEConnection. More than 7,200 U.S. dealerships participate in the program, he said.
Fred Beans Auto Group, of Doylestown, Pa., has used CollisionLink since the mid-2000s with other participating automakers. The group’s parts center could see a 5 percent lift in its overall parts business for Toyota, said Denny Loux, operations director of the Fred Beans Parts Center.
It’s too early to quantify how the program might contribute to additional parts sales, Amezcua said.
OEConnection said CollisionLink was launched to enable electronic parts ordering, phase out the use of fax or phone and increase visibility and efficiency for both dealerships and body shops.
Before the advent of online parts ordering, Fred Beans would handle parts transactions over the phone or receive faxed collision estimates with redacted sections for parts the body shop planned to order from another supplier, Loux said.
“You’re trying to figure out what they’re blacking out to see if you can sell the parts,” he said. “A lot of guys that have been in the business today, they know that when they see a front end hit and that we’re not seeing a radiator or an A/C condenser or something like that, that it’s usually going to the aftermarket.”
Now, Loux said, “the less time that we can spend on the phone talking to a shop and the more time that we can be actually doing the order or doing the estimate online, it’s improved our efficiency.”
