Nov. 1, 2012—At a Connecticut Collision Repair Specialists (CCRS) meeting in mid-October, repairers continued to voice their concerns over the State Farm electronic parts procurement pilot with PartsTrader.
“The largest point of contention continues to center around potential profit reductions within the collision repair shop,” Denise Caspersen, Automotive Service Association collision division manager, who attended the meeting, said in an ASA statement. “This is now being followed by concerned repairers questioning ‘if State Farm does this, then what are others going to do next that makes this worse?’
“Even with the MSRP discount column removed, the ‘what ifs’ around profits are still heavy on the minds of repairers. Greater clarity is needed from both State Farm and PartsTrader on this important issue, and ASA will continue to advocate for this.”
The parts ordering system is now underway in four states with expansion slated for December.
A team of ASA collision leaders met with State Farm in late September to share repairers’ concerns over the program, and the organization says it will continue to work with repairers to get the most detailed information possible.
That was the purpose of the October CCRS meeting.
“One of our objectives within CCRS is to make sure that our members are informed of industry issues and trends,” said Lisa Siembab, CCRS association executive director. “Obviously, PartsTrader has been a controversial issue and we thought it was important to hear an objective perspective, which is why we invited ASA to present the information it has obtained from interviews and meetings with both State Farm and PartsTrader.”