Shop owners can increasingly look to the Internet for information, services from paint manufacturers. 

As the number of collision repair shops regularly using the Internet as part of their business grows, paint manufacturers are working to give shops plenty of reasons to visit their Web sites. Their efforts are, for the most part, getting good reviews from shop owners using the technology.

Dave Graf, manager of Regal Auto Plaza Collision Center in Huntsville, Ala., says he has been ordering paint online for a couple years now. “It’s really an efficient way of doing it, and it saves us money,” he says.

Bob Sipos of Chardon Square CARSTAR in Chardon, Ohio, says the Web is a welcome tool because it provides “instantaneous feedback” from his paint provider. “I probably spend about 15 minutes a month entering data, and I immediately see how my numbers compare with the goals I entered and with other shops, including the top dogs,” Sipos says.

The paint companies are quick to note that the move toward online ordering and support won’t mean the end of your relationship with a jobber or paint rep.

“We don’t see our Web-based tools and services as a replacement for our sales force or the business development managers we have out there helping our shop customers,” says Bob Roewer, manager of eBusiness development for BASF’s Automotive Refinish Regional Business Unit, in a statement echoed by other paint companies. “We see it as a way to use technology to offer even more support to shops. It gives both the shop and our people the tools and information needed to help us work together to help them improve their business.”

Here’s a look at some of what the paint company Web sites have to offer collision repair shops.

Product and technical data: One of the true benefits of the Internet is the nearly instantaneous access it offers to current information. All of the paint company Web sites do a good job of making it easy to get information shops previously had to wait for a jobber or paint rep to supply.

Check out PPG’s Web site (www.PPGrefinish) or Akzo Nobel’s Web site (www.AkzoNobelCarRefinishes.net), for example, to download Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for all of those companies’ products. Or visit the Sherwin-Williams Web site (www.sherwin-automotive.com) for product and technical brochures, manuals and forms. The Valspar Web site (www.valsparrefinish.com) also includes information on its shop and painter certification programs, as well as its warranty program.

Running into problems in the paint booth? Many of the sites offer trouble-shooting advice. The Matrix System Automotive Finishes Web site (www.matrixsystem.com), for example, explains causes and cures for everything from fisheyes and mottling to lifting and water blisters. The site also makes it easy to order free product samples.

Training information: The DuPont Performance Coatings (DPC) Web site (www.performancecoatings.dupont.com) includes a training section that outlines training available for users of DPC product lines (which includes Standox and Spies Hecker).

“The site includes course descriptions, lists the prerequisites, and shows the dates and locations of classes,” says Catherine Marchand, e-business manager for DPC. “Shops can then work with their DPC rep or jobber to register online.”

Similarly, the Martin-Senour Web site (www.martinsenour-autopaint.com) explains the nearly 20 courses the company offers. It also includes a current class schedule for its five training centers.

Color formulations: Why wait for updates on color formulations when the latest information is immediately available via the Internet? Sherwin-Williams, for example, has made color information available through a password-protected portion of its Web site for several years.

“It’s updated daily at 5 a.m., so there’s no waiting for the most current color information,” says Todd McClure, manager of e-commerce for Sherwin-Williams.

McClure says Sherwin-Williams is also piloting a program with about 20 shops that are using a “smart scale” tied to the Internet. As a painter mixes using the formulas called up via the Internet, the system monitors and adjusts, for example, for over-pouring. The system tracks this type of information and provides the shop owner with management reports to help improve paint department performance. McClure says the program is likely to be rolled out near the end of 2002.

Akzo Nobel, too, offers its customers access to the most current color formulas through the “Mixit Online” section of its Web site.

In addition to color formulations, the DuPont Performance Coatings Web site includes other useful color news and information, Marchand says, including color styling, shading and color matching tips and information.
Online ordering: Some of the paint companies have enabled shops to order paint online. Sherwin-William’s McClure says part of the benefit of mixing using online formulas is how easy it can make the ordering process.

“If you’re pouring a toner and realize it’s getting low, click on that toner in the formula and it can be added to your online shopping cart, and your order can be sent directly to the Sherwin-Williams store or jobber,” he says.

BASF has also seen increasing traffic through its e-commerce site (www.bodyshopmall.com) that allows online ordering of paint and supplies. The site logged its 10,000th order about a year after its launch.

“Both the volume of orders and the rapid acceptance of this new technology by our collision repair facilities frankly exceeded our initial projections,” says Al Winterman, BASF Automotive Refinish vice president. “It confirmed our thinking that our industry is moving toward online ordering and Web-based business analysis.”

Web-based management tools: BASF was the first of the paint companies out of the gate with a set of Web-based business analysis tools for shops, giving a demo of its VisionPlus Online (VPOL) at NACE 2000, in Orlando, Fla. and launching the offering the following year after more than 100 shops had been using it in its beta form. Now with more than 400 regular users, VPOL (http://visionplus.basf.com) can provide a broad array of data and tools to help shop owners improve their businesses.

“With VisionPlus Online, you can enter your shop’s data and see hundreds of benchmarking options, best practices and planning tools, all customized to your own business,” says Guy Bargnes, director of marketing for BASF’s Automotive Refinish Regional Business Unit. “It’s a set of tools that a shop can use to measure and improve its operations and plan long-term financial strategies.”

A BASF customer visiting the site can start by entering some basic information about his or her business to receive an instant “snapshot” of the business’ performance, including key indicators and comparisons. The shop owner can use this report to pinpoint weaker areas in his or her business—and then find suggestions for improvement. Eleven aspects of the business—such as parts, sales and marketing, productivity, etc.—are evaluated. A click on any of these topics brings up a checklist of 10 to 40 ‘best practices’ that the shop owner can use to improve the businesses’ performance in that area, including ready-to-use forms or worksheets.

“Here’s information to solve the shop owner’s biggest headache, and he got to it at the second click,” says BASF’s Roewer. “He didn’t have to dig through a 36-page report just to find some number that confirms what he thinks his biggest problem is, and still might not offer any solutions. He just says, ‘This is the thing that’s driving me nuts every day,’ and click, here’s the solution.”

By entering monthly financial data, the shop owner can use VPOL over time to generate analyses, progress reports and industry comparisons. Roewer says new interactive worksheets that are being added to the system will help shops determine how different employee pay plans will impact their bottom lines, or how different shop staffing or layout designs will impact production levels.

“This stuff isn’t magic—if you spent enough time on it, you could figure it out on your own,” Roewer says. “VisionPlus Online just makes it easy and enables you to see how you’re doing, how that performance compares, and how it could be improved.”

Planning a new shop or a remodel? VPOL includes 15 model facility plans, ranging from 7,000-sq. ft. to more than 32,000-sq. ft. Roewer says BASF’s facility layout service is efficient and economical thanks in large part to a Web-based checklist of owner needs and preferences.

“When planning a new building, shop owners often get a layout designed and then think of two or three things that require it to be changed,” Roewer says. “That adds to the time and expense of the process. The VisionPlus Online planning checklist questions can help shop owners think about more of those types of things up front, to help them get the design they want sooner.”

One of the enhancements being added to VPOL, Roewer says, will allow users to quickly determine at any time how much “capacity” they have to sell. A shop using the system has already entered information on the number and productivity of its technicians and the average amount of labor per repair order.

“So by entering just two more numbers—how many cars are in process and how many are standing by—at any time, the shop owner can find out, for example, that the shop has 90 labor hours left to sell in the next five days,” Roewer says.

Shop search engines and links: While the automotive refinishing sections of the paint companies’ Web sites are aimed primarily at shops, some include information for consumers—including shop locator search engines at many of the sites. PPG’s Web site, for example, helps consumers locate a nearby shop participating in its “Certified First” network.
Some of the sites make this service even more valuable to shops by enabling registered users to link their shop’s Web site to the listing within the paint company’s shop locator.

Online classifieds: “As we have developed our Web site, we tried to look at the more critical needs of our customers, and they told us they were always looking for good employees,” says DuPont’s Marchand. “We put a section—DPC JobTrack—on our site that’s essentially a job clearinghouse. A shop can post a job opening whether it’s for a painter or body tech or any kind of employee. And painters or other professionals can post their resumes. So it’s a two-way clearinghouse.”
Marchand says that resumes are posted, for example, for all recent graduates of the Universal Technical Institute, one of the country’s leading trade schools.

Registered users can even set up the system to regularly check the database for job postings or resumes and automatically send them that information via e-mail.

Coaxing rather than coercion
All of the paint manufacturers say their goal is not to force shops to use the Internet for information and help but rather to make them want to do so.

“Many people are afraid it’s going to be a productivity drain and not be an improvement, and they like and need the human interaction they’ve had with a person—a jobber or rep—they may have dealt with for many years,” Marchand says. “I think as more shops give it a try, however, they will come to see it does offer benefits, and for some things it may be faster, better or less expensive than what they’re doing now. We’re trying to offer something that entices them to come and use the Internet on a regular basis because it has more value to them than doing things the old way.”