2 Things to Know About Online Sales of Auto Parts in 2012

(Note: a more current post covering online sales of auto parts for 2015 is here).

For our first automotive aftermarket trend, we look at two things you need to know about online retail sales of auto parts in 2012.

1). Retail brick and mortar sales of automotive parts and accessories had a strong first half of the year, but online sales are still far outpacing traditional retail. We’re still forecasting online sales of parts and accessories to come in around $3.5 billion (excluding online auctions) in 2012. We’ll have more detail on that in some of our posts over the next 66 days.

2). June slowdown: Online retailers of auto parts and accessories have had a strong year with a relatively mild slowdown in June. Dydacomp’s new SMB Index, in conjunction with Internet Retailer magazine, reported online sales of automotive parts for the first half of the year up 9.7% (we’re showing sales just a bit higher) but the index put June at about half that, only 4.6%.

Next week we’ll reveal overall industry sales for the first half of 2012 vs. last year. Thanks for following our 66 Trends in 66 Days series, where we’re counting down 66 days until the 2012 SEMA Show and AAPEX in Las Vegas.

What do you think? What’s your observation of online sales of auto parts? Feel free to post comments below, we look forward to reading them. And we encourage you to share with your friends using the buttons below!

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Check in Sunday, August 26 to read about Trend 65: three things you didn’t know about the 2005-2013 Mustang owner!