During the month of July 2012 there has been a reported 7 per cent growth in car sales compared to July last year, much of these sales is a result of the mining boom. Growth in the mining sector has triggered an increase in demand for SUVs and Utes (utility vehicles), so much so, that models, namely the Toyota Hilux, Nissan Navara, and Ford Ranger, now hold the top 3 spots in the top 10 list of automobile model sales.

Ute sales are especially strong in mining areas like Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory, which are seeing a rise in demand by more than 15 per cent, 11 per cent, and 16 per cent respectively.

On the other hand, small car models like the Toyota Corolla and Mazda 3 occupy second and third place behind Hi-Lux when it comes to sales and popularity, falling behind by just 1000 units since May.

Local Brands See Slump

Sadly, once-popular cars from local brands have seen a decrease in sales by as much as 25 per cent in July compared to last year. The Holden Commodore for instance, is seeing a 25 per cent drop in sales compared to 2011, despite outselling the company’s small car model, Cruze, for the first time since March.

Similarly, the Ford Falcon, a full-size car manufactured locally in Australia, only sold 941 units this year, down by nearly 30 per cent from 2011. After cutting more than 400 local manufacturing jobs, suppliers also announced potentially proceeding without the Falcon in the future.

More Factors in Play Aside from Mining Boom

Another contributing factor to the increased demand for SUVs and light trucks is the enactment of learner and P plate legislation across many high-population states. The effect this legislation has had on the car market and even the automobile aftermarket is significant because states, like NSW, for instance, prohibit P plate drivers to driver high-power 6-cylinder vehicles, let alone a car with a turbocharged 4-cylinder or V8 engine.

Other states in Australia have implanted similar rules, preventing many young car owners from driving vehicles normally popular with their demographic, resulting in a decrease in demand for go-fast and traditional performance bits for turbo 4s and V8s.

Many P-platers are turning to SUVs and light trucks to remain within the state engine guidelines whilst being able to enjoy the pleasure of optimising and customising their rides.

Opportunities Still Abound

Enform’s view is that so long as people continue to search for identity and individuality, the market for perosnalisation and customisation, regardless of vehicle type or platform, will only continue to grow despite shifting trends. This is the ongoing opportunity for the parts and accessories aftermarket as well as small cars like the Corolla and Mazda 3, to capitalise on the growth of larger car models.

As if predicting how badly Facebook’s IPO would go, General Motors pulled out all its ads (an investment estimated to be around $10 million) from the social network due to lacklustre results—a sentiment they are not alone in voicing. In a report on the Wall Street Journal, company representatives pointed out that paid ads on the platform created little of the impact on consumers they desired. According to an official statement, GM is attributing its pulling out of Facebook to its regular review of media spend, saying that it’s not unusual for drastic moves like this to be taken.

Fellow automaker Ford on the other hand, is sticking with Facebook marketing and is even ramping up its number of paid ads on the site. Ford cited the success of the launch of its new Explorer on Facebook and offered insight into how best to use the platform. For Ford, the key to succeeding with Facebook advertising is to approach it a different way than how marketers typically approach television spots. It’s something Ford execs believe GM failed to grasp.

Ford looked at Facebook advertising from a long-term perspective, choosing to build a brand over time. For instance, one of Ford’s marketing angles on Facebook is to tap into a younger audience—a generation that has gravitated away from conventional ads—and getting them to like their brand, helping them make a purchase decision once they get older. Ford also cited the benefit of targeted ads on Facebook, which uses resources more efficiently by targeting ads on an audience that actually wants to see them.

While General Motors pointed out Facebook’s unimpressive click-through-rate (ad clicks against impressions) of just 0.05 per cent, Ford argues that looking at click-through-rates is the wrong way to measure the chances of success on the site. The automaker set one of its successful promotions on Facebook as an example; the promo had users customising their own Ford Mustang and voting on which design is the best. The fun activity for users translated to millions of likes and engagements for Ford.

GM pulling out on Facebook before its IPO seems to have jinxed the company’s desired results after going public. In any case, GM still believes in the value of Facebook as a marketing platform, despite pulling out its paid ads. For General Motors, content on Facebook is still important and effective—the word “content” refers to Facebook’s pages for brands.

One thing is certain, marketing in Facebook is a must for most business however, the variety in doing this right is endless. Let us know if you need one that’s tailored made just for your business.

Enform recently announced the release of its PARts product application data solution. The solution was created as part of a deal between Enform and TecDoc Australia, and is specifically geared towards dealers, wholesalers and manufacturers in the automotive aftermarket industry.

PARts is the first integrated system of its kind to use a global vehicle industry standard for sharing information about products with staff, clients and dealers. PARts is also capable of powering a company’s entire printed catalogue through a cloud database on the Web acting as a single product management solution.

Enform collaborated with TecDoc Solutions to tap into the company’s vehicle and product  classification database. From there, Enform developed a host of web based and desktop tools to control the system. Enform’s PARts system features a web hosted master database giving the convenience of cloud storage, paired with a unique range of SaaS (software as a service) tools.

Perhaps one of the best things about PARts is that it focuses on end-to-end solutions, and can even be connected to other standard data systems, such as North America’s ACES PIES standard. This effectively makes it far easier for manufacturers to transfer information and manage their customers’ web stores, regardless of which major market in the world they’re in.

Enform has designed PARts in a way that allows retailers and wholesalers to use the system to view supplier data registered with TecDoc. Users can do this thanks to a system-enhanced module that enables one to add unique “enhanced” data along with supplier data.

PARts is especially suitable for manufacturers of 4×4 and performance aftermarket products thanks to its ability to power retail websites like eBay that require media-rich content and higher levels of product detail.

For more details see our product CMS case studies and PARts DB pages

Read full post at Xpnsit.

Read full post at Xpnsit.

Otherwise, worry not about it since most of us working Australians don’t realize all the savings we could get each year thanks to all the tax back we could be allowed to get.

Read full article at Xpnsit.

Read Full Post at Xpnsit.

Enform has released the results of the Australian performance products usomer survey to help automotive performance brands better understand their customer and the rapidly changing market.  Enform targeted over 15,000 performance enthusiasts and industry participants and invited them to complete an online survey. 

 The survey covered the following issues:

• sources of performance product information and research used
• purchasing intentions including most likely buying channels
• online sources used for researching or buying performance products
• performance brands used in Australia, awareness and related Net Promoter Scores (NPS)*

Jim Gurieff, director of Enform says, ”We believe the results of the survey have uncovered a great opportunity for any Australian automotive performance brand that is looking for export opportunities and more effective and efficient ways to market their products in the performance sector.”

 A highlight summary of the questions and answers can be downloaded here.

Its a good thing to know what your customers think and how they behave. We thought we’d try and help by launching an online global survey to ask usomers (customer or users) what they think and how they see the automotive performance industry and its brands.

If you’d like to help (or just have a rant) you can follow the link to the survey here and do it online, should only take a few minutes. And if you do, you go into the draw for a bunch of online shopping vouchers worth US$50.

Remember, they can’t help you if you don’t help them so get involved and enjoy the benefits.

DBA looks at opportunities in social media through a new and expanded online presence. Here’s what DBA Steve has to say about it.

Hi there,

 

Its been some time since we spoke and I just wanted to say hello again and let you know what’s been happening at DBA.

 

The global downturn has affected everyone and most everything, particularly the car industry but our vehicles still need to be serviced. DBA sees this as an important time as people look for value and quality and we’re doing our best to make sure that we continue to deliver. 

 

Part of the value story is to make it easier for customers to find our product and get it when they need it. To help with that we’ve started working pretty hard on a brand new web site that should hopefully make it easier than ever to find the right DBA product. Another part of the job is making better connections with our customers and so we’re looking at the best possible ways of staying connected and keeping people up to date while still helping out on forums.

 

The new web site should help here too as we add blogs (yeap, I get to post more stuff), connections to popular social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and the option to just tune in and see what’s going on. We want to stay connected with the people using our product so I’d like to invite you to start a new connection with DBA as we get closer to the new site release date in August.  A lot of this stuff is also very new to me but I’m told its important (and very current) so here goes….

 

You can now follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/DBAsteve or using Twitter http://twitter.com/DBASteve/ . Of course the old fashioned email stuff still works using dbasteve@dba.com.au and we’ve still got our Contact page where you can log your details and ask us a question or register here to saty connected via our mail list and member program

http://www.dba.com.au/2006/NEWS/default.asp .

 

I’m told that on the new site we’ll also have a mail list function where you can subscribe to updates and even join in and comment on what you think of us and what we have to say. Connecting with our customers is a two-way thing and we would like to know to what you think and what we can do for you so please make use of that if you having something to say.

 

And, one of the important things you might want to say now is that you’d rather we didn’t contact you again and all you need do is click Unsubscribe here to let us know. This should send us an email and we’ll take you off the list. But if you choose to stay with us, we’ll be launching a new feedback program in a week or so leading up to the new web site launch so stay tuned for more details.

 

In the meantime, make sure you take a look at what’s new from DBA at  http://www.dba.com.au/2006/new_products/new_products.asp and http://www.dba.com.au/2006/EVO/default.asp or feel free to email me directly with any feedback or questions. We very much look forward to staying in touch.

 

All the best.

 

DBA Steve

www.dba.com.au