Toyota & Lexus open eBay Stores for parts and accessories

Toyota & Lexus open eBay Stores for parts and accessories

Toyota has taken both the Toyota and Lexus brand in to the world’s biggest marketplace – eBay – with new Lexus and Toyota stores designed to supply genuine parts and accessories to a wider audience. Toyota say that the new eBay Stores are designed to complement the existing dealer network supply of parts and accessories, and the prices charged will be the same as a dealer.

What the eBay stores will do, however, is offer parts and accessories for older Toyota and Lexus cars – up to eight years old – which Toyota say will reach a wider audience than their dealers manage.

Toyota’s Customer Services boss, Steve Settle, Said:

Opening our new e-commerce channels helps us make genuine Toyota and Lexus parts and accessories available to a much wider customer base. Working alongside our Centres, they will help us maximise our business while providing customers with an alternative, convenient purchase method.

“Our research prior to launching the online stores revealed that around £15 million of parts and accessories for Toyota and Lexus vehicles are accessed through eBay searches every year, so it offers us great business potential. Our plan is that once customers have engaged with our eBay stores, we will able to build a relationship with them and introduce them to our Centre Network.

Toyota will also be adding a ‘Click & Collect’ and ‘Click & Fit’ Service during 2014.

Which sounds very sensible, but is surely the start of a move to take parts and accessory supply online and away from dealers?

Buying  parts direct from Toyota’s parts distribution centre in Lutterworth means buyers will have access to everything Toyota GB stocks and not have to wait for the part to be delivered to their local dealer for collection. Toyota will also make much bigger margins – especially as they are adamant prices will be the same as dealer prices.

It’s all part of the inevitable move to a much smaller dealer network for all car makers – with a bigger service network in cheaper locations –  showcasing cars that are subsequently bought online, and with parts delivered directly to the consumer and not through the dealer network.

The car dealer network will change out of all recognition in the next decade.

By Cars UK