Meritor announced at the Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week (HDAW) Show in Las Vegas that it is returning to the heavy duty aftermarket parts market with a new distribution system, a new set of branded parts to meet every fleet’s needs as well as an all-new website designed to simplify and expedite every aspect of ordering, purchasing and receiving parts.
Joe Plomin, president of aftermarket for Meritor, noted the company was “happy” to come back to the heavy duty aftermarket world, noting that the move was another of the company’s commitment to its customers and in line with Meritor’s 2018 strategic plan. “We are obsessed with our customers and passionate about exceeding their expectations and doing what we can to help them grow their businesses,” Plomin added. “To demonstrate what we’ve done to meet their needs, we have enhanced and added products in order to offer a more complete product portfolio with distinct aftermarket brands that includes multiple price points designed to meet customer requirements regardless of the vehicle lifecycle stage.”
To help customers choose the parts that are right for them, Meritor brands are now segmented into good, better and best price and performance tiers. Mach parts brand are built for customers seeking high-value, delivering quality all-makes parts that improve uptime at affordable prices.
The next tier features Meritor, Euclid, and Meritor Reman brands, which all offer top-quality aftermarket parts at more affordable prices.
The Meritor Genuine brand is designed for newer vehicles still under warranty or for customers who want to maintain original performance and maximize uptime with OEM production parts. According to Penzkofer, Meritor is one of the few suppliers that manufactures or approves for sale lifecycle aftermarket parts that include support and availability.
“Today’s truck operators strive to maximize life and uptime from their current fleets of trucks and trailers, and they’re focusing on delivery, speed, availability of quality parts and overall operating costs,” Penzkofer said. “With our new brand structure, we’re offering high-quality parts across the board at better prices with the convenience of one-stop shopping to help our customers save time.”
Helping move that initiative forward is a new, West Coast distribution center, which Plomin said would allow Meritor to fully fulfil customer orders in 13 western states and shorten lead time while offering more than 5,000 parts inventory and same-day shipping. Plomin noted that Meritor has already shipped 280,000 pieces shipped since opening the facility with an accuracy rate of 98% in fulfilled orders and 99% accuracy in shipping.
“Meritor’s comprehensive portfolio delivers the right parts, performance and price for each life stage of trucks, trailers and buses, offering quality products to lower fleets’ total cost of operation,” said Brett Penzkofer, vice president, Aftermarket, North America. “Parts available through our family of brands are backed by industry-leading Meritor warranties and complete product support to match any performance or cost objective.”
Plomin also touted Meritor Parts Express as the industry’s best ecommerce platform on the web today, with recent increases in both visits and orders, as evidenced by 25% increased logins since April of last year and a 150% increase in new user registrations. “This is another way we can improve the speed of information to our customers and insure ease of use for them when ordering quality parts,” Plomin said. “Today we can offer a complete product life cycle portfolio for 240,000 active parts numbers covering trucks, trailers and buses, with products that match our customers’ performance and cost objectives.”
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