Jobber News Executive Outlook: JC Washbish

We reached out to a number of leaders and executives from the supply chain to jobber stores and asked them to highlight how business will change in the year ahead, what the biggest challenge for the industry is moving forward and what they see as the top opportunity in 2022. We will present their answers in alphabetical order over the coming weeks…

You can view the full feature in our January 2022 issue.

JC Washbish, Vice President, Sales and Marketing | Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance

The next 12 months should see a nice increase in demand, and business should be up through all levels of distribution — from the warehouse to the jobber to the shop. The average age of the car parc continues to increase and vehicle manufacturers continue to face headwinds as we kick-off 2022. Used vehicle demand remains at record levels. Those problems will continue to help the aftermarket.

Jobbers and retailers will continue to see a squeeze for “face time” or “screen time” with the customer as their biggest challenge moving ahead. Now, more than ever, your digital presence is the ‘it’ factor when it comes to supporting your business. We learned in the pandemic that real-time updates to hours of operation, images of your stores and inventory all influenced customers’ behaviour when it comes to where they decided to shop.

As for the biggest opportunity for automotive distributors and retailers, with the hopes that this awful pandemic winds down and we are able to emerge restriction-free, then we should see an excitement to be out and about.

Canadians are ready to travel, to vacation and to get back on the road. There will be more demand to fix that vehicle that has been hibernating in the garage for too long.