US Auto Parts Retail: Commercial Garage Survey, back after 14 years - Strong relationships drive spend

Bernstein's Garage Survey returns 14 years after the last edition in September 2012. In this periodic series we cold-call garages to ask about their business, purchasing decisions and market trends. The average number of distributors in a garage's vicinity is ~4.4, close to the ~4.0 found in 2012 and 4.9 in 2009, with a right-skewed, roughly log-normal distribution; only ~20% of respondents had 6 or more parts retailers nearby. The supplier base has been relatively steady, reflecting the moat built by leaders with strong DIFM distribution capabilities and a steady base of vehicles in operation. The first call was most often O'Reilly (37%), followed by AutoZone (22%) and NAPA (15%). Measured by share of first and second calls given market presence, ORLY captures 42% of first calls and 30% of second calls where present, versus 15% and 26% in 2012, when NAPA, CARQUEST and WORLDPAC dominated with 70%+ share. First calls take ~65% of garage parts spend and second calls ~20%, so the first tw