Car Monkeys Group (OTC: CKMY) is actively transforming the landscape of the used auto parts market with a highly sophisticated search engine that can intelligently locate compatible parts for a given vehicle make/model and year, and which is able to even correlate compatibility across multiple brands, allowing users to shop from the convenience of their home or the office, and still find an exact fit part for their needs. The lack of truly advanced technology in this area has made the process of finding used parts time consuming and often unrewarding. On the one hand, the search often results in parts that are either incompatible or of substandard quality. On the other hand, the search is inordinately costly, as the consumer leaves the job up to their mechanic to find the part, resulting in an even bigger repair bill, due primarily to the high labor cost of most mechanics, which can often run as high as $100 an hour.
The market for used auto parts is hotter than ever today, with used car sales on the rise, as budget-minded Americans look to squeeze ever tighter returns out of their automotive dollar. And used auto parts are also increasingly thought of as green parts by many consumers, considering the environmental benefits from part reuse, like offsetting the raw material consumption required to produce new ones. The addition of lower gas prices to this equation has taken an already revved up used car market and sent sales into overdrive. With used cars stealing more and more market share from newer hybrid and electric vehicles among environmentally conscious consumers, as such buyers weigh the economical and environmental benefits with great care, ultimately seeing the compelling value arguments inherent in buying a used vehicle.
Even as new car sales rose last year to the highest levels since 2006, sales margins continued to decline from 2013 figures, which even then saw a 7 percent fall from the year prior. Average pretax profit for car dealerships was in the neighborhood of 2.2 percent on new vehicle sales according to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), making the used car market a big and growing target for dealerships across the country. During the same period, used car sales margins increased handsomely, up 13 percent. Little wonder then that used car sales hit 42 million last year and are expected to outpace estimates for 2015, as improved credit availability and a generally positive consumer confidence outlook combine to improve throughput. The generally positive consumer confidence that has led to multiple consecutive years of rising auto sales in the U.S. is exemplified by this week’s report from research group The Conference Board, which showed a slight uptick to 95.4 on their consumer confidence index for May.
Used car sales are currently hovering around 9 million per quarter, with franchise certified pre-owned sales seeing the biggest year-over-year increase, up around 13 percent from Q3 2013 to Q3 2014. For full year 2014, used car sales between private parties were also up, by around 4 percent, to roughly 12.5 million according to Edmunds.com’s used market quarterly report, further indicating to investors how strong the used car market is. Infiniti Research even projects a 6.95 percent CAGR moving forward for the 2014 to 2019 period and the underlying message is thus quite clear when it comes to the approximately $3 billion domestic market for used auto parts needed to keep all these used cars going. It is a great time to be innovating in the used auto parts market and Car Monkeys Group is one of the more interesting players to take a look at.
While dealers are struggling to court this booming used car market, which is highly attractive from a widening profit margin and extended services standpoint, using sophisticated digital technologies to engage end-users, the used parts market hasn’t seen the same kinds of innovations we routinely see in other retailer sectors, not until more recently at any rate. The fact that innovators in this space will benefit a great deal from increasing service activity by dealerships, who will need to get their hands on a steady supply of quality used parts, is worth looking into for investors. The advent of companies like Car Monkeys Group, which leverages their proprietary search and consolidation algorithm technology, as well as a growing network of dismantlers across the country, in order to supply users with high quality, run and tested used parts via their easy to use CarMonkeys.com website, is changing the used auto part market and opening up a significant opportunity for investors looking to benefit from the prevailing used car market dynamics.
Once a difficult and time consuming task that often ended up being translated into several additional and costly man hours, the task of locating and laying hands on the right part for a used vehicle has now been transformed into a shopping experience much like Amazon.com or other ecommerce experiences. CarMonkeys.com offers the ease of use that modern consumers have come to expect and harnesses the logistical might of their supplier network to deliver axles, engines, transmissions and other parts, direct to the consumer’s or their mechanic’s doorstep, and all at no shipping cost. The incomparable 5-year unlimited miles warranty and zero hassle 30-day return policy extended by the company have made the barrier for entry to new customers extremely low, allowing CarMonkeys.com to gain immense traction in what is still a relatively niche industry.
The company’s ability to offer top quality used parts via technology that cannot be found elsewhere and which maximally accounts for factors like part interchangeability, delivering the widest possible selection for a low price, further sweetened by exceptional purchasing benefits, has resulted in a great deal of interest and rapidly accruing presence for the Car Monkeys brand, among both individual consumers and car mechanics alike. Moreover, the company’s ability to data mine the vast amount of information generated in the process of site usage gives Car Monkeys key, long-term advantages that can be exploited for increased revenues. Important to note given the company’s recent financial performance reportage, indicating 17.3 percent YOY revenue growth for the six months ending December, 2014, achieved on strong overall volume, with 58 percent YOY growth in the number of gross transactions.
The upper limit on the company’s basic ecommerce used auto parts business model is considerable, especially when one understands the outlook for the used car market, but when you account for the potential upside from their ability to mine the associated big data generated by their revolutionary ecommerce site, the overall value proposition for CKMY increases significantly. Big data is fast emerging as the cornerstone of success in ecommerce for many of the industry’s biggest players and offers several important benefits. From being able to offer improved customer satisfaction the way Amazon does via their big data program, delivering detailed product support and enticing deals to customers based on knowledge that is custom tailored by their own shopping habits (like what kind of car they are buying parts for), to improved new customer engagement and retention, as well as brand awareness metrics, big data is an essential and driving force behind the growth and prosperity of modern ecommerce companies.
CarMonkeys.com has quickly become one of the largest and fastest growing online retailers for used automotive parts here in the U.S. and the sky is the limit given their access to a burgeoning network of dismantling centers, as well as warehousing capacity across the country.
Take a closer look by visiting www.carmonkeys.com
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