Faster than ever – online business is an increasing feature of the tyre sector

Super-fast broadband is now commonplace across the UK. According to the telecoms regulator Ofcom, the average speed in the UK is now 18.7mbps. Even in rural areas they are generally getting speeds of 13.6mbps. To put this in perspective, the UK average five years ago was 4.1mbps and at that time many places were not getting speeds as high. But what’s all this got to do with tyres? The specific answer is that this month we are covering the “Online Tyre Business” in some detail. But the more general answer is because it is increasingly prominent part of our culture and therefore tyre-buying consumer behaviour. But first another statistic.

In April 2013 we published details of research conducted by analysts at Frost and Sullivan that suggested that in the future (2020), 81 per cent of the UK population will be living in urban areas – where the highest concentration of tyre shops are and also home to the fast broadband infrastructure. In addition there are expected to be 200 million connected devices and one in four British citizens will be shopping online – the highest number in the world, per capita.

The reason I shared this particular pair stats is because between them they illustrate two things – the speed and scale of change in this respect. Firstly speed. Just five years ago the average speed was basically a fifth of what it is today. As far back as 2007 we were reporting how the leading online tyre retailers were choosing which market to develop footholds in based on broadband take up. Indeed they use this data as a kind of metric for measuring the speed at which the so-called tyre e-tail markets can grow. But a potential market that is growing by multiples rather than percentages is interesting to everyone.

That’s why the second statistic focused on the scale. For years tyre industry sources have been suggesting that it is only a question of time before online sales account for double digit share in the retail market. However, some sources have already suggested that this marker has been traversed. What’s interesting about the current situation is that the boundaries between bricks and mortar and bricks and clicks are increasingly blurry. Not only does that mean that at some point online market share figures will no-longer be useful, but it also means that it is important to understand this different dynamics of this market place.

That’s why this month Tyres & Accessories is publishing some detailed data on pricing, branding and social influence in the online sector. First off there are the results from our latest online brand equity research, conducted in association with NetNames (see page 22), followed by an analysis of the latest online tyre pricing trends collated in partnership with Encircle Marketing on page 24. Finally on page 26 T&A publishes the latest results of its social media rankings. This research is greatly expanded from previous years and now includes global brand analysis in addition to UK-only research. Together they offer a unique three dimensional overview of what is going on in the increasingly important online tyre business, something which we hope will help your business.

Of course, this isn’t all you can read about in this month’s issue. October’s magazine also contains detailed coverage of the wholesale sector, which begins with an analysis of Michelin’s decision to buy large German wholesaler Ihle (see page 66). In case you were wondering what relevance this has outside Deutschland take note of this fact – 110 million of the firm’s 175 million euro turnover comes from outside Germany. And therefore this is a wider European story that is potentially indicative of a developing strategy at the leading tyre manufacturer.

In addition to the wholesale feature, this month’s magazine also offers a run-down on the size and shape of the garage-supply or “Garage consumables and accessories” sector. As we have been reporting all summary this part of the aftermarket has been rocked by the collapse of Unipart Automotive. For the latest on how this part of the aftermarket is reconstructing itself, turn to page 59. After this there is complete coverage of the latest developments at leading Sheffield-based inflation product manufacturer PCL as well as a round-up of all the news in the sector. And, this of course, is in addition to our monthly coverage of the UK tyre market, motorsport, company, product, international and careers news – which all begins on page 14.