May 2021

W hile Eurorepar Car service (ERCS) first entered the UK market in 2017, it has been in the last year that it has started to really make some noise about how it can help garages in the sector. When it arrived on these shores it was ‘merely’ PSA’s garage network offering, but with the rise of Stellantis as a major world automotive player, the balance may have shifted in its favour. At the end of 2020, Nick Taylor joined as Head of Network and Business Development, and he was keen to lay out his plans going forward: “We want to get the name out there. If we can establish better communication, it opens up the opportunity for people to enquire about ECRS. This is important for us; I don’t want it to be one of the best kept secrets in the industry, let’s put it that way. “People start talking about size of networks, and that is an important factor as we all know. We need to get scale, and we need to get to a position where people have complete recall of a brand. That really is an important thing, but I want to do it in a manner that is absolutely beneficial to our partnerships with garages. We are not here to dominate. We are here to build working partnerships with repair businesses of all shapes and sizes. I want to make sure we take it at a strong pace. We need to develop our members’ businesses, so their footfall will improve. As a Stellantis business, we look to offer the supply of parts, and actively strive to develop that side of the relationship with our members as well.” Enormous We wondered if the emergence of the Stellantis brand has made a difference to ECRS operations on a day-to-day basis: “At the moment, no. It is very early days. Stellantis now is an enormous business. It takes in 18 different brands under its wing, and it is fabulous to have this opportunity. If we go back two years, Vauxhall Motors came under the PSA brand. It means with regards to our operation, with ERCS, Distrigo and the operation of PSA, we can become more of a calling point for people. If you want to buy a part, then instead of calling lots of different areas you can come to PSA via our Distrigo Parts Distribution hubs and we can help with your OE parts. The beauty is that we have the Eurorepar all- makes range as well as supplier brands, such as Bosch, Delphi and Valeo, that are well-known in the market. Our affiliated Distrigo hubs can become the destination for people to buy their parts. If we couple that with the benefits of belonging to the ERCS network, and the 14 AFTERMARKET MAY 2021 BUSINESS www.aftermarketonline.net EUROREPAR: ROADMAP FOR 2021 AND BEYOND Aftermarket spoke to Eurorepar’s Nick Taylor on how the network is looking to help the independent garage sector in a changing world