The workshop sector in Spain has Partakus, the first professional marketplace that brings together the supply of distributors and the demand for workshops in a single environment. ElEconomista is attended by its director in Spain, Laurent Gambotti.
What is Partakus?
Partakus is the first marketplace for B2B professionals in which the supply of suppliers and the demand of workshops come together in a single environment. It is a unique tool throughout Europe. We are the first to propose this type of tool and we have just started operations in several markets such as Spain, France and Italy.
How did this idea come about?
It was born as the need to simplify life in the workshop. When a vehicle enters a workshop, it has to identify the reference that corresponds to the model. This is challenging because there are many catalogs and many of them are unreliable. Once the spare part is identified, you have to reach the offers of the distributors around you who are capable of supplying the part and to reach them you have to visit several channels. This information search process takes an average of 20 minutes for each replacement. We have designed this platform in which the workshop will be able to find the parts in a two-minute process.
What does Partakus bring to workshops and what is the cost for them of using this marketplace?
Among the advantages that Partakus brings to workshops, time savings stand out, as well as the reliability of the data we provide. In 20% of cases, the workshop makes a mistake when ordering the parts it needs. To correct these drawbacks, we have invested heavily in the development of a catalog that is much more reliable. In this way, the workshop saves time, orders the correct part and has real-time visibility of the offers proposed by each distributor.
At Partakus we have a mixed model in which for each workshop we assign local distributors who have the logistical capacity to provide spare parts in a short period of time. There is no cost to the workshop. The only cost is for the distributor with a variable commission on the sales that will be made to the workshops.
How many distributors are there in Partakus?
We started in January in commercial development in Madrid. In this area we have between 10 and 12 distributors that offer original spare parts, equivalents, tires, oil distributors.
Since we have started operations, we have 250 workshops in the few months that we have been active, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the fact that for the moment we operate in Madrid, our idea is to reach Catalonia, the Valencian Community and Andalusia.
How did you decide to start operations in Spain in full confinement?
This project was born three years ago. It is a platform that has evolved to reach today. Unfortunately, the launch has coincided with the health crisis. This has caused a pause in commercial development, which has allowed us to continue working with distributors to join the platform.
Have you noticed an increase in orders after the months of confinement?
Yes, although distributors have a turnover that has fallen by around 70% compared to the previous year. We have noticed an increase in orders due to the fact that there are many ITVs that have been delayed in this period and that the summer trips have had to be prepared.
What differentiates the Spanish market from the French and Italian markets?
Spain has a high level of workshops with respect to its population, since it has 39,000 workshops for a country of 47 million inhabitants. For their part, France and Italy have fewer workshops with a larger population. The Spanish distribution has always given a lot of service to the workshop when it comes to delivering merchandise. This is good for the workshop and for the driver, but for the distributor it is a problem because it forces them to have important logistics with higher costs.
Do you think that due to the pandemic there will be a concentration of workshops?
I am sure that many changes will take place, although it is still too early to know what type they will be. The most fragile workshops are going to disappear and in terms of distribution there is going to be a regrouping of some actors. The Spanish market is highly fragmented at the distribution level. While in Spain the largest distributor bills 100 million euros per year, in France billing is ten times more. These actors are weak when it comes to facing an economic crisis. There will be a regrouping of foreign investors who will want to have the capital.
France and Italy, for example, have workshops that bill more and with more population. They are larger workshops, so they have an important capacity to resist economic crises.
There are some networks of workshops in Spain that work very well and with quite interesting billing levels. The Spanish consumer is used to having a workshop on the corner of his street. Having a workshop 500 meters from your house is very comfortable.
Do you think that the workshops are digitized enough so that they can order spare parts through the computer or mobile or is it a business that finds it difficult to take this step?
For our tool to work we have to take this step. Today the workshop is not used to working in this way. The workshop has realized that they had to evolve in their way of looking for spare parts. I think this crisis will help the workshop to realize this. Furthermore, our platform is developed in such a way that it is very easy to use. It is designed for a workshop to use even if they do not have any technical knowledge. We do the same with the mobile application. The workshop is used to using WhatsApp, which is why we have an optical recognition system that recognizes the vehicle and we pass on the estimate to the dealer. I believe that digitization is essential in this sector.
How do you intend to deal with giants like Amazon or Aliexpress?
We are very different in many ways. For Partakus, prices are not the most important issue, something that does happen with the big marketplaces. Workshops look for the availability of the parts they are looking for. What they want is for the part to arrive soon so they can get the car out of the shop. Amazon does not respond to this need, since the search engine does not allow reaching the appropriate reference. We intend to position ourselves as an adversary of Amazon because we want to preserve the ecosystem of the Spanish workshop. Our leitmotiv is that we do not enter into a price war, we do not charge for the service and we are committed to local service.
What are your goals for this year in France, Italy and Spain? Do you plan to open a new market in the short term?
For these three countries we want to have a community of 36,000 workshops within two years. For the Spanish market we want to have 2,500 workshops by the end of this year.
Regarding the opening of new markets, we want to do things the right way. Germany and the United Kingdom are different markets that have other types of particularities. Today we focus on these three countries.
Regarding the expansion of operations in other areas of Spain, I believe that thanks to the agreements we signed we will be operational in September in Catalonia.
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