MARS PROGRAM

[nbeckhart23]

Anyone out there doing the Mars program from GM, my question which I have a few but it's this we had an instance where on Repair link Mars told us to sell a part below our GM cost so what is anyone out there doing are they selling it for that or are you playing with your accounting, also have any of you seen the program on your GM invoices? Any help or feed back would be greatly appreciated thanks again.

[GMpartsLux]

I've never really looked into the mars program till recently since its only for signed wholesale dealerships. We are a small dealership and have always done well servicing our local wholesale customers. Now the mega-dealers are stepping into my territory/city limits with repairlink and up to 15% additional discount funded by the general. I can compete with whatever the mega dealers throw at us but with the Mars program there are a lot of items that I'd have to sell at cost. These mega dealers already get much bigger discounts than us and now GM is going to hand feed them our customers with additional discounts. I've filed a complaint on DFOAB, not that it matters much to them. Mainly wanted to see if this was happening on a larger scale.

[X476]

My guess is they will tell you to sign the wholesale agreement increase your inventory and you can get those discounts also. GM want any and all small dealers gone not because the dealers don anything wrong, but according to GM they cost GM too much money.

[HatedGG]

We sell the parts exactly what RepairLink sells them at. Some will go under cost but you will get the difference back via GM Invoicing credits. The reimbursement comes back weekly and I code it to discounts. Wholesale agreement is based off of your parts sells, you can only become eligible if your wholesale parts sales are above 50% of who you sell to ie: Retail/Wholesale/Internal, has nothing to do with increasing your inventory.

[X476]

You would have to increase your inventory to be able to increase the sales to the point GM wants

[Bucko21]

Plus in order to get the real backend money you have to purchase over 3 million a year.. Unless I am mixing that up with fleet dealers..

[GMpartsLux]

We sell the parts exactly what RepairLink sells them at. Some will go under cost but you will get the difference back via GM Invoicing credits. The reimbursement comes back weekly and I code it to discounts. Wholesale agreement is based off of your parts sells, you can only become eligible if your wholesale parts sales are above 50% of who you sell to ie: Retail/Wholesale/Internal, has nothing to do with increasing your inventory.

Here are the requirements to be a signed wholesale dealer. I'm above the 50% but about half the volume and don't employ a dedicated outside salesman. We've only got 2 parts people and 1 delivery guy and would like to see the wholesale dealers stay the hell outta our city limits, or at least GM give us a fighting chance and let us take part in MARS. We already have 3 wholesale dealers that deliver our surrounding areas, would be hard for me to start from scratch and reach out further.
From GCUS-9-4982
Effective Date:
January 1–December 31, 2018

Dealer Requirements:
•Dealer must purchase a minimum of $2,200,000 in GM Parts annually and wholesale 50% of their sales (utilizing previous six months as a percentage of Parts Tickets to all orders (Repair Orders and Parts Tickets)) and employ an Outside Sales Person who is solely dedicated to growing their wholesale parts business (must be identified as "Wholesale Sales Person" in GM Learning /GlobalConnect).

Here is a funny statement from GCUS-9-5216

MARS Objective

MARS is an opportunity for GM CCA and Wholesale Dealers to grow the Independent Aftermarket business. The objective isn't to shift customers from the Direct Accounts or other Dealers; the goal is for incremental, new business.

lol, yeah right.