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Tuesday April 29

OEConnection Auto Dealership Customers Conduct More than 1 Million Parts Searches in March

OEConnection, LLC, the venture created by DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Company, General Motors and ProQuest (formerly Bell & Howell) that provides online and e-commerce auto parts locating and fulfillment, has announced that customers have performed over one million online searches using its D2DLink(R) parts locator during the month of March. OEConnection's 9,500 Ford and General Motors dealership customers nationwide, now rely on D2DLink over 50,000 times each business day to locate original equipment automotive parts for customer repairs.

D2DLink has 715,000 unique auto part numbers in its inventory, and that inventory is collected and updated daily. That, combined with the product's over one million searches, means this powerful parts locator system is helping auto dealers get their customers on the road faster.

OEConnection CEO Chuck Rotuno said, "We've gone from zero to 9,500 customers in just over one year. And each month the number of searches has increased dramatically. That means we're helping more and more auto dealerships around the country locate parts faster and easier, ultimately helping their customers and building customer loyalty."

Rotuno continued, "Our customers have found true value in D2DLink. They get daily inventory updates, quickly search for parts online instead of through lengthy phone calls, and many are purchasing those parts from dealerships they had never dealt with before. It's simplifying the process of managing dealer-to-dealer parts sales transactions. In addition, warehouse distributors have also come on board, so their inventory is available on each part search."

D2DLink customer, Carey Baxley, Parts Manager at Lowcountry Ford Mercury in Summerville, South Carolina, said getting information on a timely basis is one of the most important aspects of running his parts department. "We use D2DLink at least 30 to 40 times a day, and purchase parts 25 to 30 times a day. Before using D2DLink, we didn't purchase parts so easily or so often. Now we look for parts online in this daily inventory with just the touch of a button. In addition, before using D2DLink, we sold a part perhaps once every 6 months. Now we're selling much more frequently," he said.

OEConnection recently introduced D2DLink supporting inventory lookups for import auto dealers including Hyundai, Infiniti, Isuzu, Lexus, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota and Volvo. This provides both individual and multi-dealer franchise dealerships with detailed, accurate and timely parts inventory information.

OEConnection, located just south of Cleveland, Ohio, provides more than 9,500 nationwide auto dealerships and collision shops with web- based, automated parts locating and parts fulfillment services. OEConnection also provides CollisionLink(R) which streamlines the parts estimating, specification and ordering between collision shops and auto dealerships.

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