With car audio sales seeing low growth overall over the past few years, some dealers are starting to push fleet sales.
On the simplest level, entering this sector means calling on local businesses such as plumbers, electricians, or local police and offering camera, GPS tracking and security installations.
Avenue Sound, NY said expanding fleet sales is a top growth priority. Empress Audio, MS and Columbus Car Audio, OH are also stepping up efforts to win more fleet sales. Car Tunes Detroit is planning to move into fleets
Avenue Sound recently added fleet related in-store displays and is marketing the segment on social media. It plans on launching an ad word campaign early next year.
2-store Empress Audio did fleet work in the past but when the pandemic hit, it had all it could do to keep up with consumer sales. During the pandemic, its overall sales jumped from roughly $2 million to over $3 million. Car audio was more profitable so fleet sales fell by the wayside.
Empress still works with a few smaller fleets but now owner Floyd Seal plans to start selling to others. But he cautions, anyone entering fleets to take it slow unless your techs have a good amount of extra time on their hands.
Columbus Car Audio already does a fair amount work on small fleets, mainly in security such as Thunderbolt locks. “That’s definitely an areas we want to push,” said Todd Hays.
Many12 volt vendors entered or expanded further into fleet sales since 2020 including Metra (such as iBeam), Stinger, ZZ2, Firstech, VOXX and Accele.
Firstech calls fleet sales “the most exciting opportunity in 12 volt right now,” according to Justin Lee. The company set up an invitation-only DroneMobile Fleet Certified Program last November and said more than 50 dealers have joined so far. Dealers get sales training, priority access to products, sponsored listing on Firstech’s website and advertising support in their region.
In North America, the total number of fleet management systems in active use is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.6% from about 19.2 million units at the end of 2024 to 33.2 million units by 2029, according to ResearchandMarkets
Verizon Connect published a study this year on the needs of fleet professionals. Sixty six percent said they are looking for increased efficiency and productivity, 62 percent aim to reduce costs and 52 percent want to enhance driver safety.
Fleet operation costs have risen steadily due to inflation and higher fuel prices. Electronics are a means of reducing costs related to driver efficiency and reduced liability.
Seth Halstead of VOXX, which sells Rostra commercial products said, “There is a great opportunity with all of those fleets that service pest control or police vehicles or the like. Some of these businesses don’t know they can reach out to a traditional 12 volt store—it may not be what they think of when they search online. Or some just don’t know the products exist.”
ZZ2s Tiago Sperandio said, “Audio sales are slowing down.due to the economy or other factors. So we’re encouraging dealers to get into fleet work. The company sells a ZWAGZ lighting system that can convert OEM lights into a strobe light system in a simple plug and play install, instead of the standard 8 to 12 hour strobe install, it said.
