If you’re unfamiliar with Work Truck Solutions, get yourself familiar. The company simplifies access to commercial vehicles for dealerships, upfitters, and business buyers. It alleviates some of the tedious pain of searching the entire internet for the perfect truck for your exact needs.
Work Truck Solutions just released its 2018 search data on commercial body types—think service body, dump body, cab chassis, etc. The data comes from more than a million searches completed on the Work Truck Solutions’ platform throughout the year by representatives from more than 900 dealerships and 49 states.
HOW IT WORKS
Online shoppers can easily view work truck bodies offered by participating dealers through Work Truck Solutions’ “Vocational Carousel.” When a shopper clicks on an image of a work body, it registers as a search for that body type, plus shows the shopper all of the dealership’s relevant, work-ready inventory.
Shoppers can narrow their search using detailed criteria located in a sidebar. The criteria includes specifications such as wheelbase, roof height, and cab-to-axle. The commercial shopper can then click on a specific vehicle for a deep view of the Vehicle Detail Page (VDP). This VDP shows comprehensive details of that specific configuration including rich product information for both the chassis or van and the customized body or shelving.
THE STATS
The total search volume for body types across Work Truck Solution’s platform increased more than 50 percent since 2017. Search data from 2018 reinforces many of the findings of the company’s 2017 search body data published last year.
Example: In 2017, services bodies were also the most searched-for body type and accounted for a similar 17.27 percent of the total searches, mirroring their popularity in the commercial market.
Vans are also a consistently popular search. In 2017 and 2018, van searches (cutaway vans, empty cargo vans, and a variety of upfitted vans) comprised about 35 percent of the total searches. Work Truck Solutions expects 2019 to be another big year for vans. To keep up with this popular work vehicle trend, Work Truck Solutions introduced VanBuilder this past January. VanBuilder is tailored specifically to sell more vans through a dealership’s website. It helps shoppers find the right interior package for their business, then matches that upfit with compatible vans in the dealership’s inventory.
“The top 10 body types tracked in 2017 were similar to 2018 and grew proportionately to the overall increase in searches,” Kathryn Schifferle, CEO of Work Truck Solutions, says. “This confirms that overall market demand is stable and reliable. In 2018 however, we saw significant increases in rollbacks (300 percent) and chippers (200 percent) as well as passenger vans for commercial use (270 percent). We also added heavy-duty body tracking, including hooklifts, water, sewer, and mixer bodies among others. This increases the specific data and analytics we provide dealerships, body manufacturers, distributors, and OEMs that can be used to predict what stock will move faster in which markets, solving one of the major challenges the commercial industry faces.”
TOP MOST SEARCHED: 2018
Find out more about Work Truck Solutions, visit www.worktrucksolutions.com.
