What a difference a year makes. While the first High Performance and Custom Trade Show drew about 100 exhibitors to the drafty halls of Dodger Stadium in 1967, the second edition a year later moved to the modern, well-lit Anaheim Convention Center, where 140 exhibitors used 201 10x10-ft. booths to display their products and make their 1968 sales pitches to 3,800 distributors and dealers from all over this country, Mexico and Canada.
Since the inception of the SEMA Data Co-op (SDC) in 2012, more than 400 product brands representing more than 4 million parts have joined what is now the industry’s largest specialty parts product data repository. The SDC is designed to enable any company, no matter how small or large, to effectively manage and distribute its product data at the lowest possible cost, and the SDC’s expert staff will coach you all the way through the process.
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The finals of the 2015 SEMA Battle of the Builders will take place Friday, November 6, at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, but master craftsmen and vehicle owners were queued up well in advance to sign up for a chance to claim the winner’s trophy. Entries began to be posted at the official SEMA Ignited website (www.SEMAignited.com) in August, and while the determination of final status was also dependent on each entry landing a spot as a display, feature or booth vehicle at the Show, early indications pointed to another strong field.
New products from specialty-equipment companies.
With the job market the best it’s been for job seekers in 15 years, digital-recruiting toolmakers are serving up even better solutions to ensure that companies can capture the best of the talent. The new tools come at an opportune time, given that the economy appears poised for continued healthy growth.
The SEMA Data Co-op has become “data central” for hundreds of specialty parts brands, representing millions of part numbers, and tens of millions of vehicle applications. This directory is designed to guide data users to brands that have successfully undertaken the challenge to manage their product data, and to continue to expand reference as more brands are added to the SDC repository.
Each year, SEMA’s research department produces a report that explores the automotive specialty-equipment market. The report examines the size of the market while also looking at different product segments, vehicle niches and sales trends. For more than 20 years, the report has been compiled based on data culled from industry manufacturers, providing an outward view of what their businesses are selling. For the first time, the research team has now added an element based on consumer feedback. The goal of the 2015 SEMA Market Report (available free to association members at www.sema.org/automotive-aftermarket-research) is to provide member companies with comprehensive information they can use to help their businesses.
For buyers, the SEMA Show is all about finding the latest and greatest innovations in the automotive sphere. The best place to start looking is the New Products Showcase, where exhibitors display their latest offerings in one place. This year, the New Products Showcase will be located in the Skybridge between the Central and South Halls.
As 2015 rapidly comes to a close, most of us are busy preparing for the SEMA Show and getting next year’s budgets in order. If you are not yet working with the SEMA Data Co-op (SDC) to take total management control and ownership of your product data, now is a perfect time to plan for engagement in 2016, just in time for the spring selling season. And remember, the SDC doesn’t charge any initial onboarding or setup fees. In fact, you don’t pay anything until your data is ready to distribute, so you can start the process today and not affect your calendar 2015 budget.
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