State Farm selected Chicago as the next location for its pilot due to the city’s size, which will allow the company to test the program on a larger scale, Luedke said. Roughly 450 Select Service shops exist in Chicago, while the other four markets where the pilot is currently active have about 150 participating shops combined, less those who dropped the program.
“The reason we’re doing this is because that market is such a big metropolitan area. We want to test the scale and technology of the program in a larger metropolitan area,” Luedke said. “That allows us to scale the program and the technology in that unique environment. Obviously, Tucson and Birmingham are good size metropolitan areas, but Chicago is much larger so we want to do it there.”
Luedke said State Farm does not currently have plans to launch the PartsTrader pilot in any other markets.
State Farm has said its PartsTrader process should improve part availability, process efficiency, order accuracy and create a better experience for customers.