Work Truck Magazine - A Look at Vocational Vehicle Shortage: Causes, Effects, and Lessons

It’s no secret the pandemic has wreaked havoc on many industries – but it’s also woken the public up to how vital essential workers and the jobs they do are to everyday life. As vocational fleets continue to try and thrive amidst a vehicle shortage, Kathryn Schifferle, CEO of Work Truck Solutions, a company that provides marketing and lead generation tools designed to help commercial vehicle buyers find their next work truck, provided some insight as to how they can better prepare for any future hiccups.

Origins of the Shortage

As vehicle manufacturing plants started to shut down in 2020, Schifferle knew months of closures were going to roll forward and deeply impact the supply of vocational vehicles available. Just as the industry appeared to start recovering, the one-two punch of the chip shortage hit.

“Work Truck Solutions has a national marketplace called Comvoy, which aggregates all of our dealerships’ inventory. We watched inventory drop over 60% over the last eight months, which has been quite sad,” she explained. “For small vocational businesses, the traditional way of buying vehicles was they would wake up in the morning and if their vehicle didn't start, they would go try to acquire one. Or if they got a new big job opportunity and needed a new truck, they would go get it. There hasn't been any need for forward planning.”

Schifferle said it was already difficult to find commercial inventory because when the OEMs produce a vehicle, it’s given a VIN, and at that point, it still has to be upfitted. The supply chain for upfitting is fragmented, with many small- and medium-sized players.

“Back in 2010, I discovered there was no master place where data was being gathered about what the vehicle actually became once it had been upfitted. That's what we as a company have been focused on: making sure complete information of what the vehicle became is recorded in a database. We wanted the details of the configuration to be saved in a structured way so people can search for a 20-foot box truck as opposed to a 12-foot; an alternative fuel vehicle as opposed to a traditional; or whether or not the vehicle has a crane or lift.”

Schifferle felt the pandemic has acerbated the market behavior of waiting until the last minute to purchase a vehicle.

“OEMs aren't just going to build vehicles, throw them out on a lot, and hope they sell right away anymore,” she explained. Vocational fleet owners need to be broken out of the embedded behavior of believing they can acquire vehicles without a plan.

“As a company, we hope to better educate them about both what they need and how they can be more proactive in planning. It's a hard behavior change for the dealers as well.”
 

Originally published August 2021 in Work Truck Magazine, written by Lexi Tucker.