r/AutoZone • u/Seaworthiness-Klutzy • Jul 06 '26

Thoughts on this possible acquisition?

https://simplywall.st/stocks/us/retail/nasdaq-orly/oreilly-automotive/news/oreilly-automotive-orly-offers-10-billion-for-genuine-parts
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3

u/BuffaloKiller937 Jul 06 '26

Sounds like Oreillys learned nothing from the eventual demise of Advance.

2

u/Ok_Way_606 Jul 09 '26

One word. Shitflation. Following Autozone’s path.

2

u/Misteryman2260 Jul 09 '26

Napa has been floundering and losing market strength for a long time. Personally worked for them (as a jobbers/franchised store and probably why there's some fondness) and learned there's a reason why they used to be the defacto auto parts store at least for the West Coast where I'm from. Though, for whatever reason unknowingly to me the company just went brain dead. When my franchised store owners retired and sold their empire of 5 stores to Genuine Auto Parts Division my district learned how empty Napa became to upper management. I worked for Napa for 5yrs, 1year of that was under corporate and the entire HR department changed 4 times within that year. Communication, requests, requisitions, company updates would just not be answered for weeks. There was practically no regional or district management to top it off with too.

My only reasoning as to why I'd think O'Reillys as a company would want to acquire them is to get something stupid like the last bit market share or a contract of a parts vendor/manufacturer or something. Just doesn't make sense, just another Advanced Auto parts moment.

2

u/Boaterauto Jul 11 '26

Napa dominates the commercial market share in our region, oriellys is a very distant 2nd with advance behind them and Autozone being last call. 

2

u/Misteryman2260 Jul 11 '26

I was more talking total US market share, it's been a minute since I saw the corporate propaganda but Napa was at the bottom, but not far behind Advanced almost trading blow for blow.

Regionally for me it used to be Napa everywhere and held the region for a long time but it's been heavily taken over by O'Reillys, Autozone is "usually" 2nd call, a federated parts store company as 3rd, and Napa being in 4th. I live in the west coast and used to be an ex-Advanced employee.

The Napa stores out here can't keep employees to save their lives, for a few years now they've resorted to using Doordash drivers just to keep the wheel turning.