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In a discussion on car wheels, someone commented that "Stock wheels are usually more expensive than aftermarket."

When I looked up aftermarket on Google definition states that, it is

The market for spare parts, accessories, and components, esp. for motor vehicles.

However, I'm confused as to which sense of market it applies here to the definition, for example one of the sources I searched was AHDE:

  1. A public gathering held for buying and selling merchandise.
  2. A place where goods are offered for sale.

  3. A store or shop that sells a particular type of merchandise: a vegetable market.

  4. (a) The business of buying and selling a specified commodity: the soybean market.

    (b) A market price.

    (c) A geographic region considered as a place for sales: grain for the foreign market; the West Coast market.

    (d) A subdivision of a population considered as buyers: cosmetics for the upscale market.

  5. The opportunity to buy or sell; extent of demand for merchandise: a big market for gourmet foods.

  6. (a) An exchange for buying and selling stocks or commodities: securities sold on the New York market.

    (b) The entire enterprise of buying and selling commodities and securities: The market has been slow recently.

Or is there another suitable definition that's not on this list?

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    In this context, aftermarket simply means follow-on sales made after the original sale of the new car. The citation slightly surprises me, but it must mean the speaker thinks that on average, the wheels/tyres fitted to new cars are more expensive than the ones bought later as replacements.
    – FumbleFingers
    Dec 28, 2012 at 18:28
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    This is general reference.
    – Robusto
    Dec 28, 2012 at 18:29
  • 4d comes the closest as it can be applied to the consumers buying parts and accessories for cars as replacements or additions .
    – Kristina Lopez
    Dec 28, 2012 at 18:43
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    @FumbleFingers: If that surprises you, then you've never bought parts direct from a dealer. ;^)
    – J.R.
    Dec 28, 2012 at 19:15

1 Answer 1

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Portions of senses 2, 3, and 4 apply. The automotive aftermarket in the United States includes places where goods are offered for sale (for example, Pep Boys, Autozone, and J C Whitney, among many others both online and in brick-and-mortar stores that sell particular types of merchandise, such as automotive parts.

A slightly more involved portion of the question is the meaning of stock. In this case it probably refers to buying exact-replacement wheels. To buy such parts typically is more expensive than buying similar or equivalent aftermarket parts, even though the original equipment manufacturer's cost for the stock parts probably was less than that for the aftermarket parts.

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