Increasing complexity requires increasing professionalism – T&A interviews Stapleton’s MD, Andy Fern

A little over a year since Tyres & Accessories last spoke with Stapleton’s managing director Andy Fern, at the end of December 2024, we caught up again and discovered that – for a variety of reasons – the post-pandemic expectation of uncertainty is something of a mainstay in the way we do business now. For those selling tyres as a retailer, the kind of professional distribution partner that can help navigate and mitigate the impact of such challenges is now needed. In short, increasing complexity requires increasing professionalism.

So, how was business during the course of 2024? “Volumes have being pretty healthy, but I would say it’s been challenging with the freight cost this year”, Andy Fern explained, adding: “When I say volumes are decent, I would add that volumes are not as good as we feel they should be…I would say it’s quite a fine balance nowadays because the thing that is not stopping is that costs are increasing.

“So, with inflation around 2.7 per cent you’ve got a lag effect of the inflationary period that we’ve felt two or three years. [There’s also] a lot of conversation about the budget that Rachel Reeves delivered a few weeks ago…we’ve all done our maths as to what impact [the employer’s national insurance rise] will have in April and it’s not pleasant at all.”

This text is a preview of complete two-page article which was written for the January issued of Tyres & Accessories magazine. Look out for that and other features in the next issue and future editions of T&A.

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