e-commerce and online tyre business news
When Blackcircles.com appointed two new directors in early November, it was about more than simply expanding the range of experience available to the firm. It was also about driving the company’s international expansion plans forward. Tyres & Accessories recently caught up with founder and managing director Mike Welch in Edinburgh and found out more about […]
Dipstix, an MOT, servicing and vehicle repair comparison website, based in Liverpool has reached its investment target of £300,000, enabling the business to grow into a national brand. Founded by the former UK sales director of Just-Eat, David Cederholm, Dipstix was launched in 2013. David Cederholm, managing director of Dipstix, said: “We’re delighted with the […]
Blackcircles.com has received one of the highest Net Promoter Scores (NPS) of 2014, best-of-class against its industry peers and also ahead of well-known international brands like Amazon, Apple, Mercedes-Benz and Aldi. The company’s NPS of 84 is based on customers’ likelihood to recommend a brand to others and is calculated as the percentage of customers who are ‘Promoters’, rating the business 9 or 10 on a zero-to-ten point scale, minus the percentage who are ‘Detractors’, rating 6 or lower. It is viewed as the leading customer experience metric and provides a strong indication of a company’s relationship with its customers.
Tyre, wheel and automotive data firm DriveRight reports that it will soon be offering TPMS CAD analysis. In a recent newsletter the company reports that it has a number of different CAD drawings of OE and AM tyre pressure monitoring sensors from a variety of manufacturers (including Alligator, Schrader, Huf and VDO/Continental).
TyresOnTheDrive.com has been awarded Cheshire Business of the Year (11-50 employees) at the prestigious Trinity Mirror, Cheshire Business Awards. The awards, which recognise the achievements and success of businesses of all sizes across the Cheshire region, were held at Chester Cathedral and hosted by popular Granada TV presenter Lucy Meacock.
The Business of the Year award which celebrates corporate achievements, business strategy, financial performance and potential for the future, was presented to TyresOnTheDrive by Jonathan Whittaker of SAS Daniels LLP. Despite strong competition, TyresOnTheDrive were able to demonstrate a marked differentiation across other similar sized businesses competing for the title of business of the year.
CAM and CAM International have signed a technical cooperation agreement with Pineapple Creative Ltd. The agreement will help the tyre industry software supplier to provide customers in the UK and Republic of Ireland with the opportunity to access cost effective web-oriented design and development for e-commerce related projects in conjunction with its own services.
Super-fast broadband is now commonplace across the UK. According to the telecoms regulator Ofcom, the average speed in the UK is now 18.7mbps. Even in rural areas they are generally getting speeds of 13.6mbps. To put this in perspective, the UK average five years ago was 4.1mbps and at that time many places were not getting speeds as high. But what’s all this got to do with tyres? The specific answer is that this month we are covering the “Online Tyre Business” in some detail. But the more general answer is because it is increasingly prominent part of our culture and therefore tyre-buying consumer behaviour. But first another statistic.
Cooper Tire is the world’s leading tyre company in terms of global social media influence, according to research conducted by Tyres & Accessories. Meanwhile the 2014 rankings also show that Michelin went up one place and held off Continental to top our UK chart. There has been significant change in both cases as well as a strengthening in the online presence of mid-range brands, something we also found in our online brand equity research (see separate article).
Online tyre retailing continues to grow in volume and influence – something that has been expected for a long time. However, the proliferation of differing online strategies is something that is proving to be less predictable. Gone are the days when online tyre retailing was simply a price competition, or in other words a race to the bottom. That strategy has resulted in the demise of many here-today-gone-tomorrow startups and has instead led to the development of a considerably more nuanced market place. Still, the online tyre space remains fiercely competitive with the likes of Blackcircles and Tyregiant each signing deals with supermarkets Tesco and Asda respectively; and with National Tyres backing the AA’s tyre offer, as another example, In other words, this market is now about far more than who can offer budget tyres for the lowest price.
French manufacturer Michelin has won our global online tyre brand value rankings for the seventh consecutive year. However, while Michelin deserves credit for the unparalleled achievement. This year’s research also shows significant growth from Korean manufacturers/mid-range brands. Tyres & Accessories once again partnered with NetNames, a partnership that this year celebrates its 10th set of annual results and 10 years of assessing tyre brands’ online prominence and sentiment.
Grouptyre UK Ltd reports that it has decided to capitalise on the increasing numbers of tyres bought online with the creation and launch of Tyres Online. According to the wholesale group, the introduction of Tyres Online enables Grouptyre’s 10 members to offer retailers another tool as part of their customer packages.
DriveRight has had vehicle data with OE tyre and wheel application data, based on the AAIA (Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association) US industry standard, available for some time in flat files. However, this is said to have made it hard for small to medium-sized companies to implement the data into their systems. With DriveRight’s AAIA API webservices, this information can now be easily implemented directly into customer websites. This provides a system which is capable of allowing searches to be performed for a vehicle based on the AAIA standard. The search can be by year, manufacturer, model, body type and finally sub-models. This returns the OE tyre and wheel application or the relevant wheel and tyre products.
The Tyre Equipment Company has added tyre sales to its on-line tyre products site.
A range of tyre-related products were already available ‘off-the-shelf’ for commercial and domestic customers. Now, in response to market demand, a new range of tyres is soon to be added.
Tyrework, the commercial vehicle tyre management and maintenance division of the KRT Group, is bolstering its technology with a major systems upgrade led by CAM’s UniSerV platform. According to the company, the investment will allow the tyre operator to centralise many operational functions into its head office, reducing administration out in the field.
With suggestions that 20 per cent of all tyres will be purchased on-line by 2020, leading UK tyre distributor Micheldever Tyre Services (MTS) reports that its online effort – the TyreClick on-line solution – is already in use in 1000 sites across the UK.
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