General Tire, which is part of the Continental group of brands has launched two new 4×4 tyres. The Grabber AT3 and Grabber X3 tyres are aimed at the on/off road all-terrain segment and out-and-out off-road segments respectively and both offer significant improvements in performance compared with their predecessor products.
TyreClick, the website developed by Micheldever Tyre Services to help its independent customers compete for online sales, reports that the system has generated £10 million of revenue since its launch. The milestone figure was reached when a motorist placed an order for four 255/40R18 Kumho KU39 tyres with Hucknall Tyre & Exhaust Centre in Nottinghamshire.
Giti Tire is currently partnering with performance car magazine Evo for a series of track days. The manufacturer states that this “provides an excellent platform” from which to promote its current flagship ultra-high performance product, the GT Radial SportActive. Five events are held at Bedford Autodrome every year. With three track days completed and two more in the diary, including the popular How Fast? on 22 October with F1-style qualifying timed laps and leaderboard, the partnership is revving up.
TyreSafe supporters, Micheldever/Protyre, GITI Tire UK, Westgate Tyres and Chris Hardy Tyres are each providing expert tyre advice to motorists participating in Highways England’s Stop4T activities. With their help, TyreSafe is joining the emergency service and Highways England officers at 19 service stations along the M6 corridor to provide potentially life-saving road safety advice, Stop4T as part of its on-going campaign to reduce the number of casualties on Britain’s roads.
Micheldever Tyre Services reports its acquisition of a “much respected family business.” Denton Tyre Centre, which operates two outlets in Carlisle and one in Dumfries and fits 100,000 tyres a year, has joined the company’s Protyre retail division. The Dumfries outlet becomes Protyre’s first in Scotland.
Pirelli has named Micheldever Tyre and Auto Services as the inaugural winner of its 4×4 Key Dealer of the Year award.
Each Pirelli 4×4 Key Dealer Club member tyre dealer nominated a depot and was then subjected to three independently run mystery shop audits by phone. Judging took into account everything from the way a call was answered and time taken to answer, to general attitude over the phone and product knowledge.
Micheldever Tyre Services has bought Bell Silencer Services, founded in Swindon in 1977 by engineer Ron Bell, for an undisclosed fee. The sale reportedly took four months to complete.
An influx of new vehicle registrations has driven demand for premium car tyres upwards in the UK. Yet somewhat paradoxically, the price of these products has continued to fall, further impacting the margin retailers can make versus what they can expect on lower-priced products. Tyres & Accessories sat down with Micheldever wholesale director Alan Baldwin and wholesale marketing manager Rory Carlin to discuss the premium fightback and its symptoms for dealers. “Premium brands are absolutely in the ascendancy,” Baldwin says.
Bank of England deputy governor Minouche Shafik suggested the UK tyre industry is in the grip of recession-based consumer behaviour during a speech given to the Institute of Directors where she also suggested interest rates could rise faster than initially indicated.
In addition, Dame Minouche Shafik highlighted how consumers are delaying changing their worn car tyres as a prime example of the way the economic downturn has shifted purchasing decisions.
Micheldever Tyres Services has appointed Amelia Jordan as its 4×4 and General Tire brand marketing manager. The wholesaler said the appointment has been made will enhance the support Micheldever already provides to its customers.
In October 2014’s Wholesale feature, Tyres & Accessories asked whether Europe’s independent tyre wholesalers still have a future in the context of the German company Ihle Baden Baden’s failure and subsequent sale to Michelin. Pointing to the lightening of the business due to such factors as the price transparency offered by e-commerce (and online marketing) we wondered whether the value of the relationship between customers and their suppliers had become more tenuous, relying only on price and reliability of deliveries. Should these two considerations become the only weapons in a wholesaler’s arsenal, T&A suggested that their role becomes more akin to a specialised freight forwarder.
Micheldever Tyre Services’ wholesale business, worth £230 million in annual sales, has taken significant steps to support the on and offline operations of its independent tyre dealer customers in 2015. The added value of MTS’ services has become increasingly important in the light of continued growth in the number of retail branches controlled by the top 20 multiples (as noted in our Tyre Retail feature in the May magazine), and the increased online competition provided by internet specialists, big retail brands from within and outside the traditional tyre sector, and now, with Michelin’s acquisition of Blackcircles.com, major tyre manufacturers themselves. Alan Baldwin, sales director at Micheldever Tyre Services, told Tyres & Accessories, “I’m confident that there isn’t another wholesaler, distributor, and in many cases, manufacturer, in the UK that invests as much money, time and resources in supporting dealers as we do.”
Tyre distributor has appointed Rory Carlin as the company’s marketing general manager, along with Jamie Whittam as trade marketing manager in order to develop stronger relationships with dealers. Among their priorities, the pair will focus on enhancing the support Micheldever provides to its customers.
General Tire turns 100 years old in 2015, and the Continental-owned brand will mark its centenary with its UK distributor Micheldever with an event at Jaguar Land Rover’s Gaydon facility later in the year. The partnership between General and its distributor is itself celebrating a landmark year.
Following on from our recent interview with national wholesaler Micheldever’s Alan Baldwin, Tyres & Accessories met with Protyre retail director Simon Hiorns at the company’s Warwick branch to find out more about the marketing and technology parallels that can be drawn between the two companies. Doing confirmed that the company’s growth path is continuing, but the firm’s CRM technology and marketing strategy mean it is a question of quality as well as quantity.
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