News articles on the tyre retail business
Tyres & Accessories has already reported online and in its May 2010 magazine on HiQ’s expansion plans, including the fast fitter’s intention to add 50 new sites to its network this year. According to the company’s franchise development manager, Peter Tye, HiQ is currently in “advanced negotiations” to open new HiQ outlets with fifteen new business partners.
Used properly, the Internet can be a powerful and valuable marketing tool. Unfortunately, in the wrong hands, it can be used to adversely affect your business. It recently came to the attention of the NTDA that a wholesaler of tyres on the Internet had downloaded details of all NTDA members and, customers who logged on to certain retailers' websites were being diverted to the wholesaler's site.
It may sound a trivial offence, but it is one which is being taken increasingly seriously by courts. Indeed, in a recent case, a disgruntled estate agent purchased the ".com" version of his former employers' domain name (the employers were using the ".co.uk" address) and visitors to the site were diverted to a hardcore porn site. The case went to court and the employee was found guilty of passing off and copyright infringement and had to pay costs of £15,000.
In this instance, the NTDA warned members that this was happening and e-mailed the following letter to members:
Stapleton’s Tyre Services reports that over the past 12 months the company has “continued to flourish.” The wholesaler, which occupies a leading position in the UK market, has more than 70 years experience in passenger car tyre distribution. It distributes to both the specialist tyre retail trade and the car dealership sector. Stocking tyres from all major manufacturers, including Bridgestone, Continental, Dunlop, Goodyear, Michelin and Pirelli, Stapletons offer a full range of tyres from budget to premium, including exclusive and private brands: Nexen, Primewell, Capitol, Prestivo and Matador. Primewell, produced by Giti -the largest tyremaker in China, is the latest addition to the company’s range.
Michelin is planning to open “the first retread factory of importance opened in the Arabian Gulf, outside of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” in Oman. The truck tyre retread plant is expect to produce over 10,000 retreads a year combining “Michelin know-how and competent expert hands.” According to AMEInfo, the project is being enacted in partnership with Moshin Haider Darwish, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman; Central Trading Company, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Central Motors and Equipment, Abu Dhabi and United Arab Emirates.
Essex-based Jet Wheel Tyre has beaten competition from 65 other tyre dealers across the UK to take the accolade of Pirelli Performance Centre (PPC) of the Year for 2009. Jet Wheel Tyre employs more than 25 staff and is primarily a tyre retailer holding 6,000 tyres in stock, of which 75 per cent are premium performance products.
To test customer service levels each of the 14 platinum PPCs were visited by a mystery shopper, from an independent company, secretly videoing their customer journey. The video was instrumental in deciding the overall winner, and a panel of judges from Pirelli used this, along with a host of other information to award PPC of the year to Jet Wheel Tyre.
his last public engagement before completing his transfer to Brussels. Goodyear Dunlop’s new vice president of the company’s EU Consumer Business Unit talked at length on a wide range of subjects including what he sees as “the cornerstone of our branding strategy”; his thoughts on the newly launched Dunlop High Performance Centre and the rest of the company’s retail involvement; Dunlop and HiQ’s roles in the BTCC and his experiences with the company over his time in the UK hotseat. Here, tyrepress.com presents Brickhill’s thoughts on his new role in the company’s EMEA division and his views on tyre labelling. The whole interview will be printed in the May edition of Tyres & Accessories Magazine.
An Exmouth entrepreneur opened a new HiQ centre on 1 May, saying that “Having the backing of HiQ’s national brand is like working with a big brother. The network helps to open doors that you could never open as an independent retailer”. Martin Price, along with business partner Mike Pickering, has become a franchisee with the HiQ network and will now operate a centre in St Andrew’s Road. Price has 17 years experience in the tyre trade. He was recommended to the network by local franchisees Gary Thomson and Justin Roberton, who used to be Price’s area managers when he was a centre manager at HiQ Honiton six years ago. HiQ has stated that it intends to expand its network to 185 sites by the end of the year.
Speaking at HiQ’s franchisee conference, Juergen Titz presented strong turnover and gross profit figures in 2010, suggesting that the network’s “shift from an account driven chain to a retail driven chain since 2008” is bearing fruit. In 2009, turnover was up 11.8 per cent, though the real story is in the breakdown: retail turnover was 21.7 per cent up, while local and national account business was down 6.6 per cent. In 2010 year to date figures, Titz said the company had seen fleet business “picking up”, amassing a 4.7 per cent increase in quarter one and an 11.8 per cent jump in March versus March 2009.
ATS Euromaster has merged or closed 80 branches in the past year, as a result of the consultation exercise reported by tyrepress.com in September 2009 (see ‘ATS Euromaster “Reviewing” 80 Branches’ on tyrepress.com). In the time since that article, there has been a shift from the regional organisation towards a segmentation of the organisation of the business into Retail, Comprehensive and Truck, which group operations director Chris Hufflett characterised as giving “more emphasis” to the needs of the customer when he spoke to Tyres & Accessories. An additional element of this increased customer focus is the “significant investment” in mobile service vehicles, he continued, leaving ATS-E able to meet the figure of 10,000 breakdowns every month. And further investment in the ATS-E network is to come in the form of “£6 million rolling investment”, which will mainly go to “stronger locations”, MOT servicing, some location scouting and the continuing process of refurbishing and improving the facilities available in outlets.
There are price increases and there are price increases. Anyone who has observed the tyre market for long enough will be aware that what it says in the book and what customers pay are often two different things. Firstly when someone like a bank says “price increases” they are referring to the proportion the price the vendor receives for their tyres increases relative to its prior level. And secondly due to the volatility of raw material commodity markets and other associated input costs any predictions are libel to change and even cancel each other out. Sound like teaching grandma to suck eggs? Perhaps, but the latest round of price increases issued by swathes of tyre producers highlight these principles in spades. Higher prices do not necessarily mean higher costs to buyers on the one hand and, if they do, this does not automatically mean more profitability for those issuing the prices increases.
Tyrepress.com reported the opening of the Dunlop High Performance Centre earlier in the year. To follow up on the launch and to discuss Goodyear Dunlop's plans for the new retail innovation, we visited the new Centre to speak with Mark Davison, Goodyear Dunlop’s consumer director.
Avon Tyres has announced details of its latest promotion, in which one customer will drive away a classic TVR sportscar. In addition, the brand is offering dealers an incentive to promote the prize draw – for the Avon retail outlet that secures the highest number of customer qualifying entries, Avon is also offering the opportunity to enjoy a TVR Tamora for an entire weekend – 13-16 August, 2010. Avon is giving away four branded watches to each of the three runner-up retail outlets, while the ten runners-up in the consumer draw will each receive a TomTom XL IQ satellite navigation system.
Nolan Tyres in Ballon, County Carlow is the first tyre dealer in the UK and Ireland to win a Fastest Lap Award as part of the Michelin FLAG promotion. The Fastest Lap prize is made up of £2,500 in high-street vouchers (euros in Ireland), five PlayStation3 games consoles for fitters and five places on the Michelin-sponsored Porsche Driving Experience at Silverstone.
“Today’s motorists are demanding better-quality parts and service from workshops and fast-fits, and the UK Parts Alliance – via its network of 140 members’ branches ensures its customers can select and install with confidence,” claims sales director, Mike Curry. The company consists of nine strategically located independent distributor companies and specialises in the national and local supply of original equipment manufacturer branded products and support services. It reports an annual group turnover of more than £300 million.
Nexen Tire Corp.’s first quarter earnings jumped 43 per cent from a year earlier on the back of increased prices, reports Tire Review. Net profit reached 25 billion won (US$22.4 million) in the January-March period, compared with a profit of 17 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Sales increased 8.6 per cent to 249 billion won over the cited period, while operating income fell 5.1 per cent to 32.4 billion won, it said.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.
