Netherlands-based Heuver Tyres has completed the construction of its new warehouse in Hardenberg. With this 16,000 m² expansion, the wholesaler now has a total storage capacity of no less than 61,000 m² at its headquarters site. This enables Heuver to offer its customers an even wider range of stock, in addition to serving customers even faster and more efficiently.
A year after Tyres & Accessories last spoke with Stapleton’s managing director Andy Fern, we learnt more about how, 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.
Oak Tyres confirmed is move into a large new warehouse in Warrington, the company’s seventh according to CEO Peter Cross. At the end of 2024, Warrington Borough Council confirmed it had received a planning application seeking advertisement consent for two fascia signs – which, incidentally, will be Davanti brand focused. These are planned for the main northern elevation of the existing warehouse building at plot 9000, Lingley Mere Business Park.
Micheldever Tyre Services has opened a new warehouse in Bellshill near Glasgow storing 90,000 tyres and “containing the latest technology”. The new MTS 75,000 square foot Connect-70 Bellshill Industrial Estate development features EV charging points,15 per cent roof lights, roof solar panels and Air Source Heat Pumps, moves which are designed to “reduce long-term energy costs and support the company’s sustainability goals”.
Continental has taken possession of an additional 20,000 square metres of warehouse space for tyre storage near its Timisoara factory in Romania. The warehouse facility is located in the VGP Park Timisoara and has a total area of almost 32,800 square metres.
Bond International has completed the purchase of a 200,000 sqft warehouse in Bathgate, Scotland, continuing the Pocklington, Yorkshire-based tyre wholesaler’s expansion of operations north of the border. Elsewhere in Scotland, Bond has also acquired Birkenshaw Distributors Ltd and formed a joint venture with Goodtread Tyre Co, enabling the company to make same-day deliveries to “a large proportion of Scotland.” The new warehouse is located on the M8 belt between major Scottish cities Glasgow and Edinburgh, allowing it to deliver to both population centres several times a day.
As of next month, Hamaton will supply European customers from a larger premises. Although the manufacturer of TPMS solutions, tyre valves, inflation products, tools, and accessories isn’t moving far, remaining within the Siemensring business park in Willich, Germany, from 11 March it will operate out of a “large, modern space that matches our ambition for growth and will provide increased storage space, improved facilities, flexible office space, and bigger social areas for our clients and staff.”
As part of measures to centralise warehousing in the local area, Continental has officially opened a fully automated high-bay warehouse at the site of its tyre production plant in Otrokovice, Czech Republic. This 10,000 square metre, 43-metre-high facility – approximately as tall as the Statue of Liberty – has the capacity to store more than 930,000 tyres.
Apollo Tyres will partially rebuild its primary tyre warehouse in Enschede, the Netherlands to “improve operational efficiency and reduce its environmental impact”. Scheduled to reopen in February 2025, investment in the 25,000 m2 warehouse is said to reflect Apollo Tyres’ “long-term commitment to production in the Netherlands”.
Tiresur, a major distributor of passenger vehicle, commercial and off-highway tyres in the Iberian Peninsula, has begun work on its sixth warehouse. When completed, the 20,000 square metre facility in the Spanish city of Burgos will provide storage for more than 450,000 tyres and boast 20 loading bays. The wholesaler says this new facility will bring it even closer to customers within the region and in Europe.
Kirkby Tyres’ investment in additional warehousing space at its central site in Speke, Liverpool over the past couple of years was recently completed, further extending its specialist mezzanine flooring facilities. This increase in warehousing footprint brings its total mezzanine facilities to 30,000 sqft. The space has been designed specifically to hold ATV and lawn & turf products. The wholesaler told Tyrepress that this has allowed it to invest in an increasing number of specialist sizes and deeper stock levels. The warehouse expansion project also included several sustainability measures recently recognised by ISO 14001 certification.
Bleak economic circumstances generally create brand strategy complications within tyre distribution. Drivers’ demand for lower priced tyres as cost-of-living pressures hit their pockets can alter the dynamics at play in wholesalers’ exclusive brand offerings, which are often pitched as premiumised products with additional benefits that make paying more than a budget price worthwhile. Yet down markets are also a time to build for the future, sowing seeds that will yield benefits when the outlook brightens. In the case of Micheldever Tyre Services (MTS), a new-build warehouse in Scotland to support its business growth north of the border and a newly added exclusive distribution deal with Petlas are two ways in which the company is building for the future and managing the current market situation. Tyres & Accessories asked Graham Mitchell, MTS wholesale director, about its exclusive brands, which also include parent company Sumitomo Rubber Industries’ Falken Tyres, General Tire, and GT Radial, as well as the development of its warehouse in Bellshill, Scotland.
Wholesaler Tyre Call has gained approval for a new storage and distribution warehouse at its Antrim, Northern Ireland site. Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council’s Planning Committee has approved plans for the building of a 7,361 square metre distribution warehouse.
Major UK tyre wholesaler Micheldever Group has signed a pre-let agreement to lease the new Connect-70 warehouse in the Bellshill, Scotland. Under the terms of the lease, the company, part of Sumitomo Rubber Industries, will occupy the state-of-the-art logistics development for 15 years once practical completion is reached in January 2024.
According to an article published by our German sister site, Reifenpresse.de, the number of job losses through the closure of Goodyear’s warehouse in Philippsburg, Germany may be significantly more than the 15 jobs that the tyre maker mentioned last week. Since 1 January 2020, the facility has been operated by third-party firm Geis Tyre Warehousing GmbH, which also operates other warehouses for Goodyear in Germany and Luxembourg. Geis Tyre Warehousing told Reifenpresse.de that it currently employs almost 300 people in Philippsburg.
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Bond International
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West Ranga Developments
West Ranga Developments