News from the tyre wholesale sector
As announced at this year’s Brityrex, Bandvulc has added the Boto brand to its wholesale commercial tyre range. The company has now released a statement confirming the brand’s introduction, and in it Bandvulc writes that Boto has invested “over £250 million in people, technology and buildings to produce an annual production capacity of over 3.6 million Boto radial truck and bus tyres.”
While some say the Mayan’s predicted the apocalypse would take place this year, the good news is that Armageddon doesn’t appear to have taken place either literally or figuratively. Instead, as we look back on 2012 it is probably fair to say that the year has been dominated by labelling, tough tyre retail sell-out conditions and a resurgence in car sales and production…in the UK at least. Some might gloomily reflect on the fact that our economy as a whole encountered a double dip recession, but there are also signs that the bad times are slowing and in fact things may even pick up a bit in the year to come. (All these themes are followed up in this month’s Review of 2012 feature, which begins on page 40 in our forthcoming December issue)
Norgesdekk AS has bought P. Holth AS in a move that sees the company expand to five locations. The business already has operations in Bergen, Jaeren Kristiansand and Tonsberg, Norway. According to the company, the expansion takes effect on 1 January 2013.
In the 12 years since Bandvulc Tyre Contracts (BTC) was formed in 2000, the company has established a 24/7/365 Tyre Support Unit (TSU), Galahad job sheet web software, a fully functional disaster recovery suite, new generation phone hardware/software and web-based reporting. Today the business manages over 100 key transport fleets including many well-known blue-chip names with the UK’s largest supermarket retailers all using Bandvulc tyres managed by BTC. At the centre of all this is what the company refers to as a technology and specifically a software revolution.
75 years after the company’s foundation, Stapleton’s, its suppliers and its partners are all celebrating three quarters of a century in business.
It’s hard to imagine what Sidney Stapleton would make of the company that bears his name 75 years on from the September day in 1937 when he first incorporated the firm and opened his premises at 195 High Street, Watford. By the end of the Second World War in 1945, the company had not only survived but expanded with the opening of a new depot in nearby Hitchin – a move that brought the weekly wage bill to a total of £20.
Viking Wholesale Tyres and Equipment, part of the Axle Group and the UK distributor for Westlake Tyres, recently hosted an annual Viking Dealer Division Trip to Dubai.
"Contrary to reports, independent fuel retailers have helped to lead fuel prices down recently with several reporting that they had dropped prices below local supermarket competition" said Brian Madderson, Petrol Retailers’ Association (PRA) chairman.
18 top General Tire dealers from the UK recently visited the SEMA aftermarket show in Las Vegas as invited delegates of Micheldever Tyres, the UK distributor of General Tire.
The trip was hosted by Amelia Lion, MTS marketing manager house brands and Alan Baldwin, MTS wholesale director, who commented: “After distributing quite a few million 4×4 tyres in the UK market over the past years, visiting SEMA, the home of 4×4, was long overdue.”
"Motorway Service Areas owned or supplied by major oil companies continue to extort their customers by pricing fuel much higher than at their standard company-owned sites" said Brian Madderson, Petrol Retailers' Association (PRA) Chairman.
Recent data produced by Experian Catalist showed that Shell brand petrol purchased at a Motorway Service Area was 14 pence per litre (ppl) more expensive than Shell brand petrol purchased at one of their standard sites. Diesel was as much as 12ppl more. The gap between prices for Esso brand fuel was very similar.
Kings Road Tyres is 40 years old this year. While you could be forgiven for associating the more famous Kings Road in Chelsea with the Group’s name, it actually derives from the Richmond street of the same name, where what was Thames Haulage decided to get into the tyre business due to its large outlay on rubber for tipper trucks. Though it has evolved during the last 40 years from these beginnings to comprise divisions dealing with tyre wholesaling, tyre services and a retail outlet, the company places great emphasis on the continuity of its personnel. Indeed, KRT’s 40th anniversary as a company is also credit control manager, Barry Hill’s 40th year with the company, while the company’s owners – Commercial director Mark Cooper, Financial director Simon Lister and managing director Adrian Bader – have industry experience of over a century, much of which is with the KRT Group. The Group employs over 200 people, with a sales team of over 25 in Wholesale, over half of which has been with the company for 20 years. “KRT is where it is because of the continuity of people,” Bader says.
Micheldever Tyre Services reports that tyre industry records were being broken in September, but in the worst possible manner for the safety of the British motoring public. Instead of reporting that more and better quality tyres are being sold as you might expect, the tyre wholesaler reports that retail depots are changing tyres in a worse state than ever.
Long-time supporter of the Brityrex show, Kings Road Tyres had one of the exhibition’s more imposing stands, located next to the entrance, while associated brands, Uniroyal, for which it has the UK licence, Aeolus and Antyre – Chinese brands for which the wholesale part of KRT is the exclusive distributor in the UK – were present with stands of their own. Added to the “multi-brand presence” promised by Purchasing and Marketing manager, Tim Bader on the company’s own stand, featuring “the latest from Matador, Taurus, Cooper 4×4 and Aeolus Truck Tyres,” the company represented its truck, bus, agricultural, industrial and 4×4 ranges strongly.
You might have expected Kings Road Tyres’ 40th year to have been marked by transition following the Group’s management buyout by Adrian Bader (managing director), Mark Cooper (commercial director) and Simon Lister (financial director). However, with the directors’ vast experience within the company, and the strong emphasis within its wholesale businesses on long-standing partnerships with both tyre brand suppliers and customers, the company told Tyrepress.com that the achievement of the last 12 months has been that “to the outside world, the business hasn’t changed with the ownership”; though strategic and business developments have continued under the new ownership team, some of what has happened was detailed in pre-existing plans and the focus has been on “making it seamless”.
To ignore the old adage about books and covers, the latest manual to support the Micheldever Tyre Services exclusive brand, GT Radial says something about the support the brand is now receiving. When Tyrepress.com spoke with general manager at GiTi Tire UK, Brian McDermott and Marketing manager & European brand manager, Jenny Leeson about the new GT Radial Performance Centre initiative – supported by Micheldever – the first thing to be noted was the dynamic presentation materials, led by the latest version of the brand’s marketing manual. Where before, the relatively young brand was represented by a modest A5 booklet, the latest edition, ring-bound to allow for anticipated new products and announcements is “streamlined for personal selling”, says Leeson.
One of the most striking stands at Brityrex was the black and yellow of Shandong Wanda Boto Tyre Co., Ltd. Obviously this company does not hail from these shores, but walking onto the company’s show stand, Tyres & Accessories was greeted by a familiar southern accent. As it turns out, while the stand was clearly there to promote the Boto name, the decision to exhibit follows on from the Chinese manufacturer’s decision to partner with one of this country’s largest retreaders/fleet tyre suppliers. According to representatives of both companies Bandvulc will now wholesale Boto truck and bus radial tyres in the UK as well as selling the tyres direct to its fleet customers through its Bandvulc Tyre Contracts business.
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