News from the tyre wholesale sector
Kings Road Tyres has a newly-opened Liverpool (Widnes) location, offering customers better service in the North West of England. The company, one of the UK and Ireland’s largest independent tyre distributors, can offer the majority of its customers, either next day/two day delivery throughout the countries using its own fleet of vehicles, from its eight strategically located sales and distribution centres.
Based in Florida, Lucy's Tire Inc began life in 1985, specialising in the sale of industrial and OTR tyres to Central and South America and the Caribbean, but has now expanded its range to include truck, agricultural and high performance tyres and wheels, the last of which it distributes through its Falcon Tire tyre centres throughout its home state.
Family-owned tyre retail group, BA Bush & Son and its wholesale arm B.A.B. Distribution – a member of Grouptyre – has invested in a new, purpose-built retail centre in Spalding, South Lincolnshire. The fifteenth Bush Tyres retail outlet is located off the Peterborough to Boston road and is just a minute from Spalding town centre. The site is opposite the Springfields Shopping Outlet and Festival Gardens, which is one of Lincolnshire’s busiest shopping centres, incorporating over 60 stores selling famous fashion and homewares brands at discounted prices all year round and attracting in excess of 30,000 visitors a day. The store was opened on 21 September.
With a five acre site close to Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport in the UK and two warehouse facilities in Ireland, Kirkby Tyres and Wheels’ business is still growing in the aftermarket. The company says that, “we are finding that more and more customers are using mid-range brands such as Double Coin, which we are seeing strong demand for.” Kirkby offers a wide range of brands within this segment, such as Alliance, Malhotra, Protector and Petlas. The growth in the market for these brands has been such that the company has been able to employ an additional two sales people to cover East Anglia and North of England. The wholesaler is ISO 9001 accredited and can, in most areas, deliver products the next day.
The Sumo Firenza brand of car, high performance and truck tyres reports that it continues to gain strength in Europe and that the UK continues to be a very important market for the company. Manufactured in the Far East incorporating Japanese technology, distribution of the brand is the exclusive preserve of North Yorkshire’s Bond International (passenger car high performance range) and West Midlands-based International Tyres (truck sector), both of whom are said to be helping the Sumo Firenza brand’s growth in the UK.
Kings Road Tyres & Repairs Ltd (KRT) was fined £30,000 with £10,000 costs on 25 September at Carlisle Crown Court after a jury found the company guilty of a breach of the 1994 Health and Safety at Work Act at its Carlisle warehouse. The guilty verdict related to the fact that a pile of truck tyres stacked 19 high contravened the company’s health and safety policy. The jury cleared the firm of two other charges relating to an accident in which a roofer had fallen through a skylight. Peter Gaster, KRT group MD accepted that KRT staff failed to apply the correct measures in this instance of over stacking, but maintains the company had to defend its position against unfair and frivolous claims in respect of the roofing incident.
In addition to the court case there was also some controversy over local newspaper, the News & Star’s, coverage of the case. The News & Star reported that Judge Barbara Forrester issued the fine after taking into account several “aggravating factors about the firm’s storage of tyres.” However, Peter Gaster told Tyres & Accessories the paper’s reference to “aggravating factors about our storage of tyres…is incorrect and was not mentioned by the Judge.”
“We reported the roofing incident under RIDDOR, and this caused Carlisle City Council Health and Safety Inspectors to visit our premises to discuss the accident. Whilst on our premises they noticed a rather high stack of tyres. At no time then or previously has anyone been injured or has there been any accidents resulting from our storage policy,” he explained.
Viking International says that it has made a number of positive developments over the last year to streamline efficiency and improve customer service. Kevin Parker was appointed as Group managing director at the start of the year, and has been entrusted with heading the Viking brand as well as retaining responsibility for sister company, National Fleet. Parker believes that the companies have the potential to deliver a fruitful collaborative effort, providing an increased service offering to customers, from wholesale tyres and automotive parts, right the way though to fleet solutions for its dealers.
Classic car tyre provider, North Hants Tyres says that the past year has yielded a rise in classic radial sizes such as 125×15, 145×15 and 165×15 as the major manufacturers ceased their production. The small niche market for specialist tyres has, according to the company, seen little fluctuation and, in spite of undoubtedly difficult market conditions, there has been an increase in sales over the past year.
Dutch wholesaler De Klok Banden is releasing a completely updated product range for the 2009/2010 winter tyre season. But it is not only the size and depth of the line-up that’s been taken care of – the company is also convinced that tyre dealers will be hard pressed to go past De Klok’s brands when it comes to quality, availability and pricing. Furthermore, a recently added extra 15,000 square metres warehouse capacity shows that the firm from Oud-Beijerland, south of Rotterdam, is set to expand.
Cam Systems, the leading provider of software solutions and services to the UK independent tyre industry, has announced that it is investing £1.3 million in a customer charter called Cam 20:20. According to the company, Cam 20:20 sets out the its aims to serve customers more effectively by providing “wider IT options…and by ensuring the transparency of Cam’s performance against defined customer service levels.” In other words, the company is furthering its joined up approach to tyre business systems, with new products and a set of new service level agreements.
Cam 20:20 is the result of customer surveys conducted by Cam that highlighted the requirement for both more tailored and, at the same time, more comprehensive services from one systems provider. This means the launch of a 32 bit version of the company’s popular Cameo software, which runs on the latest windows operating systems and vastly improving reporting capabilities – even opening up the possibility of Google-style analytics. At the same time, Cam’s .NET system rewrite will deliver document management software (for purchase and sales ledgers, fleet management and call centre options) in the early part of 2010.
To support the introduction of Cam 20:20, the company has created a dedicated customer services team after appointing Steve Bazeley to the new role of customer services director. And new service level agreements (SLA) provide a more tailored approach to IT service needs. Customers can opt for Premium, Business or Standard agreements.
Increasingly, observes Birmingham-based wholesaler, Bike Tyrestore, customers are registering for access to their online enquiry and order service, at ‘YOUR Online Warehouse’, where pricing and stock can be viewed, and orders placed at any time. “With 75 per cent of BTS customers now using this facility, they reckon it is certainly the way forward!” says BTS joint-MD Peter Smith. The company also offers a freephone number, over which the customer service team is on hand to provide support, and take orders, for next day delivery, up to 17:45 on Monday to Friday.
Maritime Cargo Services, a Suffolk-based freight forwarder, was founded by Rob Shelley nearly twenty years ago. Through building relationships with tyre-based companies importing products into the UK, it can now count itself among the country’s leading freight forwarding specialists in the industry. Working closely with 20 major tyre importers, the company manages the customs clearance and delivery of containers to well over a hundred tyre warehouses and depots throughout the UK and Ireland. The company talked to Tyrepress.com about its recommendations for the tyre sector and issues currently affecting global tyre wholesaling.
Interstate Tires intends to double the capacity of its European warehouse by November this year. The company says that this will enable Interstate to offer its European customers quicker delivery, better service and good availability for all Interstate tyres. Theo de Vries, Vice President, said fill rates in the first half of 2009 were about 87 per cent. Light truck tyres and winter tyres, the inventory of which is not linked to demand, were instrumental in bringing down the average, he noted.
Around 400 guests filled the Deansgate Suite at the landmark Manchester Hilton Hotel to celebrate the 80th NTDA annual dinner and the 2009 Tyre and Fast Fit (TAFF) awards ceremony. The event, held on the evening of 23 September, saw the industry’s brightest and best gather to celebrate the successes of an industry that is determined to tough out the recession. The turnout alone spoke volumes about the attitude of the business’ leaders, with NTDA chairman Peter Gaster’s speech highlighting the challenges and successes of the industry; and the TAFF awards themselves recognising the achievements of companies within the business. This year’s event was sponsored by ECI International (the organisers of Brityrex, Tyrexpo Asia, Tyrexpo Africa and now Tyrexpo India); well known logistics firm DHL and Tyres & Accessories (and website tyrepress.com), the industry’s leading tyre trade publications. The TAFF awards themselves were compered by Mark Harrison on behalf of ECI International and after dinner entertainment was provided by Ian Irving.
Following the publication of 20,000 voting slips by Tyres & Accessories and the NTDA, and after hours of dedicated vote-counting, the 2009 awards were presented to successful candidates with tyre industry equivalent of “the red carpet treatment.” The fifth NTDA TAFF Awards also differed from previous competitions as it was the first time online voting had been included. In addition to the awards decided by the normal one industry member one vote system, and the NTDA nominated chairman’s award, 2009 saw the introduction of an expert judging panel to decide this year’s innovation award. The panel was made up of the representatives from associations and trade publications including NTDA, TIF, GEA and Tyres & Accessories. And now the results…
2009 could be a breakthrough year for the Korean tyremakers. A collection of circumstances (some clearly the result of famed Far Eastern forward planning, and others distinctly more fortuitous), mean Kumho, Hankook and Nexen have found themselves poised to sell increasing numbers of replacement tyres in the UK and Europe. In addition, their successful efforts in the OE department – ironically helped along by the shaky macro-economic environment – mean this perfect storm of variables could leave the Korean manufacturers in an even stronger position when the dust settles. In the UK, a market where mid-range and economy tyres make up around 60 per cent of unit sales, official figures show that 4.7 million passenger car tyres of South Korean origin were imported last year. However, this cannot be the complete total because it only includes tyres imported from factories actually situated in South Korea. Owing to the fact that all three have significant manufacturing presences in China, and tyres often enter the market by “indirect routes,” it is likely the true total is a lot more.
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