Magazine for the professional tire industry
Issue link: https://mtd.epubxp.com/i/328077
37 www.moderntiredealer.com ALSO IN CTD Truck tire market share: Here are the winners and losers . . . 43 SmartWay-verifed tire list . . . 44 Benchmarking tires: An inside look at how feets manage their tires . . . 46 Value, high value, optimal value: TBC's brand strategy keys on performance and price . . . 49 Commercially viable . . . 50 By Bob Bissler I t should be a good time to be a commercial truck tire dealer. According to the Quarterly Commercial Vehicle Report by IHS Automotive driven by Polk, there were 11,850,000 commercial vehicles registered for use on U.S. highways in December 2013. Tat was 255,000 more than in the previous year. As feets get bigger, their proft potential increases, too. Tat's where you come in. Part of being a good commercial tire dealer is helping your feet customers conduct good tire management. A customer that is proftable and competitive is going to be around for a while and keep buying tires. Are feets buying tires this year? We asked three commercial tire dealers to describe how their sales of heavy, medium and commercial light truck tires are tracking. A rough winter had a huge efect on sales early in the year. "Right now, we're trending up slightly over last year, and we believe it's going to be a fairly good year," says David Langerak, COO of Wonderland Tire Co., a fve-location dealership based in Byron Center, Mich. Wonderland Tire is No. 71 on the 2014 Modern Tire Dealer Top 100 Retreaders in the U.S. list. "Here in the North, the winter was severe, and we had very poor sales in January and February because of that. We were down 10% compared with last year and we suspected it was directly related to the weather. Ten we were up 10% in March over last year and again in April, so it's trending upwards nicely." Langerak says there is a psychological aspect to low sales during severe winter weather because people are not in the mood to buy. He says in a severe winter, commercial feets are challenged just to keep their trucks running and on the road, and to keep their trailers out of the snow banks. "I would say through May, we'll probably be up around 5% over the same period last year. We expect that to be beter as the year goes on." Flat 2013, hopeful 2014 Langerak says Wonderland's 2013 sales were flat. The dealership wasn't alone in that regard. "In comparison to 2013, we are happy that we're a litle over 2% up in sales," says Tomas Bowman, vice president of Belle Tire Distributors Inc.'s Commercial Division. Headquartered in Allen Park, Mich., Belle Tire has three commercial and two commercial/retail stores in addition to 83 retail operations. Belle Tire is No. 20 on the MTD Top 100 Retreaders list and number eight on the 2013 MTD 100 Top Independent Tire Dealers in the U.S. list. "Last year at this time, sales were relatively fat, and so was 2012, but 2011 was a phenomenal year for medium-duty, heavy-duty and commercial light truck tires," says Bowman. "Here in the Northeast, our business has been fat, and sales were terrible this winter," says Jim McCurdy, president of Maine Commercial Tire Inc., a seven-store operation headquartered in Hermon, Maine, and No. 80 on the MTD Top 100 Retreaders list. " This past w inter, there were days when we couldn't send our trucks out to do pick- ups and deliveries. A big percentage of our revenue comes from our road trucks that pick up tires to be brought back for retreading, and we Commercial Tire Dealer™ From cost-cutting to tier trends MTD outlines the truck tire market with the help of three commercial dealers