Tire Dealer
Simply speaking a tire dealer is anyone who buys or sells tires as a business, but is it so simple? Let's look into this ...
As we stated earlier we could simply say that a dealer in tires is anyone whose business is buying or selling tires. But when you stop to really examine that, there are a lot of different ways of doing this.
The purpose of this article is to delve into these different ways of dealing in tires, and give you a few of the more prominent or exemplary cases that we have discovered with some explanation of what this might mean to you, a tire consumer or user.One thing we will not be considering here is the manufacturer, specifically but will look at what happens to a tire after it leaves the factory gate.
- At the closest level to the manufacturer is the tire
distribuitor. The role of this business is basically concerned with
distributing large volumes of tires which it receives from the factory
and get them closer to the eventual user of them.
- One level on which a distributor may operate is in the
domestic market, meaning that this will buy tires from a factory in
this country and will deliver them to the next party in the chain
within the country. The two major roles that this business might
play are in arranging the transportation of the tires closer to their
users and possibly in warehousing stocks of them at strategic points.
- Exporters are a specialty class of distributor which would be
dedicated to getting tires produced in one country out of the country
and into markets overseas. A tire manufacturer such as Coker, Hercules, Remington, Kelly Springfield, Wild Country and, Cooper might work with this kind of
distributor.
- Importers are another specialty class of distributor which
may be at the receiving end of exporters from another country. In
this country they could be acting to receive products which were
manufacturered in some other country and their destination might be to
consumers here. Metzeler
Motorcycle tires which are sold in the US but manufactured in
Germany might be processed here in this fashion. Continental Motorcycle tires
might be another example. Other domesticaly sold tire which are imported
include: Hankook, Kumho, Nexen,
Nokian, Maxxis, Toyo,
and Yokohama.
It might be noted that sometimes many of these different levels may be combined into one firm using what is called vertical integration. This simply means that instead of buying and selling the different services a company, even a manufacturer such as Goodyear or Michelin, might have these activities performed by different divisions within the same company. Consider Tire America , Kelly Springfield, BF Goodrich
- One level on which a distributor may operate is in the
domestic market, meaning that this will buy tires from a factory in
this country and will deliver them to the next party in the chain
within the country. The two major roles that this business might
play are in arranging the transportation of the tires closer to their
users and possibly in warehousing stocks of them at strategic points.
- The next level between the factory and the consumer might be a
wholesaler. This is another business which is still dealing in
considerable quantities of a product but might be closer to the end
user both in physical location and in operation. This level again
is not usually known to the retail customers and would not have any
involvement in customer service.
- The retailer is the place where you, the customer get your tires
from and here is where there is a considerable variety as we look at
the new tires which come from the factory. In no particular
order, we find:
independent specialty These are stores which specialize
in tires and perhaps a few somewhat related products and
services. These can range from single one location shops to
larger chains such as Discount
Tire Stores, Big 10 Tires, PepBoys, Mavis Discount Tire, Merchant's Tires, STS Tire, American Motorcycle Tire, Tire Rack, National Tire and Battery, and Canadian Tire.
- The chain store is the tire dealer which sells a wide variety
of products and services. They may have very large volumes and be
widely spread across large territories, or even nation wide.
Examples of these are Walmart, Sears,
Costco, Target and others.
- Non-specialty tire dealer might be a local garage who has
tires available as part of their other business but does not dedicate
themselves to becoming experts in the field. Rather they may be
offering the products as a convenience to their customers who might
prefer to have a one-stop shopping place for certain items.
- car dealer or equipment dealer who sells principally new and
used vehicles and services may be involved in the retail sale of tires,
particularly those related to those vehicles which they sell.
Some people prefer to have all their maintenance and service done by
the same people who sold it to them in the first place, believing that
they are in the best position to keep that machine operating well.
- brand franchise This is a retailer which specializes in
selling the tires of one or two brands of tires. They are
specialists in those specific brands and are usually well equipped to
best meet the service and warranty requirements of customers of those
brands. These may include dealers of GoodYear, Firestone, and Michelin tires for example
There are many variations of these categories and sometimes there may be hybrids or versions which are difficult to really say where one begins and the other ends. Canadian Tire (see their Catalogue) is an example of a business which started as a tire dealer but today is a major retailer which sells a wide variety of other things ranging from garden supplies, domestic appliances, camping equipment and gasoline, and even financial services.
- scrap tires are purchased or sold by specialty businesses which
are dedicated to dispose of tires which are no longer of any value as
tires but may be recycled or disposed of for other uses. Eg.
- used tires Often tires are discarded or fall into disuse
when they still have some useful life left in them. Business have
developed both on a local level to large firms which operate even
internationally to collect, categorize and then resell tires which
still can be used to customers who want them.
- tire repair Tires are frequently damaged when they are
used, but can often be repaired and put back into use because they have
not been completely worn out. Many tire specialty dealers may
offer a repair service and some independent businesses have develped
which do noting more than repair damaged tires.
- retreaders A final category of tire dealer is that of the
retreader. These tire dealers refurbish a tire which has had the
tread completly used up, but which still has the carcass, or basic
structure of the tire in good condition. In the past this has
been mostly utilized for larger tires, such as those used by trucks,
busses and other heavy machines because the cost of the carcass of
those tires represents a much higher value than that of a smaller tire
such as what an automobile uses. Many major tire manufacturers
like GoodYear, Bridgestone and Michelin have divisions or subsidaries
which supply the new treads and proccess tires to this end.
Did you know we have a special
place to show-off your favorite wheels?
See the Hot Wheels Show Room
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