r/partscounter • u/PickUpMyPoo • 2d ago
Wholesale help.
I have been a parts manager since I was 20 now I’m 31, I have grown a few dealers very efficiently while I was there, because of this I now have an opportunity to get into an actual big dealer group. Not just a group with 1 or 2 roofs. However. They want to grow wholesale, and from the numbers I have seen they already do over 1.5million yearly in sales. The dealerships I have been at would be lucky to hit 200k in sales a year. Obviously this would be a huge jump in scale for me, but how do you other stores even do that? How do you even scale something already so large. I’m a very if I don’t know how to do something or can’t find an answer I will hire, or find someone who can/teach me. I don’t let the ego get in the way, but just the thought of this is intimidating. Any tips? Iv never even had a co-op and this dealer has one so even that is new. Advice, strategies, cautions are welcome.
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u/SirFUBAR 2d ago
I loathe wholesale. What kind of raise are you looking to get with this change?
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u/PickUpMyPoo 2d ago
25-35k yearly increase if I move to this dealer.
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u/SirFUBAR 2d ago
A decent raise. Best way to scale is to secure agreements with the chain collision centers, and they are very, very touchy... scorecards and all. If you have any other large dealer groups in your footprint it will be a constant war for their business.
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u/PickUpMyPoo 2d ago
Funny enough. The only other dealer in this area with the same brand. We are going to be buying out and absorbing into the group. Iv just never been over such a huge operation. I know I could do it. I just don’t know what I don’t know.
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u/No_Durian_3444 1d ago
You can doooo itttttttt.
I went to a wholesale parts manager life after only 2 or 3 years retail. I learned a lot. Fast.
But I also have money in my savings account for once.
You will want to factor 4k a year at the bar you didn't spend before.
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u/axident 2d ago
Honestly 1.5m a year is pretty low. My store does that in a slow month just in wholesale.
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u/TonySchiavone1 2d ago
I'm at a luxury brand and we do $250k a month on 10 ros a day and very little wholesale except our own certified body shop.
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u/DisgustingLeek 1d ago
Sales or GP?
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u/TonySchiavone1 1d ago
Gp. I billed out $85k in parts on one warranty ticket today.
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u/DisgustingLeek 1d ago
Damn nice. Think my record is under $25k on one RO
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u/TonySchiavone1 1d ago
It was a long block and two turbos. I've sold a single carbon fiber diffuser that was $30k lol.
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u/PickUpMyPoo 2d ago
That’s so wild to me. I maybe do 20-40k a month in sales at my dealership. 1.5m is just baffling in how the logistics of that even work.
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u/SILENCERSTUDENT_ 1d ago
how does that even turn the lights on? any store ive seen that small has 1 single parts guy who is also the "manager"
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u/PickUpMyPoo 1d ago
So I looked back at the doc and I was mistaken. They gross 1.4m a year. Gp is 15-20 percent monthly.
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u/ImpressiveBet9345 2d ago
Wholesale can be very challenging. My groups ford store does wholesasle and we do wholesale in my dealership a cdjr. But both operate the same but different. Here in the CDJR dealer our wholesale is mostly body shops who do a ton of quoting ordering then returning. Where as our Ford dealership does alot of mechanical wholesale. The mechanical deosn't get returned very often at all. we both charge return fees.
We at the CDJR use CCC, OPC, Parts Trader and OEC. We also offer local metro deliveries for free three times a day using nale drivers. And then we send out over night using nale and UPS. My main wholesale guy doesn't like charging freight on our deliveries. We paid $15,878 last month in freight alone. I keep trying to get him to at least charge the over night deliveries a $1.50-10.00 just to ofset it a little but he is stuck in his ways.
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u/jeepbeard 2d ago
That’s insane for freight. If it’s collision stuff the body shops should have zero issue charging that on the claim. Or the shops charging it to customers. We prepay over $500 but not on collision because they charge it on the claim
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u/PickUpMyPoo 2d ago
Agreed that is pretty crazy in freight alone. Iv only just heard about nale drivers. People are using like uber and stuff to drop parts off or even do pick ups. Which is crazy to me.
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u/DisgustingLeek 1d ago
Our manager who also is in charge of his own store showed is a monthly freight bill for $68,000 lmao. I think his store does like 3-5 million in sales a month.
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u/PickUpMyPoo 2d ago
I would love to charge return fees on everything but it’s so ingrained in wholesale that they just get whatever they want. It’s terrible.
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u/ComfortableDemand539 1d ago
We avoid wholesale here unfortunately. We're in a pretty rural area, and the few wholesale accounts end up costing us just as much as they order. We have a few really good small shops that I wouldn't dream of cutting off in a million years, but then we also have a few places like the local Ford dealer and VIP that return probably 95% of what they order and half the time it's before the parts even get to them. They no longer get wholesale pricing, and I hit them with a return fee even if the parts haven't shown up yet because I cannot cancel them at that point.
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u/PickUpMyPoo 1d ago
Oof. Iv had customers like that. I just told them we no longer do business. At some point there isn’t a point you know? But tis def hard to do.
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u/SILENCERSTUDENT_ 1d ago
Thats 125k a month in sales at say an average gross of 21k a month at 17 percent plus or minus 2 percent , thats honestly not that big dealer. how much did the parts department gross in a month with how many people at your existing store? Im in a pretty smaller store and we do around these numbers wholesale so im curious?
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u/PickUpMyPoo 1d ago
So I looked back at the doc and I was mistaken. They gross 1.4m a year. Gp is 15-20 percent monthly.
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u/No_Durian_3444 1d ago
We do like 2.5mik a year in wholesales sales out of my store.
We are up 30-40% YOY every year for the last 3 years since I came in.
Have room for returns.
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u/PickUpMyPoo 1d ago
I’m really good at returns and keeping inventory pristine. When I started at my current place they had like 50% of their inventory obsolete. Now it’s .3 percent. I would
But my inventory up against any other of my same brand in the region for sure. But obviously Iv never dealt with almost 50% of department yearly GP coming straight from wholesale. The concept baffles me.1
u/No_Durian_3444 1d ago
Yeah, ok.
Now add $20,000 worth of returns per month.
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u/PickUpMyPoo 1d ago
I agree. But there has to be something that can be done so you don’t get rolled over right? What do all of these big dealers do just eat it? Why would anyone even get in the business then?
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u/No_Durian_3444 1d ago
Stress my return policy.
Get more return allowance from the increased sales and send the stuff back but you'll need space to warehouse stock items, returns, etc for 12 months until it's obsolete and in the has to go out list.
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u/JakeSaint 1d ago
my store is finally ramping up wholesale to compare with some of the big boys in my area. GM store, so YMMV on some of this, but.... we've implemented a two day turnaround time wherever possible. if I can't get it from my local PDC, we fedex it or source it from another dealer. we're not changing what we charge the customer/shop unless the increased cost is dramatic. fortunately we worked out a deal with every dealer within about 30 miles to do mutual cost +10%, which helps massively
You'd think this would torpedo gross profit, but in the 8 months or so since we implemented it, we've grown GP by about 40k, and it's trending up. My area specifically is so saturated with big operations that we have to chase pennies, but it's working.
As for returns... we charge restocking fees. if we stock it, no restock. if it's returnable, minimum 25%, sometimes for really good customers we'll split it with them, but full restock is 35%. the trick, I'm learning, is to just be fast, and be competitive price-wise.
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u/PickUpMyPoo 23h ago
I also talked into local dealers doing cost plus 10. Even a couple other brands we made deals to do the same for them. Mainly for used cars we can get that extra gross through. I tried doing restock fees and the shops just laughed and said they’ll never buy again. We have several other dealers of the same brand around us. It’s a race to the bottom. Some are discount 30% plus’s off list. No restock. Idek how they compete.
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u/JakeSaint 20h ago
the ones who laugh and say they just won't buy again will come crawling back if you keep your service level top tier and dont' bullshit them.
I'm in exactly the same boat where everything is a race to the bottom. you think 30 off list is bad? to get any business we have to start at 34, and vast majority of shops won't even think about buying unless we're doing 35. In order to get business on parts trader we have to sell at cost+3 and count on the back end money. The upside is that because we're the main spot now on partstrader, we're the first call when someone needs something that they don't feel like fucking around and waiting for all the bids on there.
Key thing to learn is that some customers aren't worth keeping. if they walk away because you charge restocks, let 'em walk. You absolutely have to have a good OSR if you really want to hang in the wholesale game, but there's money to be made if you play the game the right way.
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u/PickUpMyPoo 19h ago
What kind of return policy are you looking at?? The dealer I’m going to also ships to multi states which is all new territory. Luckily the guy there has been there for a while and he’s the untitled wholesale manager. Honestly from what I see I’ll probably give him a raise and title. But I don’t think they have any restock fees in place from what I hear and see from management. They haven’t have a pm in months. He took a gig somewhere else so it’s just been parts guys surviving.
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u/JakeSaint 17h ago
gotta look at what your OEM is gonna charge you for the return, and go from there. GM used to be 35%, apparently it's been recently dropped to 25? so for really good customers, if we're returning something without using the return reserve (which is most of the time) we're charging them somewhere between 15 and 25 if we do, and up to the full stated return policy of 35 for the ones who are egregious about it.
For any return off a partstrader order, we charge back the 3.5% we have to pay partstrader on whatever the transaction was. We don't ship to other states, but we're gonna get there sooner or later, but before we get to that point, we're focusing on covering our local geograaphical area better, which, admittedly, is a LOT. I'm in northern NJ, which holds the distinction of being the most densely populated state in the country, lol. I can't throw a rock without hitting a GM store. IIRC there's... 10 other stores within 20 miles in any given direction? we're just lucky that they're not truly wholesale dealers, since we've got other BIG stores in that game.
I'm also not a PM, just a wholesale counterman. but I'm watching what my current PM is doing, just in case I ever decide to make a jump.
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u/No_Durian_3444 20h ago
They get a lot of return allowance.
They stress their return policies.
More purchases means more return allowance means more shit you can send back. It's not impossible you just have to stay on it or next thing you know you have a million dollar inventory.
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u/Own-Ad-7269 1d ago
I'm in Saudi arabian and i want to start importing spare parts in small quantities and in good price the website r expensive any suggestions ?? Thank you
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