It was the good old days. The Summer of 2007. I had become one of the top buyers at a nearby discount parts store, and several others nearby wanted my business. At this point I was buying all my parts for my cars at ‘cost’ plus 10%. But that didn’t matter. Like the sub-prime world, the store managers were paid bonuses based on their volume of sales. Who needed profit when you could make it up with volume? Well, it took about a year for the guys up the chain of command to figure that out.
Jeff was a manager at O’Reilly’s. Wonderful old bald guy. The corporate mothership wanted him to build up business no matter what the consequences.
“Hey Steve… can you use a free OBDII scanner?”
“Sure.”
“Hey Steve, we’re closing out Quaker State Synthetic. You want to buy them for $1 a bottle?”
“Uh… okay…”
“Hey Steve. I’ve organized about $300 worth of oils and supplies that you can get just for the sales tax. Are you interested?”
“You betcha!”
Before I knew it, I had a treasure trove of synthetic and conventional motor oils. All the cleaning supplies I would need for years. Even a few doo-dad’s whose limited use were checked by a price that was well into Happy Meal territory. Then Autozone called…
“Hey Steve! We have a new battery program that gives you 12 free batteries. You just have to order another one when the time comes.”
“Will you match the price of the refurbished car batteries down the street?”… They went for $25 at the time.
“Sure!”
“Well okey-dokey then.”
I had a real bidding war going on. Advance Auto Parts started offering coupons that reduced their prices even further. O’Reilly’s was willing to beat everything out there. Autozone was selling batteries cheaper than China could make them. Even the NAPA store started to become a solicitor par excellence. My profit margins ballooned. That was until late 2008.
Once that market went to hell, the deals never came back. You can still get free motor oil. But it’s a pain and a process. Parts are inflated to double their past price points. Why? Collusion. You now have four different parts stores whose names and warranties are different enough that they never quite compete with each other on a technical level. I can still get the price matching since I’ve been doing it for so long. But it’s not much in savings.
For those of you looking to save cash… go here and here. Throw in some Craigslist, Ebay and some random google searches, and you have almost all the tools I have at my disposal. Except for a few hundred Chinese wrenches, closeouts and Black Friday sales, the commercial market has become as pricey as a 30lb freon dispenser.
The hobbyist will still do fine with timing their purchases when the opportunity comes. As for me, I now have to wait for these stores to have their ultimate close-outs. With all the folks keeping their rides these days I know that’s going to be a very long wait.
Great article — thanks! If something is “free”, I’ll take it. For discounts, however, I consider the time value of money. If I’ll use it within a month or so and it’s a great deal, I’ll bite. Paying today for something that will last a year or more is not a good deal to me.
Collusion is a strong word. Care to expound?
You know where else this exact scenario is taking place right now? Drug stores.
RockAuto deserves mention. Good place. Good parts if you know what to look for.
You proably could have gotten deals like that when Home Depot was dumb enough to try to sell motor oil. (I ought to know, I worked there.)
At least you’re out of there now! My daughter worked for them for 10 years! Maybe I’ll work there when I retire!
Let me guess … one of Nardelli’s bright idea?
Yeah you know. Lawn and garden gets slow during the winter so, let’s sell motor oil! (And I don’t mean lawn mower stuff I mean lots of grades of regular and synthetic, diesel oil, high mileage, truck and suv, the whole 9 yards.) I didn’t care cause I’m an enthusiast and knew something about oil but what about the guys who could barely sell fertilizer on a good day?
Why do you think Chrysler snapped him up? Obviously his talent in this arena.
Advance Auto alumni here.( Former commercial parts pro)
This piece brought memories flooding back from my stint with Advance.Oh, the games that would go on when quotas went unfilled or gross sales were below plan. A couple of nuggets:
You always get more of what you reward. At the end of a quarter, my store manager would always have several crate engines delivered to shops that he was tight with. These were “sales”. They got him enough bonus money to buy his kid a new bike or his wife a few clothes. Then a week or so after the books closed on the quarter,those engines got returned. Unopened,uninstalled for full credit. (I know.It was part of my job to deliver them and schlepp them bak to the store)He got his bonus and the DM ( District Manager) got HIS and corporate was none the wiser. The perfect crime.
Then there was the push for new business accounts. Thats when we would really push the local shadetree mechanic to open a business account with us so that we got THAT sugar from the company. Since most of these guys didn’t have any formal business license and just used word of mouth,they were happy to change their “company name” in exchange for some written off inventory or heavily discounted “damaged” goods.Again,we said what corporate wanted to hear. If they had a quota of new business accounts to fill,somebody’s going to be very cross in the home office if we don’t get those new accounts, no matter how unrealistic the goal is set.
I loved my time there,but you could tell that as a career,it was a dead end. When you started making real folding $$, they would find a way to run you off and start over with somebody that would work for peanuts.
The mom and pop parts stores are going the way of the telegram. I’m sad to see them go.
“When you started making real folding $$, they would find a way to run you off and start over with somebody that would work for peanuts.”
Yeah – when Circuit City did that a few years back – it got them in the end, too. Although I hated to see all the jobs disappear, I’m glad C.C. went under – any company who does that deserves it. Poetic justice. Trouble is, the fat cats always get theirs.
Ahh, perverse incentive. Pay programmers 10 bucks for every bug QA sends and they fix, and they write horrible code and split the money with the guy in QA.
There are times I wish I didn’t have a conscience…
A few years ago I got a couple cases of Valvoline Synpower for the cost of sales tax and rebate postage. Those deals seem to have dried up for good. Once my stock of synthetic dries up I will probably switch back to dino oil as my Subaru is not turboed.