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How many garages, mechanic workshop in Ireland?

moneybees

Hi,

We are thinking of launching a new company that will be involved in the distribution of car parts nationwide in Ireland.

We were just wondering how many garages, mechanic workshops, etc... are there all over Ireland?

Also is there a place where all these professionals are listed?

Thank you all in advance for your input.

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Tigger

i can order up till 16:30 Monday - Friday my local Motorfactors and get the part at 9 o'clock the next morning
golden pages probably has the lists you want scan it in and used text recognition and database compiling software and there is your database
then you 'll have to ring them all and ask if they'd like to open an account
will you be offering credit?
will you be able to give the sort of prices that these guys expect?
have you priced in for warranty etc?

moneybees

Hi Tigger,

Thanks for your reply. I thought so too that the yellow pages would be our best bet where to find contact details.

Price wise we'll be extremely competitive as we'll probably be selling the parts at the same price your local motor factor buys them as we're buying direct from the main distributors on the continent.

Is the next day delivery important in your industry? If you could get the parts from 20 up to 45% cheaper would you agree to wait a couple of days? Some part like alternators are more that 60% cheaper.

You also mentioned offering credit. Is that also a criteria that most mechanics / garages would factor in their buying process?

Cheers ;-)

bucketybuck

Serious question Moneybees, have you ever worked in the motor industry in Ireland? Your response above suggests you haven't?

tomwaterford

moneybees wrote: »

Hi Tigger,

Thanks for your reply. I thought so too that the yellow pages would be our best bet where to find contact details.

Price wise we'll be extremely competitive as we'll probably be selling the parts at the same price your local motor factor buys them as we're buying direct from the main distributors on the continent.

Is the next day delivery important in your industry? If you could get the parts from 20 up to 45% cheaper would you agree to wait a couple of days? Some part like alternators are more that 60% cheaper.

You also mentioned offering credit. Is that also a criteria that most mechanics / garages would factor in their buying process?

Cheers ;-)

Overnight is vital...as no one is going to go without there car for days on end for a part....unless the savings is in the 100s....I know where I work the savings for next day vs 3-5 working days is usually around 25% and rarely would you hear people saying wait on it....maybe dealing with companies with fleet of vans etc they might...but would they be main dealer serviced then??

Either way best of luck in your new venture

Toyotafanboi

a motor factors essentially?

you'll need some sort of niche imo, i don't know what the west of Ireland is like but on the east coast, dare i say the market is flooded with motor factors all offering reasonable prices and excellent stock availability.

5W30

Have you thought about targeting DIYers, similar to MicksGarage?

Toyotafanboi

5W30 wrote: »

Have you thought about targeting DIYers, similar to MicksGarage?

You'd need big balls for that.

5W30

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

You'd need big balls for that.

How so?

Toyotafanboi

Oh, everything really.

Have you ever worked in parts? Or in retail? The two combined must be hell.

It's a very specialist genre to be selling to people who by and large know very little about it. Retail customers were the hardest to deal with when I worked in parts.

Ordering parts, never returning
Not knowing what they want, then blaming you when it's wrong
Trying to return special order items when it turns out they misdiagnosed
Trying to return parts they have soiled
Cleaning old parts and attempting to return them

When you deal with a garage, they call you, they want x,y,z, they give you a chassis number and a timeframe. You pick the right parts and get it out in the van to them, it's very clean cut. They know what they need.

Retail customers in pretty much every scenario know **** all about anything. It'd be particularly easy to lose money when dealing with such individual/ obscure/ expensive items.

thereitisgone

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Oh, everything really.

Have you ever worked in parts? Or in retail? The two combined must be hell.

It's a very specialist genre to be selling to people who by and large know very little about it. Retail customers were the hardest to deal with when I worked in parts.

Ordering parts, never returning
Not knowing what they want, then blaming you when it's wrong
Trying to return special order items when it turns out they misdiagnosed
Trying to return parts they have soiled
Cleaning old parts and attempting to return them

When you deal with a garage, they call you, they want x,y,z, they give you a chassis number and a timeframe. You pick the right parts and get it out in the van to them, it's very clean cut. They know what they need.

Retail customers in pretty much every scenario know **** all about anything. It'd be particularly easy to lose money when dealing with such individual/ obscure/ expensive items.

It can be done very good . Here in Finland we have Motonet which is kinda what you described its for diy,èrs but there really is no problem getting the right parts. Twelve years ordering there no problems, have had wrong parts on rare occasions but no problem exchanging.
Really cant see your point about retail customers being a problem, if the store sets out the website properly then both professional and retail can buy what they want.

colm_mcm

Don't the motor factors chains buy direct too?

Atlantic Dawn

Your probably coming to the game to late, the likes of Micks Garage would be your main competition, you would need to offer something unique like having the parts delivered by 6ft blonde ladies.

223vmax

You would have to offer credit and would require a reasonable amount of capital to subsidies . Remember you're not giving credit on your margin you're also giving credit on the full retail part. You need to negotiate your own credit facility with suppliers and build trust. In my opinion you would need a solid business plan for this and a lot of money to compete in the market. Whats the strategy for securing local business. Remember they'll have a good relationship with their existing suppliers with good prices and reasonable trust/credit terms.

mullingar

Quite a lot of parts are available same-day delivery too. If I ordered a few non-stock bits by 11am, they would be in delivered by 3pm. Or if ordered by 4pm, delivery is by 10am. There must be a twice daily van of parts from Dublin to all of the local factors here in Mullingar.

In a nut shell, fast parts delivery is a MUST. A car sitting in a workshop waiting on parts is only blocking a ramp for another car.

pablo128

mullingar wrote: »

Quite a lot of parts are available same-day delivery too. If I ordered a few non-stock bits by 11am, they would be in delivered by 3pm. Or if ordered by 4pm, delivery is by 10am. There must be a twice daily van of parts from Dublin to all of the local factors here in Mullingar.

In a nut shell, fast parts delivery is a MUST. A car sitting in a workshop waiting on parts is only blocking a ramp for another car.

Do you work in a factors in Mullingar? If so, we may have met. I work for a parts distributor and do deliveries now and again!

I reckon you would need an in depth knowledge of the parts market before you even attempt this. For a start, our returns department alone employs 6 full time lads processing returns, warranties, and old cores from calipers, starters etc. That's not counting more lads in the main warehouse processing the paperwork and more again to put it back into stock. That's a pile of people needing a weeks wages who are making no money for the company when you think about it.

Suppliers will bust your balls to take a stock order. Half of the initial stock order you will never sell, going by experience. You will need to be hard nosed dealing with them.

I could go on but you get the idea.

mullingar

Thankfully no, i dont work full time in that game at all. Only dabble from time to time as a parts buyer for my own projects, thankfully I usually get full trade discount. And cash = king.

moneybees

Just wondering if any of you know what profit margin Motor Factors usually add on top of their cost price? is it 25%? 40%? 60%???

ironclaw

moneybees wrote: »

Just wondering if any of you know what profit margin Motor Factors usually add on top of their cost price? is it 25%? 40%? 60%???

With respect, if you don't know this, then you shouldn't be going into a business. You need to understand the industry on both sides of the counter and if you want to sell, you need to know your margins. That's simple retail. Have you worked in the sector for an extended period of time?

Volume wise, to compete, you're going to need serious capital behind you and strong credit terms. Are you prepared to warehouse maybe €200k worth a parts? Have you then got the cash on top of that to pay your liabilities that can't wait? Do you know whats needed and how it varies season to season? Can you trim your supply chain so you have parts 'just in time' and they are not sitting for weeks at a time? The best abstract example I can give was when we sold shoes and subsequently stopped. You have maybe 10 different styles, and you need all of them in 12 sizes. You then need a volume of each size, appropiate to the average sizes worn in Ireland. Its a costly nightmare and the same can be said for car parts. Same brand, same model, perhaps 5 different parts based on year etc.

A friend of mine runs a rather success firm in Washington DC, so much so that they are expanding onto the West Coast. I've followed him with interest and the model does work but cost wise, we are incomparable to the US.

dar83

I don't mean to sound harsh, but unless this isn't for a Transition Year project and hypothetical and you are really considering this line of business (or any line of business) then I think you may need to enroll yourself in some business classes and/or entrepreneurial startup type course in your local college/FÁS centre.

Your questions really aren't the kind you should be looking for answers from other people and definitely not an internet message board for input on if your business idea is viable.

clogher71

moneybees wrote: »

Just wondering if any of you know what profit margin Motor Factors usually add on top of their cost price? is it 25%? 40%? 60%???

Have you advanced this project on in anyway since you originally posted?

kirving

You're really going to struggle if you don't know what margain you need to be making.

I ordered parts in a main dealer today, pretty obscure parts too which I knew they wouldn't have in stock.

To my surprise though, they'll be here tomorrow from England at no extra cost to me, and this was to Athlone rather than Dublin too. I was even given a print out of the service manual with a 3D drawing of the entire assembly so I knew for sure that it was the right part. That kind of service and reach is very difficult to match as a start up.

FortySeven

I'm a good few years in a multi franchise dealership that also does aftermarket and I still would not be confident I had enough knowledge to go it alone.

Judging by your questions op. You're still very far away from where I am. Just the idea that people will wait a few days us a massive red flag. These are not luxury goods. They are emergency essentials to most and they expect to be treated as such. If I need an alternator I need it tomorrow or I have to pay for a rental car.

You don't even want to know the special order nightmares I've been caught in or the stuff I've had to put on the shelf in the full knowledge it will never sell. Or suppliers who won't take back 10 of something that were ordered with 1 number wrong or the customers who try to cancel. The warranty claims on badly fitted parts. Overdue accounts who keep buying. I could go on forever.

It's a crowded trade and costs can be massive. There are large aftermarket wholesale suppliers already established with twice daily countrywide deliveries that offer attractive discounts to established customers.

You won't just need blondes delivering. They'll need to 've fit, naked blondes and they'll need to be delivering something special to crack this market.

tomwaterford

moneybees wrote: »

Just wondering if any of you know what profit margin Motor Factors usually add on top of their cost price? is it 25%? 40%? 60%???

This will vary between trade and retail customers IMO

Though I know some parts where I work upto 120% margin to retail...but these would be very Specialised and going to 99% trade customers

FortySeven

tomwaterford wrote: »

This will vary between trade and retail customers IMO

Though I know some parts where I work upto 120% margin to retail...but these would be very Specialised and going to 99% trade customers

Opposite for me. Special order parts have low margins and we are penalized for next day orders. Common parts such as filters and plugs would have much higher margins.

tomwaterford

FortySeven wrote: »

Opposite for me. Special order parts have low margins and we are penalized for next day orders. Common parts such as filters and plugs would have much higher margins.

We'd be talking deep inner gearbox parts on automatic/heavier machinery than cars tbf

Never realised there was such low margins on odd ball parts for cars....I remember getting great hassle trying to get gearbox parts before for an Almerea and had to go to main dealers

I wondered why there was no motor factors doing the bits for them

Esel

OP, if you are going ahead with this, look into drone delivery. It could be your USP.