The question really depends if you are in the wholesale market or the retail market. Or even both? Both can be profitable markets but in our opinion the retail side seems to be the better future of the two.
Wholesale Automotive Reconditioning
Lets talk about the whole sale first. No matter what service you provide such as; paintless dent removal, bumper n scratch repair, touch up, wheel repair and so forth, it’s a hassle to service the dealer accounts. Why? Well for one reason, you have to deal with all the competition. Whether your competition is good or not, that’s a different story. The real problem is the low balling. Unfortunately, the wholesale market is flooded with all kinds of companies like that. The only people who are benefiting from the price wars are the UCM’s (Used Car Managers) and dealership owners.
Wholesale can be though very profitable. Though this really depends on the UCM’s business manor. How loyal he/she is, respects good work and retains the best vender he/she can get. But for the most part things change quite often in the wholesale market. Be prepared because the delaerships and wholesalers are always thinking of ways to save money.
A Personality
Mainly it’s your personality that keeps you in the door. I know plenty of companies who really aren’t that great at what they do but they have a nice personality. I believe there are some main reasons why a UCM will keep you and here are some; #1 A good personality, experience, dependability, quality and unfortunately the most important, is price.
Price plays the most important factor with the wholesale market. UCM’s don’t have much concern for perfection, “just make it look better so we can sell it”, attitude. What they don’t see right away with this attitude is that it invites lazyness from his or hers venders. Which then costs them money in the long run because soemthing that would have normally been done by a vender is now passing up. Which in turn ends up in the body shop or some other costly option. You heard the term “buy cheap, buy twice?”
Either way, you won’t win the price war. You’ll win a few battles but it’s never ending because it’s been in existent since mobile auto reconditioning came about. I have been personally serving dealerships for over 17 years. Just like anything else that you are good at, it’s an art.
The Retail Market
This is probably the most rewarding of the two markets. It’s not all fun n games though. It takes a lot of work and creativity besides physical work. A smart business plan with organization and a good marketing strategy will eliminate a lot of mistakes. Just like anything else, you have to work at it. There can still be competitors who low ball but there are a lot of customers out there who care more about quality rather than price.
Your future is bright if you believe your experience and quality has value. The moment you play the price war, you should think about getting into a different career. There are two levels of service; The high end market and the low end market. Which one are you? Once you believe your service has value, your customers will too.
Dallas - Fort Worth Mobile Paintless Dent Remvoval - Bumper Repair
First Impressions Auto Care is an all around auto reconditioning company serving the Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas area. From paintless dent removal to spot paint repairing, these guys do it all and with quality too!
Jon and Brian are brothers who own the company and run a tight ship when it comes to dedicated quality along with quick and fast service. Their business has been built on hours of dedication to get their company to grow and grow.
First Impressions Auto Care also maintains a very professional image. From their uniforms and vehicles to their website www.fixmyrides.com You’ll understand why these guys are the leader when it comes to professional mobile auto reconditioning.
Services offered:
Paintless dent removal, hail and door ding repair
Plastic bumper scuff and scratch repair
Key scratch and spot repairs
Paint touch up
Interior repair
Wheel/rim repair
Most repairs are completed in 1-3 hours at your home or office! Call today for your free phone quote at 817.874.3424
If you need a local auto reconditioning company in your area, please visit reconexpress.com
Mobile Paintless Dent Repair and Door Ding Removal PDR Forum.
If you are a PDR technician and are looking for different insights regarding paintless dent repair and ding removal, you should visit doording.com It is a place where you can measure up your skills, gain information and learn perhaps new techniques. Not only does doording.com provide insight on PDR but also has topics regarding the auto reconditioning market as a whole. From tips to videos, you’ll be sure to see some interesting topics regarding the auto cosmetic industry.
For more information regarding PDR or the auto reconditioning industry, please visit ReconExpress.com
Although this diagram demonstrates a tactical way to remove a big dent with paintless dent repair, it is highly recommended to get professional one-on-one PDR training to gain the fullest benefits.
This PDR dent was attacked using a glue pulling method and finished off with lots of crown work and precision pushing with steel rods. We would like to stress, there were many steps between the photos to get this dent completely out. A big dent like this requires high experience and patience to get satisfactory results. We will in the future post a video of how much of a monster and challenging paintless dent repair this was.
Knowing how to remove big dents is all about knowing how to finish. If you can’t finish a small pitted ding, you won’t be able to finish a big dent. Big dents have many elements that are involved in a repair such as; crowns, trapped pressure, knocking down, tool selection, where to start and how to finish.
If you have questions about advanced paintless dent removal/repair pdr training, please either visit denttime.com or post a comment and we’ll be glad to give some feed back.
For learn more information regarding auto reconditioning or a company near you, please visit reconexpress.com
SOS Bumper goes water borne for mobile plastic bumper repair in Los Angeles. This now environmental friendly paint system will help contribute support for the global warming awareness. Here’s is the rest of the story from another sister blog
Los Angeles - SOS Bumper is the first to set the trend for mobile waterborne paint repair. The word on the streets is all body shops and mobile bumper and paint techs will have to be compliant between 2009-2010.
SOS Bumper, which is actually a sub division of SOS Dent in Los Angeles, already purchased the Glasurit waterborne paint system.
David (Owner of SOS Bumper and Dent) says, “It’s been a real pain in the butt setting up the van because this is new territory for us.” He also mentions, “Most reps didn’t really know about the full reactions about the paint and the pros and con’s.” The pros, it lays on nicely and pretty much everything is the same. But.. the in between time for drying is not so great. For most body shops, it’s not such a big deal. The difference with waterborne and oil base paint is the dry time and the methods. Oil base uses lights, heat and UV lights to cure the paint. Waterborne uses forced air.
The problem with forced air is it might blow dust onto the fresh paint and trap debris if not in a controlled environment. “It’ll be a little challenging but we are eager to see how its going to be”, says David.
Waterborne paint seems to be the future. As a mobile auto reconditioning owner myself, in my opinion, I believe the auto paint industry will have later updates with new technology just for these reasons. Besides, they have a soon to be huge mobile market to cater to!
Do you have something to say? Please join our blog and give us your thoughts.
Ξ October 13th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Uncategorized |
Los Angeles - SOS Bumper is the first to set the trend for mobile waterborne paint repair. The word on the streets is all body shops and mobile bumper and paint techs will have to be compliant between 2009-2010.
SOS Bumper, which is actually a sub division of SOS Dent in Los Angeles, already purchased the Glasurit waterborne paint system.
David (Owner of SOS Bumper and Dent) says, “It’s been a real pain in the butt setting up the van because this is new territory for us.” He also mentions, “Most reps didn’t really know about the full reactions about the paint and the pros and con’s.” The pros, it lays on nicely and pretty much everything is the same. But.. the in between time for drying is not so great. For most body shops, it’s not such a big deal. The difference with waterborne and oil base paint is the dry time and the methods. Oil base uses lights, heat and UV lights to cure the paint. Waterborne uses forced air.
The problem with forced air is it might blow dust onto the fresh paint and trap debris if not in a controlled environment. “It’ll be a little challenging but we are eager to see how its going to be”, says David.
Waterborne paint seems to be the future. As a mobile auto reconditioning owner myself, in my opinion, I believe the auto paint industry will have later updates with new technology just for these reasons. Besides, they have a soon to be huge mobile market to cater to!
Do you have something to say? Please join our blog and give us your thoughts.
Attention All Auto Reconditioning Companies! Paintless Dent Repair/Removal(PDR) - Plastic Bumper Repair- Wheel/Rim Repair
If you happen to be in the auto reconditioning business, you probably have been through the ringer with advertisement costs and let downs. We all know in the past, phone books worked but there was a hefty price to pay. Some cases, you might have barely broke even or just simply didn’t come out on top. As the years went, the web grew stronger and the phone books became less and less effective but still had the same price tag! Same goes for direct marketing. This type of advertising is more like gambling. Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose. In most cases if your charge ticket average is not high enough, you usually break even, barely make a profit or none at all. There were other ways to advertise your auto recon services but how long did it last? Did the advertisers you pay really care if you were making money?
Well, we decided to change things up. After years of advertising and getting no loyalty or breaks from advertisers, we knew we could give a BANG 4 YOUR BUCK! Auto reconditioning is still very new to the public and is just scratching the surface. We at ReconExpress.com took a deep look on the web and understood many auto reconditioning companies and individual technicians needed something built for them. We concentrated on promoting auto recon services such as paintless dent removal, plastic bumper repair, mobile auto body & paint, wheel/rim repair and so forth.
Our goal is to promote your company like one of our own. We sign up only ONE EXPERIENCED auto reconditioning company for one major city. If available, that one company can purchase multiple services in that area. That’s not it. We design custom marketing ads that you can use for your own web campaigns, such as a Craigslist ad and other online advertising (See Craiglist ad). Our services can even help you develop a stronger and much bigger identity in the auto reconditioning market. We even have a team of video specialist who can create a custom video for your website, youtube or anything else you see fit.
We at ReconExpress.com invite you to come visit what we have to offer. We also invite you to please ask questions or comment about this really unique opportunity for online auto recon advertising.
