Why do parts stores deliver for free to shops?

[ford46guy]

Originally Posted by Kira
Having the name and trademark of the supplier or store on the delivery vehicle shouldn't be overlooked.

Good point. Many Cell phone stores aren't big moneymakers, and are expensive with rent, but they are really massive advertising billboards. Advertising cost money too, and the store always has a warm body to talk to.

 

[Andrew1972]

It's part of service and likely built into selling price of part to establishment. Typically shop establishes relationships and parts from $5 to couple thousand delivered all over.

A mechanic cannot afford to run out and get parts as they are billable by hour and time way more valuable.

 

[HonorAndHonesty]

I worked at a shop that was a Napa auto care center. That Napa had several trucks running all day, they would also come pick up parts to be machined. Usually parts would arrive within 30 minutes.

This was a very busy napa so they were always running.

They provide the service for "free" with a built in cost of course. Time is money at the shop so if they can avoid running to get parts it's a huge savings to the shop. We also had a napa cabinet in the shop of most commonly used brake pads and parts, ect...

Now our shop also had our own parts runner. He would get parts, shuttle customers if needed ect.

Looking back it's hard to believe those were the good old days but it was a job I enjoyed alot.

 

[bdcardinal]

We have a dedicated parts delivery driver, I forget what he makes but it is around $15-16/hr to keep him over minimum wage. We also have an outside sales rep who will take deliveries that are needed while our regular driver is out. If he isn't there I or one of the other counter people will hop in a truck to deliver a part. Note that a lot of these shops spend thousands of dollars a month so it makes sense for us to do it.

 

[SeaJay]

Time is money. You bring a car in, and you want to have it back later that day, if not sooner. The indy garage does not have an infinite amount of space. Parts are needed to get the car fixed. And the garage wants the parts ASAP so they do the fix and get that car off of the lot and out on the street somewhere so the client can pick it up, and they can move on to getting the next car fixed.

The garage orders most of its parts from one shop. The price the garage pays allows for a nice markup to the parts distributer, enough to pay his driver, his employees and send his own kids to college maybe. He gets a lot of orders from that garage every day, all year long. The garage ain't getting those parts cheap, but they are getting them fast and delivered to his door. The customer gets their car back quickly, but pays for that privilege with an additional markup on the price the garage brought the part for, plus the labor charge.

Everybody is happy in this scenario because we have a customer willing to pay the necessary price to get his or her car fixed properly in a short amount of time with the garage owner who will make it right if the part fails soon after the repair.

Customers who want cheaper do it another way, first diagnosing the issue, determining which replacement parts are needed, finding a parts supplier, ordering it, making sure the proper tools needed for installation are available, installing it, and hopefully fixing the issue if they executed all of these steps correctly. If successful, they saved themselves quite a bit of money.

And no, I am not a garage owner. I am one of his clients who drops my car off in the morning, and happy to pay him the money needed to get my car back that same day all fixed and working properly.