Customer Profile:
Tom's Truck Center
John "Peewee" Price, Parts Director
Peewee Price, Parts Director of Tom's Truck Center, has more than half a million pieces in his inventory. Stored in three warehouses in Santa Ana, CA, this impressive supply includes parts for new cars, new trucks, and what Price believes to be the world's largest inventory of used truck parts.
Tom's Truck Center sells GM trucks, Isuzu, Mitsubishi, UD, Hino, CAT, Allison, KIA and Suzuki, and sells parts nationwide. Price oversees 50 employees in his Parts Department. They became a customer of DealerMine last summer.
Having such a diverse business has helped the company survive and even grow in the current economic downturn.
"During the boom years," explains Price, "trucks and truck parts were selling so well, we could barely keep up with demand." When the housing market crashed, that part of the business cooled rapidly. But economy car sales began to grow and along with the car parts side of the business took up the slack.
Price believes that they've seen the bottom of the slump and has been planning their inventory accordingly.
"Truck parts sales aren't back to what they were," he says, "but we're buying inventory now so that we can be in position when the economy picks up again. It's great for us when I can get those parts at fifty cents on the dollar through DealerMine."
Price first began using DealerMine to sell his excess inventory. Even though his company sells directly to consumers and has a nationwide presence, there are always dealers who have a similar market that Tom's Truck Center is not reaching.
"If I can sell our slow movers, even at half price, and replace them with stock we know is going to sell--we're way ahead."
Tom's Truck Center is building a new warehouse capable of holding all half million pieces of inventory. While it will give the company more room, Price says he will always have to keep tight control on inventory.
"No matter how big your warehouse, shelf space will eventually be an issue. So I'm very happy with the way DealerMine helps us sell our excess."
And even better, says Price, they dial directly into his system and take care of it automatically.
"If I had to stop what I'm doing and take care of it, it wouldn't get done. The only regret I have with DealerMine is that I didn't start using them sooner."