Good-better-best never changes

By: Bob Ulrich

John F. Kennedy was president of the United States. The National Tire Dealers and Retreaders Association was preparing for its 40th annual convention. I turned three years old.

Welcome to June 1960, when Fisk was still a well-known brand, and the radial tire was an alien concept, at least to tire dealers. The controversy at the time, however, sounds eerily familiar.

In a feature story titled, “Third line tire issue gets hotter,” Modern Tire Dealer objectively looked at what independent dealers perceived as a threat to their livelihood. According to the article, the third tier tire controversy began “when department stores, discount houses and other mass marketers specializing in low price tires got into the tire business in a big way several years ago.”

With the help of newspaper advertising, new competitors were attracting customers with attractive pricing, as low as $9.98 a tire.

“With sustained advertising and smart merchandising, they pull in many a tire customer who normally would have purchased his tire at an independent dealership or other traditional tire outlet,” said the article.

Any time tire manufacturers decide to sell through another distribution channel, dealers get nervous and combative. However, this issue was not as much about the interlopers as it was about third-tier tires.

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Related Topics: Bob Ulrich, Editorial

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