Proceeding with caution

Truck tire dealers see improvement, but gross profit, supply remain big concerns

By: Mike Manges

Help wanted -- Dealer laments lack of applicants

Dennis Dickson, president of Indy Tire Centers in Indianapolis, Ind., says one of his biggest challenges during the second half of the year will be finding not only qualified employees, but people who want to work, period.

“It’s amazing the lack of people pounding the pavement looking for physical labor. At one of our truck tire centers, we’re down two good truck tire service people and probably one general service guy.”

Dickson says he will continue to use the Internet to recruit employees. “We’re using CareerBuilder.com, Craigslist.org and other methods. If we can find someone else to advertise with, we’ll probably do it, too. We pretty much stay away from the old print newspaper model” due to declining daily readership.

Vital stats --  A commercial tire dealer profile

The average commercial tire dealer handles 6.5 different brands of truck tires, according to recent Modern Tire Dealer research. Here’s some more revealing information. Respondents to MTD’s 2010 Truck Tire Survey said they:

• have a median number of two locations.

• sell an average number of 233 truck tires per location, per month.

In addition, 18% of respondents to the survey said they plan to add or drop a truck tire line or lines in 2010.

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Related Topics: Commercial Tire Dealer, Truck tires

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