“We’re on the cusp of some neat things that we are excited about,” says Andrew Hoit, Tireco Inc.’s vice president of sales and marketing. That includes the company's first minimum advertised price (MAP) policy and an associate dealer program - both of which will debut in 2022.
The MAP program - which is scheduled to roll out during the first quarter - “will go hand-in-hand to help position the launch of our dealer program,” says Hoit.
“With MAP, distributors can coexist with retailers.”
MAP also will help “small, mom and pop dealers to be competitive.”
The yet-unnamed dealer program will launch during the second quarter of 2022 and will be open to dealers who carry Tireco’s flagship Milestar brand.
Hoit calls the program “the next logical step for Milestar. We’re fully engaged in getting Milestar to where we think” it should be, while continuing “to differentiate with products, service levels and customer relationships.
“Milestar is the one brand that we own globally,” he explains. “It’s our brand. And the primary focus for that brand is North America. Because it’s fully ours and we control the destiny of it, we’re focusing on branding, customer engagement and bringing more value to the table.
“With Milestar, we’re really trying to develop into a tier-two (brand). I think today we’re in the tier-three space, but when you look at the new products we’ve developed - specifically the Weatherguard AS710 all-season, which is built in the United States - we stack up against anyone in the tier-two space.”
Hoit says dealers have responded well to the Weatherguard AS710, which Tireco unveiled in April 2021.
Its domestic sourcing has been a big selling point, he adds. “That’s a huge advantage right now because of all the port and freight problems.
“The other thing we have going for us is that our brands are not sold” through any national distributor.
“They’re not in American Tire Distributors Inc. They’re not in TireHub. And with Goodyear’s acquisition of Cooper, there are a lot of Cooper distributors - longtime Cooper distributors - who are now concerned about what the future will hold. All of those things make the idea of an emerging tier-two brand like Milestar more interesting.”
Tireco also will continue to build out its product lineup, according to Hoit.
The company recently launched two new products in its Patagonia line: the M/T 02 and the A/T Pro. Both target the rapidly growing light truck market.
“We’ve already seen a lot of success with our Patagonia M/T. It has really resonated in the enthusiast market - the Jeep owners and off-road enthusiasts. We’re putting big emphasis on our Patagonia line because of its success in the light truck segment.”
And the company plans to expand its passenger tire line in late-2022/early-2023 with the introduction of the Interceptor, a new ultra-high performance product.
