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Old April 1st 17, 04:34 PM posted to alt.home.repair,rec.autos.tech,ca.driving
Jonas Schneider
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Posts: 20
Default I used to buy tires from TireRack - now SimpleTire (how can they do it?)

On Sat, 1 Apr 2017 07:39:33 -0400, burfordTjustice
> wrote:

>> but we already
>> know TireRack has huge volume.

>
>
> what is your evidence?


That's a good question.
I'm not sure *why* you ask, since it's a decent assumption.
But if your point is that I have no idea what their volume is, you are
completely correct.

I simply *assumed* that all the big online tire retailers have 'huge'
volume.

Googling:
https://www.google.com/search?q=onli...+retail+volume

Here is a Tire Industry Monthly article titled "Online Tire Retailing"
https://www.automotive-iq.com/tires/...tire-retailing
- Europe is 25-million tires a year (of 250 million tires per year)
- Set to double by 2017 (the article was written in 2014)
- So we can assume 50 million tires a year (or so) in Europe
- Germany is 4.2-million online tires per year (in 2014).

The guy says the same logical things that I do, which is that most people
don't select the tire (he says 70% of the selection is done by the tire
dealer, and not by the consumer).

He also says most people are completely ignorant when it comes to buying
tires (and I agree with him). He also says nowadays, there is a wealth of
information about tires (I disagree with him, although there is a wealth of
information PRINTED ON THE SIDEWALL of the tires).

Closer to home, here is a north american fact sheet for sales of tires:
http://www.moderntiredealer.com/uplo...issue-2015.pdf

From 2010 to 2014 it seems the USA replacement (aka not OE) tire numbers
are about 200 million per year.

On page 52 of that document, we find the average profit margin on passenger
car replacement tires to be around 25%, which, interestingly, isn't in the
range of a typical commodity (which would be lower in most cases).

Page 54 sys there are 30K independent tire dealers in the US, and finally,
on the penultimate page, we get the percentage of retail-market sha
- 60% of tires sold in the USA go to the 30K independent tire dealers
- 13% are sold by "mass merchandisers" <== I presume Tire Rack is in here
- 9% are sold by "warehouse clubs"
- 8% by auto dealerships
- 7% by tire-company owned stores
- 2% by "miscellaneous outfits"

While 13% of 200-million tires is about 26-million tires that are sold,
presumably, online, that doesn't tell me what Tire Rack sells by way of
volume.

Digging further, I find this:
http://www.tirereview.com/an-inside-...effort-part-i/
An Inside Look at Goodyear?s Direct Online Sales Effort

Which says that Goodyear only recently learned that "consumers expect to be
able to buy tires online". Sheesh. I've been buying online ever since
online existed, so I guess consumers are behind the curve on this method of
buying tires.

There are some good industry reports here, but I didn't pay for them:
http://valuationresources.com/Report...ireDealers.htm

Looking at what Tire Rack publishes as figures:
https://www.tirerack.com/content/tir...ytirerack.html

Edmunds isn't much help on the volume either:
https://www.edmunds.com/car-care/onl...re-buying.html

So all I can tell you, after that quick research, is that in Europe and in
the USA, combined, that's 50 million online tires sold per year.

Of that 50 million, Tire Rack has an unknown percentage.
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