Domenic Ismaele, CEO/Managing Partner
Making tire storage more efficient
Domenic Ismaele, CEO/Managing Partner
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The need to offer tire storage has grown within the auto industry as the use of winter tires by consumers continues to increase, according to Domenic Ismaele, CEO and Managing Partner, Tire Storage Solutions.
“We’ve noticed that dealers are interested in growing their tire storage business. This is our seventh year coming to NADA and this is the highest volume (of traffic) that we’ve had,” said Ismaele. “I’ve never really seen Americans get as involved with tire storage as they are now. Dealers are really looking at customer retention, and they seem to be grasping the importance that tire storage plays in that.”
The Ontario-based company offers a digital software that makes the job of storing tires faster and more efficient. For example: if a dealer has 5,000 tire sets to store and they are doing it manually, Ismaele said his company could save them 70 per cent of their manual labour time.
“When someone pays a monthly fee for software they know how much they’re paying. But when two or three employees are running around for a whole day, and they’re not being able to find the wheels — no one really measures that,” said Ismaele. “There’s no KPI as an industry standard to measure that, so they don’t know how much they’re losing and how much wasted time there is.”
The company, he said, can save dealers “thousands of dollars” with their software — and this doesn’t yet factor in the reporting features of the product. But there are other reasons to consider both tire storage and the software that ensures the job is more manageable: dealers need to consider the issue of lost servicing opportunities and income around electric vehicles.
Electric motors don’t need to be serviced, said Ismael. They don’t need cooling system flushes and they don’t need transmission services. But drivers will still need to get the vehicle’s brakes checked and the tires changed — and for the latter, offering tire storage is an opportunity to ensure the driver returns. This means services (and service reminders) can be offered during that time — for both EVs and non-EVs.
“How are you going to get people to come back twice a year and grow your different services?” said Ismaele. “You’ll want to structure it around every six months so they come in and swap the wheels, and you get the service done to the car depending on the vehicle. This is a very important part of why we believe that this (tire storage) is necessary.”
Ismaele said a lot of European dealers are storing tires too: Germany, Switzerland and Hungary — “they’re all doing the same kind of business.” For many of these countries, the law ensures the vehicles are equipped with winter tires.
“For instance, in Germany there are 90 million residents,” Ismaele. Let’s say half of them, 45 million vehicles, need to have winter wheels equipped. They have to be stored somewhere. That’s a business in itself. In North America this might happen as well.”
Business has been growing for Tire Storage Solutions, and will soon be celebrating its 10th anniversary. Ismaele said they have lot of new ideas and future aspirations for the business, although details are yet to be revealed.
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