HOLDING STOCK
Page 46
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Dealers who want to compete effectively in the parts market have to make a substantial commitment to holding stock. Ford & Slater holds a whopping £3.6m worth of parts group-wide.
“We carry about £200,000 worth of parts in Peterborough, plus a further £100,000 in Norwich,” Affleck says. “We’re in the process of putting in another £120,000 worth of primarily MAN parts on top of that because there are more and more MANs running around in our area.
“What that means is that we’re now keeping three or four examples of certain MAN items rather than two,” he continues. His involvement with Isuzu is a fairly recent one, and that too has led to more spares going onto the shelves.
Such investment means that he can score on availability, especially so far as slow-moving items that factors may not always stock are concerned. “On average, we’re achieving a 91% first-pick rate,” he observes. Meanwhile, Crick says: “We’re achieving over 90%.” Affleck adds that careful attention to stock management is vital. “If we don’t sell certain products at least three times a year, then we cease to carry them,” he says. “At one time we were big distributors of ERF parts, but over the past three years we’ve scaled down our stock-holding and de-stocked many parts for older models.”