Just curious, thinking it can't be much and trying to figure out if the Amazon tire announcement means much of anything.
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Not much. The one attached to our store
will probably close because the idiots working there are always screwing something up and are always causing Auto Center customers to come into the store side yelling for the store manager, who has nothing to do with Auto Center since it is separate.
Their latest screwup was taking apart an engine on a newer Mercedes. I think it was an oil change gone wrong or something like that. Apparently they didn't know what they were doing and didn't know how to put it back together, so it had to be towed to a more competent shop. The guy who had the Mercedes was fuming and I can't blame him. There was an trail of oil out of the parking lot of the bay the car was in and the dealership tow truck driver gathered up a box full of parts they took off the engine and couldn't put back on. I know German cars are a bit complicated, but if it was an oil change they were doing, it's pretty straightforward. My 10 year old grandson could have done the job for chrissakes!
They don't get any training because it's a revolving door. Every month 1/2 the crew will leave, so the Auto center district manager rushes new hires in. They'll end up leaving and the cycle repeats. Same goes for the auto center manager, they come and go like a vagabond.
Lack of training isn't the only issue though. The Auto Center employees at our location aren't the best. They blast their music--our store manager actually had to tell them to turn it off on several occasions. They'll put their cars on the lifts when they don't have customers and work on their own cars on company time. They are always talking about smoking weed. It's legal in our state but against company policy.
@1ilk Sigh. From the other thread about this: https://www.thelayoff.com/t/T5Lag6D#1nvd
Nobody has to load tires in their car for this. Amazon will automatically offer an option to people who live near (I don't know how near) one of the remaining Sears Auto locations to have the tires shipped directly to Sears Auto, and people will prepay the installation fee (I don't know how much) through Amazon.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/09/sears-is-working-with-amazon-to-deliver-and-install-car-tires.html
who is going to put 4 dirty tires on their leather sears and drive to Sears for instillation? There is a reason they did not buy the tires at Sears in the first place.
Where are you going to find a Sears? Not all cities have one and people are not going to drive 50+ miles to find one.
This is a joke right, Get your tires in 2 days with amazon prime and then have to wait 2 weeks until your local sears can install them.
One big issue with many Auto Centers is that most are tied to a FLS, so that can tweak numbers a bit. It also means that some Auto Centers that are profitable still get closed because the FLS gets sold/closed. Sears doesn't have many real free standing Auto Centers. The IT considerations alone can prevent a SAC from existing without a FLS.
As for the Amazon deal, unless there is exclusivity (which I doubt) and everything was considered on the operations side (which I'm positive wasn't) you are going to have unhappy customers and warranty claims for tires you never sold in the first place.
The way I see it is that the only way that the Amazon deal will work out well for Sears is if its used to build trust and sell additional services, and typically those 2 things are contradictory, especially when there are quotas to meet. People will not like being asked if they want to open a credit card when they are just coming in for an install, or having someone tell them they need a trans flush, a coolant flush and an AC recharge when they just want to slap some new tires on their car.... let alone the fact that people will probably order the wrong tires in the first place.
Not enough unfortunately, were in the same boat, there’s not enough profit margin in it to do anything. It looks good on the news but in reality it won’t work.
It all depends on the store volume and staff volume. Some make money, others lose it.
My store will vary depending on the season. Usually after all the bills are paid (salaries, health care, power, supplies like oil and cleaners, etc.) we make between 10-30k profit a month. This is with 3 techs, a Lead Sales Associate and myself.