As a business owner, you’re probably starting to plan budgets and prepare for opportunities in the new year. Are you setting KPIs? Do you want to make more money on your tire service?

Well, you’re in luck. In this video, Tire Review’s Danielle Hess reviews ways you can make more money at your shop in 2022, from the Tire Review Continental Tire Garage Studio at Babcox Media.

First, you can do a little front-end work and collect data on your customers. You can then use that data to create marketing campaigns that cater to your customers’ needs, which, in turn, translates to dollars. You can collect this data by asking for a customer’s information about their vehicle at the point of sale.

Next, you’ll want to manage your shop’s inventory in the best way possible. With the number of SKUs increasing each year, having a solid strategy for inventory management is key to maximizing your profitability from tire sales.

Figuring out which tire to sell and stock can be complex, and you need to consider things such as front-end margin, back-end margin, promotions and consumer preference. You might want to establish minimum and maximum stocking limits and stock the most popular sizes in your local market. You can also integrate your shop’s POS systems with replenishment systems to follow your stocking strategy while also seeing the long list of SKUs provided by your distributor.

Another way to help your shop profit more is by honing in on alignments. Having more resources to interface with the customer and be a resource to them is always a good thing, and an investment in touchless alignment can give your shop that opportunity.

Here’s how that works: When a customer comes in for an oil change, a shop staff member writes up a work order. Before working on the vehicle, they run it through tire inspection technology that uses lasers and sensors to measure total toe and camber as well as take a photo of the license plate. This all happens in three to five seconds and is displayed on a screen for the customer to see. If a customer’s results show up in red, that’s an indication that your shop should put the vehicle on an aligner.

You can then go over what showed up during the quick check with your customer. Look at it as kind of a soft-sale education for the customer. Running all vehicles through this system increases your chances of selling and takes the guesswork out of whether the customer’s vehicle needs an alignment.