[mgibb112]

Great read. I’m new to this site and this the first topic I linked on to. It’s quite obvious that there are  smart owners here that really take time to solve real life issues facing us owners today. I appreciate you.Here’s my thought.  We can not let Amazon, customers, or any parts distributors dictate if we are going to be profitable..bottom line. If customers want to supply parts, then clear policies need to be put in place that spell out the risks and hopefully deter consumers from doing so. If they still want to proceed, that can not mean we then lose our overall profit margin to keep them happy. Losing profitability will cost you your business.

Our profit centers are parts, labor, and shop supplies….no matter how you cut it up. There has to be a healthy balance. Lose one, and the others have to make it up….somehow, some way. If your parts margins heavily decrease, then your labor margins need to heavily increase.  The one advantage that we have today is our skill sets. If  Amazon could figure out a way to undercut or disrupt that too,  we all may be working someday in a new Amazon Auto Service Center , 7 days a week to make their margin.  The only way to combat this new and real challenge is to collectively make it unattractive to consumers with substantially higher labor rates and fully displaced liability (if possible), or find a new profit center. Good luck on the latter. I don’t think new car dealers are going to budge. It’s up to us to hold the line or risk changing how we do business in the future, which will ultimately lead to fully disclosed shop rates of $200+/hour labor rates. In addition, we will be dealing with partially disassembled cars on our lifts or in our parking lots waiting on replacement parts ( at a storage fee of course) , owners scrambling to find those replacement parts and alternative transportation, and more billable diagnostic time when cars still aren’t fixed. We won’t be writing checks to our local parts dealers, as Amazon will have put them out of business. I know I am rambling, but my point is this. As long as we hold margins, it doesn’t matter. We have a skill set that you can’t buy online and very expensive tools,software, shops, etc.. Most people are not going to invest the time and money that we have into  obtaining that side of our business, and corporate America has struggled trying to disrupt or control it.  We may just have to expose the real costs and listen to the new complaints. Welcome to Millenia!