Customer service is cardinal rule in the St. Louis market
High-performance parts rev-up consumer interest to the delight of machine shop specialists.
BY JAMES E. GUYETTE,
Contributing Editor
Offering enhanced customer service is one of the cardinal rules of doing business within the St. Louis aftermarket. The Gateway To The West also sees revved-up sales of high-performance parts.
It's not unusual to see counter people out in the parking lot assisting and encouraging do-it-yourselfers as they ponder a particularly pesky repair. "We do give a lot of service and we go out and help the customers," reports Karri Busby, parts sales manager at the AutoZone store in Florissant, MO. "We'll do minor things like headlights and air filters, and we've also done things like batteries," she notes.
The St. Louis aftermarket compares favorably with other cities of its size, according to Al Greenblatt, who oversees operations at the two Russ Nixon Auto Parts outlets in town. "It's as healthy as some of them are," he observes, joking that a main goal involves figuring out "how to squeeze the competition out of business."
Actually, there seems to be little interest in bashing competitors when aftermarket executives discuss this marketplace. Even though discounters abound, it appears that the various niches have been firmly established over time within this historic community.
St. Louis is the nation's No. 2 city when it comes to automobile manufacturing, with production and support operations for Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. Among the inhabitants, Ford rules with a 17 percent market share of 1996 new car sales (15,736 units sold). Chevy is in second place with 15 percent followed by Pontiac, Dodge, Honda and Toyota. Ford trucks are really rolling with a 32 percent market share, with Chevy grabbing 19 percent of the new truck sales in 1996. Dodge is No. 3.
Aerospace operations are big business, along with the subcontractors that serve them. Other leading industries here include health care, high-tech manufacturing, advertising, banking, construction and beer...and more beer. Anheuser-Busch is headquartered here, along with 30 other top U.S. firms such as Monsanto, Trans World Airlines, Ralston Purina, Emerson Electric and Enterprise Rent-a-Car. More than 20 Fortune 1000 companies are located here.
Many entrepreneurial operations flourish in the St. Louis area. For the last three years it has ranked in Entrepreneur magazine's top 10 as one of the best places for small businesses. Inc. magazine ranks St. Louis in the Top 10 for growing firms, and African-Americans are finding that St. Louis is among the top 6 cities as a new-business Mecca, according to Black Enterprise magazine.
More than 2.5 million people live in the greater St. Louis region, which includes 12 counties in Missouri and Illinois, making it the 17th largest metropolitan area in the U.S.
Meet me in St. Louie, Louie
Located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, St. Louis began as a planned community to serve the French fur trade in the New World. In December of 1763, Pierre Laclede and his deputy, Auguste Chouteau, traders from New Orleans, directed a work party to notch a grove of trees to mark the site on a high bluff overlooking the river. The group returned in the spring of 1764, and St. Louis, named for the French King Louis IX, was born.
When Lewis and Clark headed west from St. Louis in 1803 to explore President Thomas Jefferson's newly purchased Louisiana Territory, the town became known as the "Gateway to the West." Pioneers, trappers and explorers all passed through here on their way to seek land, fortune and adventure. The magnificent Gateway Arch, which is 630 feet tall, stands as a reminder of this history. Many cultures and ethnic backgrounds are represented in St. Louis, and it ranks as the second-largest U.S. inland port and the third largest railroad center.
During the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the ice cream cone, ice tea, hot dogs and hamburgers were first popularized among Americans. Wealthy St. Louis investors financed Charles Lindbergh's historic 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
Meet me at the fair
Within the past decade, the community has undergone intense expansion and development. St. Louis' multi-billion dollar revitalization includes the opening of an expanded convention center, construction of new sports facilities, the advent of a riverboat gambling industry, the construction of new luxury hotels and large shopping centers, plus the continued development of new tourist attractions. Italian, German, Asian and other ethnic eateries abound, and there are many museums and other artistic offerings within the historic neighborhoods.
St. Louis is a large sports center, with professional teams in football, baseball and hockey, plus college sporting events and other activities such as boxing, skiing, soccer and auto racing. All this bodes well for the aftermarket.
"Our customers are very often the same people who are sports fans," reports AutoZone executive Eric Hepperson. Promotional campaigns for the 34 St. Louis-area outlets connect with the St. Louis Blues hockey team and baseball's St. Louis Cardinals. "It's a pretty obvious reach when you can advertise with the hometown teams," he says.
The huge Schnuck's chain of 24-hour supermarkets is one of the largest enterprises in town, and the cash register tapes now carry ads for Tony's in Hazelwood, which specializes in do-it-for-me repairs of "all foreign, American and exotic cars," says supervisor Ed Marquart. There are nine bays manned by six techs, some of whom are European-trained. The register-tape advertising campaign is too new to show reportable results, but Marquart says the current word-of-mouth reputation keeps them busy serving all segments of the population. "We get all kinds, from the very poorest to the very richest," he points out.
"We get people referring customers to us all the time," Marquart explains. Other repair operations are particularly prone to passing along difficult cases. "If they get something they can't figure out they send them over here," he notes. "They will take the gravy work," Marquart muses, "but if something is really wrong they say, 'Take it to Tony's.'"
The Wise Distributing Co., which has the Wise Speed Shop in the downtown area of St. Louis, revs-up interest by investing in television advertising and placing numerous ads in local newspapers and specialty auto publications. Direct mail solicitations have proven to be especially effective, according to Roger Gibbons, sales manager. "You're hitting a customer who has already been in the store," says Gibbons, adding that the operation has staying power - it's been in business for 37 years: "That has a lot to do with it."
Competition - the type not found on the race track - has put the brakes on a number of St. Louis speed shops, says Gibbons, leaving them in the dust as Wise survives. "It has stood through the times when a lot of them didn't," he explains.
The Bigfoot boogie
Drag racing tends to be more popular than circle track among St. Louis high-performance fans, according to Gibbons, although he laments that "the old drag racing business is down because of everything that's taken place." He's referring to the growth of national mail-order operations, which have been mounting aggressive ad campaigns. "The big guys try to overrun you; they want it all," says Gibbons. He notes that the Wise machine shop in back of the store still does a brisk business in beefing-up engines and kicking-in added horsepower.
Horsepower galore is galloping along in the northern part of town, home of the Bigfoot truck enterprise. The shop along Lindbergh Avenue tends to be noticed from a distance, as the jumbo-sized truck tires can be seen, it seems, from miles around, especially on the neighboring freeways whizzing by. According to executive Joel Parks, "During the summertime we try to make ourselves a tourist stop. Our June, July and August business is through the roof. During the Christmas months we do a huge mail order business."
Wearables and collectibles are hot, and sales within these categories are definitely "kid-driven," Parks points out. Adults are digging the other types of merchandise.
"For every truck or sports utility vehicle sold in the United States, a person will spend $300 to $400 to accessorize it," Parks declares. "To us an SUV is the same as a truck, and since we consider an SUV as part of the truck market, it just came along with the light truck package," he recalls. "We've evolved from a speed shop to a truck accessory store. At one time this was very much a California-style speed shop," says Parks. "We've pitched-out what didn't work," he reveals. "We figured out that the speed shop market was a declining market. You sure can't compete with mail order any more, and there's so little you can do to a new car now: If you buy a new Taurus, what can you do to it? Nothing!"
Enter Bigfoot. St. Louis residents Bob and Marilyn Chandler came up with the original Monster Truck concept, although there are other pretenders out there sporting big-wheeled vehicles. "Richard Petty didn't invent stock car racing. Don Gartlis didn't invent drag racing, but Bob Chandler invented the Monster Truck. Inventing it is one thing, but keeping other people from building them is another," Parks muses.
Licensing is a big part of the enterprise, and taking the trucks on tour gets the word out. "We build and maintain all the Monster Trucks out of here. We do 750 to 800 event-days (a year) with our fleet of trucks and we travel all over the world. (An event day equals one truck, one location, one day.) It's not like a rock concert where there's just one group - there could be 10 or 12 trucks" at a Bigfoot bash, Parks explains.
Within the shop in St. Louis, that international fame adds up to increased sales as truck and SUV owners seek to put some, er, um, sole in their vehicles. "People are tired of that cookie cutter personality," according to Parks. "They want to say, 'Look at me, look at my truck.'"
The product mix is constantly changing to reflect varying tastes, says Parks. "It's broad-based," he explains. "People can buy a vehicle and add some of their personality, even if it's just a bug shield." Bug shields are indeed the hottest item, followed by bed protectors, grille guards, lights, shocks and splash guards.
"A lot of our market is female now," says Sue Cody, store manager. "A lot of women want their things to look pretty, and when couples come in the woman decides" what to buy, she reports. Like the other St. Louis aftermarket outlets, customer service is what moves the merchandise, Cody believes. "A lot of our repeat business is because we are honest and direct with people."
Quality continues
Reliability is the key strategy at Reliance Automotive Inc. "I plan to retire from here," says Craig Epstein, who operates the family enterprise with brother Gary Epstein. "We want to look you in the eye three years after the sale," Craig explains. "We want new customers, but we want the old ones back."
Gary points out that "everyone keeps saying price, price, price - but the name of the game is still service. We don't disappear into the woodwork after the sale."
Their grandfather, Louis Epstein, founded the business in 1945, and their father Edwin later inherited the firm, which strives for highly diversified niche markets within all facets of the transportation industry, including trains, planes and automobiles, plus the equipment used to pursue these endeavors. "We're in the transportation parts business," says Gary. "If it rolls we can sell parts for it."
Shop equipment along the lines of lifts, jacks and other tools are a big part of the merchandising mix, along with a hefty service center and retail parts outlets each located 60 miles from the headquarters building in the Central West End neighborhood. "We feel it's a plus," says Craig, "because they overlap and we have (wholesale) customers along each way."
The grand structure that houses the company headquarters is a local landmark. It was built as the Dave Castles Buick dealership in 1920, and Castles had long been associated with General Motors before landing the St. Louis franchise. At one previous location "there were two guys working in the parts shop - and the other guy's name was Chrysler. And he said, 'I'm quitting to build my own cars.'" And that he did.
Electrical and fuel system repairs are the thrust of the in-house vehicle service department, and it serves as a center for reviewing the parts that they sell. "It's your quality control check," says Gary. "It's like going into a restaurant that you own, you've got to eat what you serve. If we won't use it we won't sell it."
Gary and Craig both stress the importance of marketing a reliable line of products and services. This trend is one that is best-heeded by all the aftermarket operators within the Gateway to the West: "The best warranty is one you don't have to use."
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