Let’s face it, there’s never a recycler that always has what you need. Did you know that even very successful recyclers only have the parts customers call for 30% or 40% of the time? This is called the “in-stock” request level and our computer systems track it.
Consultants in the used parts industry consider it a worthy achievement if a yard can hit a 50% in-stock level. This means that even when they do a great job monitoring a large number of salvage auctions they still end up having what their customers call for only about half the time! Why is this? Well, consider a dealership’s parts department for comparison. To keep their in-stock level up they have to stock parts for all of the models from one manufacturer and go back probably 8 to 10 years.
Compare that to a used parts supplier. To keep our in-stock level high we have to stock parts for every model from ALL manufacturers for 10 to 20 years! And to top it off, it’s even more difficult for us because used parts suppliers can’t just order the parts we need; we have to find whole vehicles to buy. That’s why salvage acquisition is what really sets a recycler apart.
Those recyclers that can fine tune their buying to keep the high demand parts in stock are the ones you want to do business with.
We have 6 buyers who constantly monitor auctions in 9 states to obtain the salvage that satisfies the parts needs of our customers. Our computer system collects our demand data and our buyers use it to bid on the vehicles that have the most parts, which will fill our customer’s requests. Our quarterly in-stock level exceeds 58% so when we say we’ve got the inventory you’re looking for, we really do.
