Stocking a tiered range of batteries is common practice for factors, but some sales staff are tempted into selling the budget products first to guarantee a sale. Platinum International explains why margins will improve if you go against this impulse and offer premium batteries at the first point of contact.
Platinum International prides itself on providing a supportive ‘sell-through’ programme to the garages to help factors grow their sales volumes and sell the higher margin products. To start off with, there are some simple, yet effective tools and strategies you can implement in your business.
Mark Higson, Marketing and Communications Director for Platinum International, said: “By operating a three tier brand structure, you can be sure to say ‘yes’ to every sale, whether the customer wants a good, better or best product. Also, by coaching the first point of contact with your customers to ensure they offer the best product first, you will see sales migrate towards the premium tier. We have seen a fantastic example of this with Livingstone Auto Parts.”
Platinum carried out a training day with Livingstone Auto Parts which saw them shift the sales of budget products to a higher percentage mix of premium products. With a market average of budget sales around 20%, our Regional Business Manager identified that this was not correct and they were missing out on valuable margin.
The results
The company spoke to Tony Purves from Livingstone Auto Parts, “Around 12 months ago Platinum identified our budget battery sales were more than the market average of 20%. Having discussed this situation with us, Platinum held a full day training session with our staff, where they ran through a presentation they had prepared outlining the repercussions of selling budget batteries for the incorrect application.
“After the training day, we were pleased to see the sales of budget batteries had almost halved in only three months and have continued to decline ever since. Most importantly these have not been lost sales; they have transferred into sales on premium batteries which we make a far healthier margin from, making our battery programme a more profitable one.”
