How RS Automotive Core is securing motor factors

RS Automotive Core Managing Director, Alastair Whatmore, has revealed that the core dealer is continuing to secure more motor factors. From buying groups, nationals and independents, it would appear momentum is building, evidenced with a testimonial from CR Marks.

Alastair said: “We are delighted at the growing number of motor factors who are seizing the opportunity to make RS a new customer. We are pleased to be a new customer to factors right across the market.”

Alastair believes distributors of varying sizes are seeing the commercial benefits of selling a new product, applying a “modest green surcharge”, having the unit returned and enjoying a further margin with a sale to RS Automotive Core.

Alternatively, where a factor wants to steer away from traditional surcharges, RS Automotive Core has observed some factors offer a ‘green credit’ for all returned cores; in fact, this latter method is being used by some as a sales tool. The company will offer factors a flat price per product group; therefore, they should have the confidence in offering some of this figure as an incentive to their workshop customers to return the old unit.

As detailed in a previous issue of Professional Motor Factor, the company’s priority is not all about the financial gains but very much with an eye on “protecting the environment and supply chains through recycling and sustainability.”

Alastair continued: “By being part of a more environmentally friendly way of working, we are supporting and promoting the remanufacturing process. When a motor factor returns cores, it creates a reliable and consistent supply for remanufacturers.

“As a result of this, it lessens the reliance on supply from Far Eastern sources. Already we are seeing remanufactured product being supplied with no surcharge to the factor network. This means no ‘core bank’ for the factor but additional margin on the sale in selling the returned cores to RS.”

Alastair, former co-owner of Autostores Motor Factors, believes that there is a significant opportunity to create a “truly circular economy”, one that will benefit everyone financially and contribute “enormously” to a more environmentally friendly route of supply.

He concluded: “In my old life as a factor owner, what RS has to offer would have offered me a significant commercial opportunity to enhance margins and participate in a drive for more stable and sustainable future supply.”

So, what is the verdict?

CR Marks, a multi-branch motor factor in Oxfordshire, has been working with RS Automotive Core over the past year and hasn’t looked back since! A company spokesperson said:

“At the beginning of 2023, we decided to work with RS Automotive Core in a core buyback programme.

“The process was so simple: we put a modest ‘green surcharge’ on rotating electrics and calipers to see if our garage customers would return them, and, in turn, we sold them to RS Automotive Core, which essentially became a new customer to CR Marks.

“We marketed this as very much part of a ‘green’ initiative. We were shocked to realise just how many cores were previously ending up as scrap.

“We have been extremely pleased with how the programme has worked, and it has resulted in some significant net profit returns for our business. We were previously selling these products to the workshop and that was that. Now we are enjoying increased margins on these products, as we get the additional revenue from the returned cores that we sell to RS.

“Once we have filled pallets with cores, we simply notify RS Automotive Core, and the team collect them at no cost to us at all. In short, we are achieving another sale from these products, resulting in pure net profit not previously enjoyed. There is no additional cost or effort to us in the process at all.

“Because we are promoting this as an environmentally positive initiative, the garage network has embraced it, and there has been no negative impact on sales whatsoever!

“In our business, we would have had to gain several very significant new workshop customers to achieve the enhanced margins we now enjoy. We were able to do this overnight by embracing the simple concept of levying a modest green surcharge to get the units back and selling on to RS – I couldn’t recommend working with RS enough!”