As an automotive parts counterperson, I wear many different hats during a normal business day. The job may require me to do anything from check in and put away stock, to inventory counts, to the occasional delivery trip to a customer’s shop. All this activity revolves around one central duty: making sales. You can have the best-run store in the world, but if nobody buys anything, it’s all for nothing.
That said, take a look around and ask yourself, “What’s the hardest thing in the store to sell?” It’s nothing you can number or even lay your hands on. Sales experts claim that you have to sell yourself to the customer before they will buy parts from you, and that’s very true. Someone who has no trust in you will be reluctant to buy anything from you on a regular basis, but I still don’t think that’s the hardest sell there is. The toughest sale I’ve run across so far is an excuse.
I’m not talking about everyday misunderstandings or miscommunications. I make more than my share of those and am willing to admit to them and do what is necessary to make things right. I’m talking about the “I don’t have it because…” excuse. Repeat customers are the heart of a wholesaler’s business. A customer who gives you all their chassis or exhaust business, for example, trusts you to always have what they need in stock. Breaking that trust on occasion is bound to happen, but when it becomes a regular habit, something has gone very wrong. In the last eight months or so, I’ve seen serious back-order problems with several major product lines that we carry, and the problems seem to go all the way back to the manufacturers. We have experienced order fill rates as low as 40 percent on some lines, including hydraulic fittings, chassis parts and lighting components and accessories.
I’ve heard many reasons for the shortages, but the end result is an empty shelf and a customer who has to shop elsewhere for what they feel you should have. In addition to the sale that you didn’t make, there is always the risk that when the shelves are restocked, your customer may have found somebody else to place their trust in. I once had a customer who gave me 100 percent of his brake business, but I could not sell him a water pump to save my life. This went back to the days when his father opened the garage and for whatever reason (I was told it was due to war rationing in the ’40s) the only people able to supply him with any pumps or pump rebuild parts was one of our competitors. That’s a pretty extreme case, but it goes to show that the average customer won’t change their buying habits unless you give them a good reason. Every time I have to make an excuse for why I don’t have a part when the customer wants it, or send them elsewhere to find it, I feel like I’m giving them that good reason. Fighting the sales competition today is tough enough; you shouldn’t have to fight your suppliers, too.
I admit to not being 100 percent objective on this. It’s hard to be when you’re the one on the front line looking the customer in the eye while saying, “I don’t have it.” I could try and blame all these shortages on economic globalization and manufacturer consolidations, but I’m just a parts salesman and I don’t have an MBA.
I do know, however, when a factory rep tells me the reason I don’t have an oil filter on my shelf is because the factory has plenty, but it can’t ship them due to a shortage of boxes is an excuse I find pretty hard to buy.
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