Charlotte, NC Tire Executive Starts Bad Boy Tires.com and Buys Carolina Tire

PRLog (Press Release) - Nov 13, 2008 -
At first glance, it might seem like a Jekyll-and-Hyde operation—BadBoyTires.com for Internet savvy sports car and off-roading enthusiasts meets Carolina Tire & Service Center, a prospective upscale brick-and-mortar tire store for gourmet coffee drinking clientele.

Jim Seidel, a 19-year veteran of the tire industry, has big plans to grow both businesses out of the tire dealership he purchased recently in Pineville, NC. in South Charlotte.

Mr. Seidel, who once worked for Indian Land, SC Continental Tire North America Inc., launched Bad Boy Tires.com earlier this year to sell performance passenger and light truck tires over the Internet. The name stems from the slang expression of admiration—“Look at that bad boy!”

To avoid the competitive fray of Internet tire retailers, Mr. Seidel, as CEO and president, said he is focusing on a niche market—consumers of performance, high-performance, truck and extreme light truck tires. His passenger tire lines range from 16- to 18-inch diameter sizes. He is also focusing on off-roading enthusiasts.

He originally chose the Internet route in lieu of a brick-and-mortar business so he could reach a national audience from his home base in Indian Land. In early October 2008, though, he decided to buy Carolina Tire—the dealership with which he previously had forged a partnership to provide mounting and balancing to local Internet customers.

Mr. Seidel and his wife Deb purchased Carolina Tire in Carolina, NC from Arun Saluja, who owns two other tire stores in Virginia and North Carolina. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“It was the growth of Bad BoyTires.com that fueled this acquisition,” Mr. Seidel said, “and together we will grow the retail and the Web-based businesses.”

The 7,700-sq.-ft., 12-bay facility will serve as a home base for Bad BoyTires.com, but the two businesses will operate separately, Mr. Seidel said. “The customers won’t know Bad Boy Tires is there. We feel the online buyer is an online buyer. There is some crossover with people who want to see a face.”

The store has four employees and will be run by the Seidels. It will provide mechanical services offered under the previous ownership, such as brakes, exhaust, alignments and North Carolina state vehicle inspections. However, Mr. Seidel wants the store to focus more on tire sales, particularly OE replacement brands.

He also plans to convert the business into a more upscale atmosphere for customers by redesigning the showroom, installing leather oversized chairs and providing free WIFI, gourmet coffee, upscale magazines, cable channels CNN or Food Network on the TV and a new children’s play area. Tire stacks will be moved out of the waiting area and replaced with a trophy case for displaying tires. “We want to be the Starbucks of tire stores,” Mr. Seidel said, aiming to attract the affluent South Charlotte and the Northern South Carolina Panhandle crowd. Already the size if their waiting room is 4 times as large as any other tire competitor in South Charlotte. Carolina Tire takes the idea of the small dirty tire store and smashes it. “We are raising and setting the bar for the new generation of tires stores” added Seidel.

The cost for the amenities will be minimal in the long run, he said. “at the price of today’s tires and wheels, customers should have the comfort level to go with it.” He said he will try to emulate a Mercedes car dealership across the street that has the reputation as “the Garden of Eden of car stores.”

In the short term Mr. Seidel intends to retain the name, but his long-term goal is to have 10 stores in 10 years, then “very soon we’ll have to change the name.”

His purchase of Carolina Tire came on the heels of a promotion he started recently for Bad Boy Tires.com in which Charlotte-area customers could save on shipping costs by picking up their tire purchases at Pineville Tire, where they would be mounted on the car.
Mr. Seidel hopes to expand the partnership idea with tire dealerships in other markets. “We don’t want to take away from their businesses but we want to add to their businesses.”

He claimed eight out of 10 Internet consumers choose to have their tires installed at a dealership. “The Internet is a difficult and complex world,” he said, so not all dealers want to get into Internet sales. But they can benefit from them by capturing mounting and balancing business, and maybe ancillary services, from customers coming in to pick up their tires. “For dealers who are not online, they can do the service, and it opens them up to no-cost business,” he said.

Before the store purchase, Mr. Seidel was renting warehouse space and selling several brands of passenger, light truck, trailer and ATV tires, including Continental, Goodyear, Maxxis, Michelin, Nokian, Toyo and Falken. He has been focusing on developing the BadBoyTires.com business but the next step will be to ramp up online OTR tire sales on his www.OffTheRoadTires.com site.

So far “the business has taken off,” Mr. Seidel said of Bad Boy Tires.com. The business has already exceeded his business plan goals by 20 percent so far this year. For now, the business, which was run out of his Fort Mill, SC home, just sells tires online, but he said he is exploring the possibility of selling wheels on an auction format, while avoiding selling new wheels due to the proliferation of styles and sizes.

BadBoyTires.com’s niche market is consumers aged 16 to 38. Mr. Seidel claimed “too many other ‘online’ tire retailers are selling the same major brand tires that fit the budgets and vehicles purchased by an older generation.”

He also is targeting off-road racing enthusiasts—a market he said doesn’t have a lot of players. But he’s done his homework. “I learned about enthusiasts and what their needs are,” he said. “It’s a harder group to market to, but if you do it right…they will be loyal customers,” he said. Once a marketer establishes a reputation, “it really spreads like wildfire.” His strategy also includes joining high performance vehicle forums, not just to advertise his business but to build a reputation. “It takes more than just putting up an ad, you have to be actively involved,” he said, noting that this includes providing valid information to address people’s questions and proving yourself to be a legitimate source of information and service.

BadBoyTires.com and Off TheRoadTires.com are subsidiaries of XL Tire Inc., a company Mr. Seidel started in 2006 to offer consulting work, wholesaling and importing and exporting of tires. When the value of the dollar dropped in foreign exchange rates, the cost of doing business increased, prompting Mr. Seidel to explore Internet sales. Online sales were attractive, he said, because “you can reach consumers in all 50 states and Canada while a brick-and-mortar store is in a local area only.”

Mr. Seidel started his career with Bridgestone/Firestone in 1991 in the commercial truck tire division and then became national sales manager for retailer Great American Tire & Auto in 2003. In 2004 he joined Continental Tire North America as director of dealer sales for passenger and light truck tire sales before joining Stamford Tires in 2005 as their vice president & COO for the Western Hemisphere. He left that company, a tire importer and distributor, the following year to found his own tire company.

Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/10140915/1