jeffg

Change can always have it's challenges. We have been doing Mon-Sat for 20 years (now with 14 locations) and Saturday is just another day (except that it is typically our busiest and highest sales day of the week). No loaner cars, we do shuttle customers as needed (1 Shuttle at each location), rentals only when necessary for customer satisfaction. We tend to get most of the work out the same day. We handle anywhere from 20-40 vehicles per day average (depending on the store). I would say Saturday is a great day to be open and doing normal business. If the demand is there and you want/need the increased business, you should give it a try. Some things I might consider doing different, would be kind of like what AndersonAuto above does, maybe a 4 day workweek since we are open 10 hours and guys are clocking 10-11 hours a day most of the time. This could cut down on overtime hours (save some $) and give people another day off which would be attractive to employees. Saturdays being busy would still mean that most people wouldn't have 2 or 3 day weekends, but could be rotated between occasional Saturdays, and Mondays where maybe everyone could get a 2 and 3 day weekend once a month.

I did find out a little more. Had a demo of their software. They do have Big O stores, I think some Jiffy Lube. Predominantly a tire SMS package, and predominantly used by tire shops, but also handles service. I have used a couple of other packages over my 30+ years in the business and what I saw of this product on the surface appears to be very good. Originally designed for the a multi shop environment, seems to have most of today's sought after features that have been written into the software, not 3rd party. I will let you know more as I get more information.

We have always been open 7:30 to 5:30 Mon-Sat. Our people work 5 day weeks, having Sunday and typically a week day off, Saturdays off are an exception. Saturdays are by far the busiest day, highest sales and highest car counts. There are some people that you just can't convince to work for you that will not work on Saturdays. I think there are a lot of arguments for all options. Obviously if you have enough traffic, the more days/hours you are open the more business you can do, and your fixed expenses like rent will remain the same so it can be more profitable. You have to be able to balance that with a good work environment, that doesn't overwork your people. I like Anderson Auto's plan above, and have heard many others, anything from 4 days a week to 7 days a week, and they all have their positive and negative aspects. You need to do what works best for you, your people, your customers and your specific situation. Many things have to be balanced.

Does anyone use or have any experience with Navex Automotive Management System POS?

Have used Paychex, ADP & Paycom (in that order) over the last 18 years. Each change was due to features and price. I think they are all pretty good, have to believe they all have comparable features and can comparable prices, just a matter of who is buying the business or maybe who has come out with the latest/greatest new features. been with Paycom now for almost 7 years and been pretty happy. Have learned that changing companies can be a lot of work. Probably not a bad idea to shop them every few years and see what is available and at the very least, make sure you current pricing is the best it can be.

We use DemandForce. I think it works well, a lot of useful tools for followup and keeping in touch with your customers. Haven't looked at other options lately. A little on the pricey side, but worth it.

Haven't heard that one. Visa/MC interchange rates are higher than 1% and I don't know of a way to get around them, unless she is saying she will charge you 1% on top of the interchange rates. $129 per month for a machine is expensive, Most lease rates are in the $30-45 range and the cost to buy outright maybe in the $400-$800 range depending on the machine. If you aren't doing a lot of volume, maybe the extra that is being charged for the machine and the monthly fee makes up for what would be lost on the interchange rates. They seem to be always trying to come up with a way to say and do things to make it look cheaper than what you have. I wouldn't change processors without seeing a comparison based on my current statement and an explanation of exactly how they get to their price based on my statements transactions. Also I wouldn't go into any kind of contract without being able to get out, if what they say doesn't pan out in the first month or two. One problem we had when changing processors once, was not getting out of our contract with the processor, but getting out of an equipment lease early, as these are usually done through a leasing company and done on a 36 or 60 month term with automatic renewals. Lots of things to check into when making a change, seem to learn something new every time we change.

Not saying it is not true, just saying I have never seen anything like it. Would like to see a statement or contract that showed how it worked. Is that your average rate or fixed rate for all cards processed? Do they charge the same for Amex, & Discover? What about debit cards, are they the same?

1.44% on all cards seems to good to be true. Many types of cards charge more than that. There are set interchange rates charged by the card companies (visa, mc, etc...) and for many types of cards it is higher than 1.44% (rewards cards, fleet cards, Amex, Disc), some are lower (debit cards and some others). Not sure how anyone could charge 1.44% all in for everything unless you are doing a whole lot more debit cards. We are doing over 10 million a year in credit cards and I have shopped many times over the last 30+ years and never seen anything that is one fixed flat rate. I have seen cost (interchange) plus plans and tiered rate plans (usually with 3-4 different rates on different types of cards). Would be interesting to see how this works.

www.brakemax.com

Good article, sent it out to my key personnel. One of the guys replied that the title should be "Apples to Autozone"

I doubt if there will ever be the perfect candidate no matter what your beliefs are. I agree with a lot of what Dennis R, has to say. The free market needs to be invigorated to create job growth. Right now we are all sitting back waiting to see what is going to hit us next, more regulations, more taxes, another downturn, etc... We need to see less regulation, less taxes, more confidence, more control on spending from the government. The people involved in any part of the public sector need to be reminded that they are supported 100% by the taxpayers money and/or elected/appointed by the people of this country to represent us, serve us, and be stewards of our tax money. However a higher and higher portion of the people are not paying taxes, and/or are being paid by taxes. If this continues they will have the majority of the vote and control and continue to take more from the private sector to support the rest that doesn't contribute to the system (themselves). The best thing we can do is pick the candidates that have the best chance to beat those that do not agree with most of our beliefs. It doesn't make sense to only vote for the candidate that thinks exactly like we want them to, if they do not have a chance to beat the person we want replaced. We first have to pick from the candidates that can win the general election and then if there is more than one of those, choose the one that is closest to our beliefs. For example Ron Paul may be the guy who you think would be the best candidate according to your beliefs, but it is very unlikely that he could win the general election, so you should get behind someone else who can win. Those who support a 3rd party candidate are usually trying to make a point, but a lot of times the support of that 3rd party candidate may cost the election of someone who would have been closer to your beliefs, and get someone a lot further from your beliefs elected. We all have to get out and vote, just because our dream candidate is not running or didn't make it through the primary doesn't mean we should not vote, vote for the best man still standing that can move things even a little bit more in the directions of your beliefs.

We are open Saturdays 7:30 to 5:30 same as M-F. Always have been. Saturday is by far our busiest day of the week, always has been. Sure some times it is only average when the UA football or basketball team plays during the day on Saturday. We have a spreadsheet that shows how much we do each day of the week at each of our 12 locations and our GM uses it to schedule sales personnel at stores accordingly. Some store have more variation on which of the week days they do the best, but the company average is 20.1% of our business is on Saturday, 17.3% on Friday , and the rest of the days are all between 16 & 16.5%. Maybe it is Tucson, maybe it is that your customers come to expect you to be open on Saturdays and that is the easiest day for a lot of them to arrange to get the car to you and not have to work around there work schedule? As far as employee scheduling goes, Saturday is a special day to get off. Everyone get's one from time to time, but we always make sure we have excellent coverage on Saturdays. Some people don't like it, but I think we have a great group of employees that know that a lot of their money is earned on Saturdays.

We use Pace Software Yes Management. Too much to go into here, would be glad to talk to you on the phone if you want. We have 12 retail locations and like most things about it. I have a bit of programming background and have been in the Automotive business for over 20 years, and have dealt with the implementation side of shop management software all of that time as well as handled the accounting and IT for 2 different multi store operations. There are some things I would sure do differently, but all in all it is a pretty good solution with a lot of bells and whistles to fit many different ways of doing things. Give me a call and I can go into the details if you like. Jeff Graser CFO BRAKEmax Car Care Centers 520-229-9380 x 308

Does anyone use anything besides GE Car Care One, or Wells Fargo Financing to offer their customers financing for their purchases?