PURCHASING PREDICAMENTS

Now don’t get me wrong, I love working for the family business. It’s very rewarding to look around and to see how much we’ve achieved in a relatively short space of time. I get a huge sense of pride when we receive great feedback from customers and it’s great to know we are moving in the right direction, but every so often you have one of those nightmare days. I work predominantly in the purchasing department and between myself and Richard it is our responsibility to ensure a constant supply of products at great prices. Unfortunately in this trade it isn’t always as easy as it sounds, and more often than not it is supply issues (for one reason or another) that cause me headaches!

A number of you may have noticed a massive shortage on FOR3, FOR11 & FOR12 recently and this isn’t for want of trying to buy more stock in. For weeks we’ve been struggling to get hold of these remotes. It is common for the supply of vehicle remotes to sometimes dry up for a short period of time and occasionally the supply never returns, however on this occasion I have been informed that the delay is due to a small fire in the Visteon factory in china. This has caused delays on FOB8 as well. Hopefully FOR3, FOR11 & FOR12 supply will be back to normal next month, with news that around 2000 will be available in the coming weeks. I will do my best to secure as many of these remotes as I can!

When it comes to the supply of auto locksmith parts it can be a bit of a rollercoaster! You could have a constant flow of a product for ages and then it can all change within a month. This is often due to the dealership networks putting a stop to factories selling the remotes via other means, and as a purchaser this leaves you in a constant quandary. When the stock is there to purchase, should we buy the full quantity available just in case they won’t be available a month down the line? On a number of occasions we have had to take massive risks, paying tens of thousands of pounds for stock that will just sit in our warehouse for a number of years. For example the JR2 Jaguar remotes, some of you may remember that for a time we were selling this product at a great price of roughly £25. This was down to mass of surplus stock that Jaguar had in their factory. We bought all 3000 remotes available at a great price and passed these savings on to our customers. Unfortunately the 3000 remotes we purchased had to run out at some point, and although we’ve been able to purchase more stock we’ve never been able to get it at such a low price again. Luckily we can still get these remotes but there are some products that are just impossible to get unless they are pre-coded to the chassis number. This gives myself and the purchasing department a headache!

Recently we have been developing an aftermarket version of the FOR3 to sell alongside our genuine product. The aftermarket version will be priced at half that of the genuine one but will be almost identical. We have had this product in development for almost 8 months already and we’ve recently received our 3rdsample from the factory and have requested one final improvement that will make it one of the best aftermarket versions in the industry. We felt that although the remote was already better than those currently available, the buttons were not as strong as we would have liked so once this final tweak has been approved, we can get them into production and make them available to purchase!

One of our biggest marketing expenses is our presence at the industry trade shows. We feel that trade shows are a brilliant way to meet our customers face to face and they give us a fantastic opportunity to gauge customer feedback. It is important to us that we show ourselves to be the professional, knowledgeable company that we are so a lot of thought and planning goes in to the design of our stand, the marketing of the brand, and our show offers. Over the last few weeks our marketing assistant Rebecca has been planning our stand and offers for the ALEX show this weekend (4th/5th Oct). We have updated our stand design, we will be selling the SKP-900 key programmer machineand we will be offering discounts of up to 50% across the majority of our product range! These amazing discounts will only be valid on orders placed at the show so make sure you pay us a visit on stand 12A.

One advantage that 3D Group has over many of our competitors is our sister company 3D Autokeys, our mobile auto locksmith service that covers Nottinghamshire. There are 4 Auto locksmiths working for 3D Autokeys with over 60 years’ experience on the job between them and their experience makes them a wealth of auto locksmith knowledge. We decided to put this expertise to good use within 3D Group and last year we launched our GeeKey Advice service. This is our dedicated impartial support service that is free for all of our trade customers. Our auto locksmiths really are vehicle key geeks, we sometimes worry for their wives and girlfriends to be honest! However their geekiness provides our trade customers with the answer to pretty much any auto locksmith related question you can think of. As they are locksmiths themselves they will offer completely unbiased advice on anything from how to complete a particularly tricky job to what machine you should consider adding to your arsenal next. Our geeks are definitely worth a shout if you have a dilemma!

The GeeKey Advisors will be on stand at the ALEX show on the 4th and 5th October. It has been a popular service at every tradeshow we’ve taken it to, so if you have an auto locksmith related question you would like answering why not book an appointment with our GeeKey Advisor by e-mailing Rebecca at geekeyadvice@3dgroupuk.com

Last week may have been taxing to say the least but it ended on a high when my brother and I were invited to a corporate track day at Silverstone. We got to drive a Renault Megane sport 250 cup at high speed around the Silverstone track and a Ford Fiesta ST rally car around the rally track. We reached speeds of 140mph+ behind the wheel. It was a first for both of us and a great experience that we hope to repeat one day in the very near future.

Well I better go and finalise the discounts that we will be offering at the ALEX show, I really hope to see some of you there. Both myself and Dan will be on the stand along with Kerry and Ian from our sales team, Rebecca from marketing and Martyn our GeeKey advisor. We’re a friendly bunch and love to put faces to names so come and say hi!

Dean