In the USA, many dealerships sell custom wheels at their locations to generate after-sales profits. With Wheels Visualizer, they can improve further.
Custom wheels available in a retail store can improve business in several customer demographics. Customization components like wheels are very profitable. Adding custom accessories to create a personalized look for a buyer can make the difference between a sale and shopping. Further, selling custom wheels as add-ons improves the likelihood of selling wheel and tire insurance and enhance used car sales.
Several automobile dealers surveyed by Tire Business said wheels and tires — as well as peripheral items such as wheel and tire cleaners — are easy sellers that make happy customers and dealers alike if displayed properly. While some dealers are concerned about custom wheel inventory, a new product greatly reduces inventory expense and improves custom wheel sales by over 25%.
“There’s nothing like custom wheels and tires and even lift kits to increase after-sales profits.” said the general manager of a major dealer in Texas. One of the top questions in the past year was, “what will my vehicle look like with those custom wheels or rims?”
What is Wheels Visualizer?
Wheel Visualizer has improved digital visualization in the automotive customization space with the recently released Wheel Visualizer API. Wheels visualizer allows users to see virtually what their vehicle would look like with different wheel styles before ever making a decision.
The user simply chooses their vehicle’s year, make, model, and options. Then the vehicle will pop up on the screen with finish color and wheel selections that the user can try as much as they want before requesting a quote.
This new technology hasn’t only helped customers make their decision, but they have also become powerful sales tools for dealerships to sell more custom wheels and increase their after-sales profits.
How Does Wheels Visualizer Increase After-Sales Profits?
Selling custom wheels is a great source of after-sales profits, with 30% to 50% margins, and Wheels Visualizer is the best tool to increase custom wheel sales.
It can show customers digital representations of their custom wheel selections on their cars in a single tap. Wheels Visualizer has proven to increase custom wheel sales by over 25%. No showroom / visual inventories are necessary with Wheels Visualizer.
Custom Wheel Market in 2023
The Texas dealer interviewed said they sell five to ten sets of wheels per week throughout the year and “probably” twelve sets per week in the summer when the wheel market is the hottest. He said he might sell 50 wheels a month, on average.
“We always want to be competitive,” he said, “but we make 30 to 50 percent after-sales profits on a set of wheels.”
Another Texas Cadillac dealer said one customer came into the dealership recently with a damaged wheel on his Cadillac. The customer told the dealership that he was quoted $1,500 by another car dealership to replace the wheel.
“We got him four new (aftermarket) wheels for $1,500,” the dealer said. “We made money, and he was ecstatic.” In fact, he was so happy he bought a new Cadillac from us for his wife.
Another Northwest Texas auto dealer said wheels are his dealership’s top-selling accessory. “Black is the No. 1 choice now — black aftermarket wheels,” he said.
This dealer said his dealership sells four to five sets of wheels per week, but when the oil boom was big in Texas a few years ago, he was selling 12 sets of wheels per week.
Robert Kaufman, owner of Dan’s Goodyear in Costa Mesa, Calif., said he could sell anywhere between eight and ten sets of wheels on a good week.
“On a normal week, we sell about two sets,” Mr. Kaufman said. “Spring and summer are when customers want to make their vehicles look the best, especially in the beach area.”
Naturally, wheels are a top seller for a company that sells custom wheels and tires and uses the word in its name — RNR Tire Express & Custom Wheels.
Ryan Schrader, RNR’s director of operations at the firm’s corporate office in Tampa, Fla., said wheels and tires account for 90 percent of the firm’s business.
“It’s a great money-maker, with a lot of revenue for our stores,” Mr. Schrader said. There are close to 100 RNR franchise stores in the U.S.
All About Aesthetics
Dealers say that customers today want to personalize their rides and make their vehicles their own. One of the most distinctive ways to accomplish this is to dress up their rides with a custom set of wheels.
“They just want to look like they’re cool,” one dealer said. “We are in a good area, with well-to-do neighborhoods around us, and they have the money to spend on accessorizing their vehicles.”
“It’s all about aesthetics,” a dealer said. “Some customers don’t want a car that looks like every other vehicle on the lot. Maybe there’s a different finish that they like, black or chrome, or maybe they like swirls or spokes. It’s a “personal preference issue.”
Mr. Schrader said changing tires and/or wheels isn’t the cheapest way to make the look of a vehicle distinctive, but it is certainly among the easiest and most popular.
“It’s a want, not a need, but it’s a want for a lot of people in all demographic segments of life,” a dealer noted.
Another Texas dealer said wanting to change the look of a vehicle can serve as a catalyst to “move forward and put a set of aftermarket tires and wheels on a car.”
“Obviously when you add a chrome trim piece,” he said, “you’re not drastically changing the look of the car, truck, van or SUV.
“But when you add a custom set of wheels, it adds a uniqueness to the vehicle that makes it look different than the hundreds or thousands of vehicles that come from the factory,” he said.
And if a driver damages one wheel, he or she can usually replace all four with aftermarket wheels cheaper than purchasing two OEM wheels.
“It can be a catalyst to replace your wheels,” several dealers said. “Even though the customer may not need it, they want their car to look nice, so they may move forward to put a new set of aftermarket tires and wheels on your vehicle.”
Dealers said one of the biggest trends today is for customers to upgrade their wheels and tires with an off-road or all-terrain mud package in all-terrain vehicles.
“They’re taking their (Ram) Pickup Truck and going to a larger, more aggressive wheel and tire package,” a Texas Ram dealer said.
All the dealers interviewed said a customer’s customized truck influences his buddy to want to do the same.
“We have a lot of people think methodically about it. They buy a new truck, but then they’ve got to get it fixed up like they want it.”
Several dealers said the bolder three-piece wheels, as well as neon colors are a hot commodity in his market.
Another Texas car dealer offers his customers another lucrative way to distinguish their vehicles. He owns a printing machine that can customize add-ons, such as tires, bedliners and rubber floor mats.
“You can print anything you want on the tire and on a floor mat,” a dealer said, noting that it’s more lucrative to sell a customized set of new mats, rather than print on dirty mats.
Contact Us Today
If you want to enhance your after-sales profits with custom wheels, contact Wheel Visualizer to obtain the subscription API to add to your website to begin selling custom wheels to your customers. Contact Wheels Visualizer or call Susan (318) 294-9355 or Harold (469) 536-8478.
