From the Magazine: Keeping a tight supplier circle

Casting a wide net to find the parts you need may not be the good strategy you think it is

Part sourcing these days is a struggle, not just for us as shop owners but also for our suppliers. The best way for us to work through these challenges is to work together with our suppliers, so they can deliver the best results to us, and we can deliver the best service to our clients. 

One way to do this is to reduce the number of suppliers we use. Think about how nice it is when our clients choose to have all of their services performed at our shop. We have the ability to properly maintain every system in their vehicle, perform visual inspections and prevent breakdowns that cause them stress and put strain on our businesses. Our suppliers can do the same for us.

In addition to providing us with the parts we need for repairs, they can keep our shop supplies full and our inventory maintained, ensuring that we have what we need when we need it. This saves us time, money and stress, as our techs can keep working on the vehicles in the bays and our service advisors can focus their time on building and maintaining relationships with our clients.

If lowering your costs is the goal when calling around to different suppliers, consider that using one main supplier will not only save time in the shop, it will also allow them to purchase in higher quantities, lowering their costs and ours. As well, purchasing most of your products from one supplier often means that you are spending enough to be eligible for rebates, reducing your overall business expenses for the year. 

As well, purchasing most of your products from one supplier often means that you are spending enough to be eligible for rebates, reducing your overall business expenses for the year.

We have one main supplier who provides us with parts, most fluids, shop supplies and equipment. We are loyal to them and they take care of us — they get our parts to us as quickly as possible, adjust prices when they can, pick up our returns and monitor and adjust our inventory levels. This higher level of service helps our day run smoothly, allowing us to make more money by being more efficient.

They also ask for and respect our feedback. Providing them with info about what parts we are continually having trouble with or consistently having to purchase elsewhere allows them to adjust their inventory to provide us with the products we need. This improves the quality of parts we are installing and ensures they are getting more of our business. 

When partnering with one supplier, we experience benefits for our day-to-day operations, which is the driving force. However, there are some additional perks that we appreciate. Our dedicated sales manager comes to us first when there are new products to try out, sales on equipment or even when they have game-day tickets or branded merchandise to hand out. These suppliers are grateful for our loyalty, and we are grateful for the exceptional service we receive.

Partnerships like this are what strengthen our industry, allowing suppliers to provide us with what we need, so we can focus on providing our clients with the service they expect. 

In the next article, I’ll share how I decided that the price of parts doesn’t matter as long as we’re receiving the best service from our supplier. Spoiler alert: Our clients feel the same way.

Erin Vaughan is the owner of Kinetic Auto Service in Regina

This article originally appeared in the August 2025 issue of CARS magazine