For many years shop owners and other small businesses have seen their marketing dollars be swallowed up by Yellow Pages.  They had slick talking salespeople convince them that without an ad in their Yellow Page book their business was doomed.  They also felt that they had to have the biggest ad going and finally, they felt it had to be a full-page ad and then a full-color ad.  Thousands of dollars were spent on this endeavor.  At best it was a prospecting piece as it was in no way targeted marketing.  The shop owner had…

NPD’s Automotive Aftermarket Industry Monitor (AAIM) tracks retail and commercial sales at the point-of-sale for more than18,000 auto parts stores in the U.S., and reports that for the year ending April 2009, private label (store brands) dollar volume increased by 8.8 percent from a year ago.

This shows customers recent focus on value, but don’t always define value as quality.  For example, 56 percent of consumers believe that motor oil name brands are of better quality than store brands, and 38 percent see no real difference.  The information from this Repair Shop Websites…