Western Car Supply Company - known more broadly as Western Auto - is a chain of specialty retail stores that supply automobile parts and accessories. It operates about 1200 stores across the United States and in Puerto Rico. It started in 1909 in Kansas City, Missouri, by George Pepperdine and Don Abnor Davis. Pepperdine later founded Pepperdine University. Western Auto was purchased by Beneficial Corporation in 1961; Western Auto Management led leveraged purchases in 1985, leading three years later into sales to Sears. Sears sold most companies to Advance Car Parts in 1998, and in 2003, the merger result led to the end of the Western Auto brand and its product distribution network.
Video Western Auto
History
Western Auto originally started as a postal order business for auto replacement parts. The first retail store was set up in 1921, and it grew rapidly as cars became increasingly common. At one point, there are more than 1,200 stores belonging to national companies, usually located in metropolitan areas, and more than 4,000 associate stores (private franchise "dealers" locations), usually located in small towns. The store association program is the first of its kind, paving the way for modern franchise operations. The company has five regional distribution centers in the United States, with those located in North Carolina serving its shops in Puerto Rico.
Brand name
Western Auto is known as the Western Flyer (bike) and Performance Radial GT (tire). Other private-label Western Automated brands that are popular with consumers include "Ban Davis" (possibly named for Don A. Davis, founder of Western Auto), "Tough One" Tools, "Wizard" Tools, "TrueTone" electronics, and "Citation". Western Auto is also the parent company of Auto America and Parts America stores, as well as a National Tire Warehouse (NTW) store. They also use the name "Wizard" on outboard engine lines and boats for a short time.
Firearm sales
One time in the 1940s or 1950s, or perhaps earlier, Western Auto began selling rifles and rifles in its catalog. Like other chains at the time, such as Sears, Roebuck and Co., Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney, Western Auto firearm is sold under the exclusive brand. Often called "brand stores" of firearms, they are manufactured by renowned brand name manufacturers, such as O.F. Mossberg & amp; Sons, Remington Arms, Savage Arms, Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and High Standard Manufacturing Company. Western automatic firearms are sold under the brand name "Revelation", and are generally models of the Savage brand, Marlin Firearms, or Mossberg.
In addition to the mark, the Revelation model is identical to the standard production model. They are the most basic models produced by various manufacturers, and feature a plain birch or walnut stock. However, metal bluing remains good and almost all models are equipped with iron sights and mounting provisions for coverage. Having been rewarded lower than the equivalent "brand name", the shop guns, rifles, and revolvers basically have reached price parity with their more universal counterparts. Firearms are one of the many paths that are added to the store in an effort to diversify the product. In the late 1950s Western Auto looked very much like a Sears store, even equipped with a catalog catalog center. The auto parts consisted of only a small percentage of the company's sales in the mid-1960s and it all disappeared in the 1970s.
Helpful
In 1961, Western Auto was sold to Beneficial Finance Corporation. Beneficial retained ownership until 1985, when the company was purchased in leveraged purchases led by Western Auto and Wesray Capital Corporation management.
Streamlining business operations
In the early 1980s, in response to Wal-Mart's success, Western Auto Retail transformed all the company's stores into "FLAG" stores, which sell exclusively automotive parts and accessories. These stores are mostly located in more urban areas such as their successors today. Western Auto Wholesale strongly urged its counterparts to be at least 50% automotive, but most were rejected because the customer base from their location, in "small town America", demanded more merchandise. This disagreement by the store association will then save the company.
In February 1986, Western Auto bought 40 White Stores in Texas from Canadian Tire for US $ 24.5 million.
In two separate transactions, Western Auto purchased Wheeling tire retailer, West Virginia-based Tyre America in February 1987 and then Dale City, Virginia-based National Tire Warehouse in October 1987.
Sears Roebuck & amp; Purchase Co
In 1988, Sears Roebuck bought Western Auto from Wesray Capital, which resulted in a larger selection of tires, and in the Craftsman and DieHard batteries sold at Western Auto stores. Sears rewards West Freestanding Auto shops as outlets for Craftsman and DieHard. The heavy competition from other major discount stores, Advance, Carport, Napa, AutoZone and O'Reilly Auto Parts, proved too much due to the lack of company product focus.
In 1995, Western Auto made a deal involving two unrelated business deals with acquiring 84 auto parts stores in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee from the Nationwise Automotive chain that went bankrupt in October for an undisclosed amount and then get the Auto Supply Wheel Discount and its 82 auto parts stores in New York and Pennsylvania at the end of the year from its owner, Fay's Drug for $ 37 million.
Also during 1995, Sears began to convert Western Auto stores into the new Parts-only form of the American section by eliminating the automotive service space. In 1998, Sears almost finished converting the remaining 600 companies that owned Western Auto stores into Parts America branded stores.
In early 1997, fewer than 850 stores belonged to the company remaining. At that time, the chain stores were bread and butter from the company, with a more diverse brand-name line including equipment, electronics, hardware, bicycles, go-karts and equipment/external components, and their reach into small American cities. Sears moved the National Tire Warehouse and Tire America from Western Auto to form a new company called National Tire and Battery, which Sears kept until 2003.
From 1991 to the end of the 1997 season, the NASCAR Hall of Fame racer team supported by West NAS, Darrell Waltrip's Winston Cup. The specialty retailer also sponsored Al Hofmann's Funny Car in NHRA from 1994 to 1997.
Automatic Spare Parts
After weeks of speculation in 1998, the parent company Sears sold the remnants of Western Auto to Advance Car Parts of Roanoke, Virginia. The business deal does not match what the auto industry experts expect after the market. In return, Sears Roebuck became "one of the largest shareholders" after acquiring a 40% stake in Advance Auto Parts, and by merging its two chain stores, which included Western Auto's wholesale and retail operations. More precisely, the existing store network of Advanced Advances, comprising 915 stores in 17 US states, joins 590 US-based US Shops in addition to 40 Western Auto stores at the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
The merger between Western Auto and Advance Auto substantially expanded Advance's network to more than 1,500 retail stores in 36 states. In addition, Sears Roebuck accepts cash payments of $ 175 million USD, while Advance Auto investors provide over $ 70 million USD directly to Advance. Freeman Spogli & amp; Co. organizes investment funds that are among the group of investors who provide Advances worth $ 70 million. Despite the 40% acquisition by Sears Roebuck, both companies maintain Standard & amp; "Single-'B'-plus credit rating company" Poor. Analysts continue to speculate about Advance Auto's "financial flexibility" at the time expecting the company to "take advantage of other opportunistic acquisitions".
Some partner stores are converted to Sears Dealer stores. The rest of the company's stores, located mainly in the eastern United States, were later converted into Face shops. The remaining partner stores are promised a long and long future in the Western Auto tradition, an unsaved appointment. Advance provides little support for associate shop operations and as a result most dealers find themselves buying 70% of their merchandise from other suppliers and only using Western Auto names.
Maps Western Auto
The demise of the Western Auto distribution network
In October 2003, Advance Auto told the Western Car Supply Company that in January 2004, "it no longer supplies goods and services to stores within its distribution network". This decision ended the Western Auto brand name after almost a century of business. Some Western Auto shop owners know that such a decision by Advance Auto is inevitable after seeing "discontinued brand trends, lack of computer point-of-point system updates, and fewer merchandise shipments". Advance Auto Parts spokeswoman, Shelia Stuewe, speaking on the issue stated "that logistics distributing equipment, home and garden supplies, auto parts and hardware to more than 300 independent dealers spread across 33 countries becomes too much for the company to continue. "
Usage of Automatic Western name
Dealer shops were authorized by Advance Auto Parts, a license to use Western Auto names until 2006. After 2006, stores stopped using Western Auto names, but many stores continued to use the name illegally. At this time, there is no storefront licensed to use Western Auto name or to fly Western Auto sign. Advance Auto Parts remains the owner of a registered trademark and renamed "Western Auto" and imposes a violation on behalf of it, but it is unknown whether they have any future plans for the name. Advance also has a Western Western Supply Company registered in Virginia.
The name Western Auto was used by Advance Auto Parts at the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, where it was the largest chain, until 2006 when the company's last owned store in St. Petersburg. Croix is ​​closed. All other stores in the division are gradually converted to Storefront.
The building that once became its corporate headquarters, located at 2107 Grand Boulevard in Kansas City, Missouri, was converted into a loft condo; the Western Auto mark stays on top of the building, currently not illuminated, but is being repaired.
See also
- A list of non-functioning resellers in the United States
Notes and references
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Tautan eksternal
- Arsip situs web resmi
- Marchman, Jim (2004). The Last Western Flyer: The Western Auto Century .
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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