Wholesale Body Shop parts returns

[imacdude]

Our parts management is looking for a good guideline to for determining excessive returns from wholesale and body shop accounts. I read through some past post and chuck offered some great wisdom and math. I would, however like to "hear it again" or hear other views on what is an "acceptable" level of returns. Is it a percentage of purchases? What do people typically use as a guideline?

Thanks for your input.
John Belen
Williams AutoWorld
Lansing, MI

[scotstrong]

There is a monthly body shop trade publication called "Fender Bender Times". A recent issue dealt with this very topic. The editors took the initiative to contact dealership parts managers and get their input. I welcomed the opportunity to respond and applaud their effort to educate body shops as to why excessive returns, returns with packaging problems, etc. are a problem. It also included the results of a mini-survey as to what dealership parts managers felt was an acceptable percentage of returns. I passed my copy on to our body shop manager, who took it home. Can't tell you for sure which month's issue it was. If you can find a copy, it might give you some good input to answer your question.

[Doug]

back in the old days, when I was a PM of a wholesale-oriented store, I wasn't so concerened with *how much* a shop wanted to return (within reason, of course). No, I was more worried about *what type* of parts they wanted to return....which was a bigger problem. It's very easy to get buried under some odd-ball parts for odd-ball cars.

If an account was ordering obviously odd-ball stuff we would tell them, up-front and in simple English, that we positively would not take them back. Most understood and complied.

Of course, your bigger accounts always feel like they deserve to have continual exceptions made for them......

Cheers
Doug