Automotive parts management
- Margin on the line, percent
- 40
- Price actually charged
- $70.20
- Gross profit per line
- $28.20
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Binstockly publishes no catalogue, no interchange table, no fitment data and no target margin: the usage, the lead times, the costs and the prices are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
Automotive parts management is the whole operation, not just the shelf: what you buy, what you charge, who you buy it from and what comes back. The shelf arithmetic is the part most often missing, but the margin question is the one that moves money fastest, because it applies to every line that crosses the counter rather than to the slow tail. On the worked example, a part costing $42 with a $78 list sells at $70.20 once the usual 10% comes off: $28.20 of gross profit, a 40% margin and a 67% markup, and at 180 lines a week that is $5,076 a week and $263,952 a year. The six points between the 46% the price list implies and the 40% the counter takes are worth roughly $39,000 a year on those volumes. This guide covers managing the parts operation around that figure: pricing, discount discipline, supplier terms and what to measure. The margin sheet on this site works it free.
Open the Auto parts management software Free to use. No account, no card, no sign-up.
Price from margin, discount from policy
Margin is profit over what you charged; markup is profit over what you paid. The same line is 40% and 67%. Pricing off one and reporting off the other is how a counter convinces itself it is doing better than it is, so work both from the same inputs.
Make the discount a decision
A habitual 10% off is a policy nobody wrote down. Scale it to the year before defending it: on these volumes the difference between the list margin and the counter margin is around $39,000. That figure makes the conversation about trade discount a short one.
Measure supplier terms as part of the margin
Cost is not just the invoice price: lead time drives the safety stock you carry, and returns terms decide what dead stock is worth. A cheaper supplier who is a week slower costs you cash on the shelf, and the reorder point sheet shows how much.
Will it do what you need for Automotive parts management?
Tell us what your counter needs and we will tell you straight whether Binstockly Pro does it today, whether it is coming, or whether you need a full jobber system instead. A person reads these and replies.
Automotive parts management: common questions
What margin should I be making? This site publishes no target, and would be guessing if it did. What your market bears depends on your customers, your competition and what you sell. The sheet tells you what you are making now, which is the number the question actually needs.
Should trade and retail be priced separately? Almost always, and the sheet handles it by working each at its own discount. The useful exercise is running your trade discount and your retail discount through it separately, because the blended figure hides which one is carrying the other.
How does this connect to the stock figures? Directly. Margin says what each line makes; turns say how often it makes it. A high margin part that turns once a year can easily earn less per dollar of shelf than a thin one that turns twelve times, and the turns sheet on this site works the second half.