“Our team is a big part of our success,” says Jared. “I think of us as a family.” Always anticipating the future, Jared notes, “We had a long-time manager leave. Instead of replacing the one position, we put two employees as the key managers, and added younger team members to learn management skills.”

“Since All Auto presently has six dismantlers; buying large amounts of inventory is a major issue for us. We have been processing about 120 more expensive units per month, but our goal is 140-160 less expensive units,” says Ed. “We have a 2,400 sq. ft. main office, three disman- tling areas, with one that is under a 5,000 sq. ft. overhang,

“As we always have, we will acclimate to the changes.” – Ed Milmeister

and two other good-sized buildings that serve our com- pany well (even though our buildings are old and ugly). I tried to get an idea of the costs from the county to build new ones, and they couldn’t or wouldn’t give us a cost for permits and fees. It was frustrating. But we are in the parts-selling business, not the nice-building busi- ness, so our location works fine,” jokes Ed. “We made the choice to put our money into inventory and equip- ment, instead.” All Auto Parts serves primarily Southern California.

“We don’t do any marketing. Zero,” says Ed. “Most of our business comes from the online services, Car-Part, Hollander, CCC, eBay. And most of business is in LA. Los Angeles is the biggest car market in the world, and we buy all kinds of inventory to serve it from trucks to vans, to high-end cars. There are more Mercedes and BMWs in our area to bid on, than any other place in the U.S. “Our promise to customers is, we provide what you thought you ordered when promised. Basically, to in-

AUTOMOTIVE RECYCLING • July-August 2018

crease profits, we work hard to get more out of each car by inventorying and pulling more parts per car (gross profit is higher, so is labor). Our retail sales have also improved. We buy a lot of cars, although these days you are lucky to get 5 percent out of every 100 you bid on. We have to work on every part of business every day with the goal of selling more parts per car,” says Ed. “Because of the internet, it is more of a level playing field for the industry. Our business now is very trans- actional in our area, not re- lationship-driven like it used to be, and I like it that way. I know that my competitors are confronted with the same problems. We all have to pay

high and sell low. It’s not perfect but it’s a lot fairer (fair is in the eyes of the beholder) business environment than it used to be. The insurance company sets the price; if you have the part, you have a good shot of sell- ing the part to the shop.” “Our survival plan is to always look for ways to improve. It keeps us motivated and I love it. In our area during the 1980’s, many of our competitors were dependent on buying and selling rebuilders. We did not participate in that line of business. I actively worked with other recy- clers to have members of our state association give up the right to sell rebuilders, so the salvage pools could not use a dismantlers license to sell them. We wanted an associa- tion to represent the parts only segment of the business. Ultimately, the rebuilder yards went out of business, and we and a few other longtime recyclers are still around.” “My philosophy is ‘We must adapt to the world; the world will not adapt to us.’ We have moved on to make the changes necessary in today’s market.”

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