them and they weren’t the right one,” said Nordstrom. “We are retooling our process and now we only sell them locally as the customer expec- tations were not matching our process consistently enough.” Swift’s Trails End Auto Recycling found a way to increase their revenue by tak- ing parts they used to sell and either selling them as cores or scrap. Items such as rotors and

drums, calipers, power steering pumps, power steering racks, drive axles, master cylinder, rack and pinions and air conditioning compressors are parts that they now sell or scrap or core. “We had parts that we offered for sale that just

don’t sell anymore, and we were just throwing them away or crushing them,” said Swift. “Then we started selling them as a core and saw that we could make between $200-300 per car which makes a big differ- ence.”

Nordstrom says that for them, there is the delicate bal- ance between their full- and self-service facilities.

“Sometimes customers expect self-service prices for small parts even though it’s at the full-service facility because they don’t understand the overhead involved in invento- rying, identifying, verifying, and removing the correct small part. We sell a lot of inte-

rior bezels on dashboards and sun visors. Some of the most surprising parts we sell at the full service are the specific bolts like a caliper bolt, wire pigtails, rare fuses and the like.”

According to Nordstrom, they try to balance the two businesses by having them entirely separated, with dif- ferent buildings, parking lots and sales teams. When it comes to selling small parts in the full-service yard he says you have to look at several factors to determine if it makes sense to do so.

SAVE THE DATE CHARLOTTE NC • OCT. 7-10 2015 March-April 2015 | Automotive Recycling 53