Advaned Auto parts GENIUSES!!

One thing, and one thing only has ruined the Auto Parts Business ...GREED....
Most of you guys don't know me as I am new to FABO , but I have been over at FBBO and they know me there. I spent the majority of my life in the Independant Auto Parts Business, that being from 1974 till 2001. Started as a delivery boy at $1.75 an hr and went all the way to buying out the owners and opening more stores on my own with no college education. Everything was hunky-dory through the 70's, 80's and early 90's. Plenty of profit for everyone. Thats when the GREED took over. Our business was primarily wholesale to the professional repair industry , about 80 % of or business. The rest, walk in business. The repair shops began demanding better and better prices and the parts manufacturers were looking to increase their market share of their specific products. Sooo .... The Manufacturers started demanding that the warehouse distributors sell to the repair/installers directly!!, Thus cutting a link ( the traditional jobber store) out of the loop of profit. Traditional jobber stores with huge inventories and fleets of delivery trucks like us, struggled to retain customers and were forced to reduce gross profits to retain market share. We even tried boycotting those distributors , but it was a futile effort. I was even on the board of directors for our Auto Parts Association and could not change the direction things were going. I tell you all this because as everyone knows when profit declines, the easiest place to cut costs is in personnel. This is how the inexperienced people ended up behind the parts counter today. It's all $$. Back in the 80's and 90's we paid our countermen 45k - 55k , and they knew their sh*t. I mean , you could walk into one of our stores and ask for rod bearing clearances on a 40 Dodge and get the answer!! Today, you will find very few true independant auto parts stores, unless they are waaay out in the sticks. They just cant survive. Today 99% of stores and chains are connected/affiliated with buying groups or manufacturers. As the gross profits declined, owners of independents either closed up , sold out or found affiliation with a group. All this time, the quality of expertise in the stores has declined. They cant afford the help they need. I sold 3 stores out to Carquest at the age of 44 back in 2001. I was smart enough to buy the commercial property back in the day though, and still lease them to Carquest. To this day ,I run into ex customers, and tell me they miss us, and need us back,and they cant get good service anymore. I tell them that they did it to themselves with GREED. Had to have price instead of service. The demise the Independant Owner, I tell you , I'm sure , has been played out with vitually any small Auto Parts Chain owner in America. I did keep all of the old catalogs for myself , even for stuff all the way back to the 30's. In the defense of the person behind the counter: I, myself have sold my share of ( fuse pumps),(stermistats),(caddilac convertors),(tail pies), (muffins), (hooginators) and (crutches)LOL
By the way. If you want the best help, ask for the person in the store that is in charge of commercial sales. They are usually the best qualified.

GREED i tell you GREED is what screwed up the Parts Business!!