TIRESTACKS.com
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Learn how Flxpoint’s development team helped TIRESTACKS.com integrate a massive datafeed and their own internal inventory with their online store to keep up with demand in a fast-moving industry.
“[With Flxpoint’s integration into our distributor] we now have access to just about every tire available in the country and have a way to supplement our inventory while we are waiting on our own inventory to come in.”
Frank Brearley III, TIRESTACKS.com
Company Overview
While attending his first Formula Drift event, Frank Brearley III was amazed at how many tires were used! Through association with a few local amatuer racing clubs, he learned that the demand for these types of tires was more than distributors could handle—they’d quickly sell out of sizes as manufacturers couldn’t produce enough to keep up with the market.
When COVID disrupted the supply chain, it created an opportunity for Frank to exit his family’s wholesale tire business, create TIRESTACKS.com, and become the exclusive tire provider for Formula Drift’s PROSPEC series.
With Flxpoint, he’s able to expand his product catalog, streamline his ecommerce operations, and save money while doing so.
The Challenge
While the drifting community’s demand for tires presented an enormous opportunity, Frank also wanted to expand to other motorsports. This meant growing his catalog to include more tire brands and styles.
Frank partnered with a tire distributor that has relationships with top tire vendors across the country and pulls their data into one master feed.
“I stock my own inventory, and ordering tires in by container from overseas requires a lot of cash capital,” said Frank. “Between those orders, when I sold out of my container inventory, I didn’t want to lose sales. I wanted to supplement them with tires from other distributor’s stock when possible.”
Now he had access to the inventory, but how would he manage it alongside his own? And what was he supposed to do with this massive datafeed?
“We tried to do this with a developer but we hit a wall and the solution wasn’t good, it would have required 2-3 employees just to maintain the backend work,” he said.
Frank was a team of one, so he kept searching for an alternative solution.
The Solution
The Flxpoint Solutions Team integrated Frank’s distributor’s datafeed as a source, which allows him to automatically pull product content, price, quantity, and status and push that data to his Shopify store.
By specifying his warehouse as a location in Shopify, he’s also able to use Shopify as a source to manage his owned inventory.
“[With Flxpoint’s integration into our distributor] we now have access to just about every tire available in the country and have a way to supplement our inventory while we are waiting on our own inventory to come in,” said Frank.
Moving forward, Frank plans to eliminate some sizes they would usually stock to encourage people to order what’s available within the dropship network and simplify what he keeps on hand. He also takes advantage of Flxpoint’s advanced order routing capabilities.
“I’ve already used Flxpoint and the dropship network to ship tires that I actually have in stock,” said Frank. “I keep everything in Pennsylvania, and if I see that a customer is in California, I know that shipping is going to cost me $25-30 a tire. And if I dropship, I’m going to save money.”
Frank is already looking to challenge the Flxpoint team further, including plans to expand his business geographically to Canada in the near future. Regardless of what comes next, he’s confident that he can get it done with Flxpoint.
“The Flxpoint team is always managing to find solutions. I see things adapting and working moving forward, which is awesome.”