Search.
Tim Shaffer is Co-Founder and CEO of Search Tires, also known as searchtires.com, the world’s first price comparison search engine. He is also President of YENT, a subsidiary of Prepared Patriot Brands. Tim is a leader, an innovative thinker, and a trusted advisor who excels at guiding businesses from multimillion-dollar start-ups to established companies.
In this episode…
Have you ever tried shopping for tires online? Did you buy the first set you found, or do you search on different sites to compare prices? What if you could find the right tires and get them for the lowest price at one site? If you’d like to learn more about a website that allows you to find the best deals on tires, don’t miss this episode of Gain Traction!
What if there were a legitimate site where you could find the best deals on tires, like Priceline helps you find the best deals on travel? According to Tim Shaffer of Search Tires, that service exists in Florida and is likely headed to other markets soon. Are you ready to change how you shop for tires online?
In this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge welcomes Tim for a conversation about searchtires.com, a website where you can find the right tires for your vehicle at the lowest price. It helps you find the right size tires, shows where they’re offered near you, and displays the price at each location. Tim talks about how he came up with the idea, the process for a tire customer to find the right fit, and how Search Tires ensures it has the most accurate and up-to-date information. Tune in!
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Tim Shaffer explains why Search Tires is advantageous for the consumer
- How Search Tires learns about what each shop charges for in-house fees
- Why Search Tires can be considered “Priceline for tires”
- Which markets Search Tires currently serves, and where it can be utilized in the future
- How the idea for a site like searchtires.com came about
- Search Tires’ guarantee to remain transparent and agnostic, remaining unaffiliated with retailers
- How Tim got into the tire industry
- Why developing Search Tires is the most exciting part of Tim’s career so far
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, where we feature top automotive entrepreneurs and experts and share their inspiring stories. Now let’s get started with the show.
Mike Edge:
Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast. Mike Edge here. I am the host of Gain Traction, where I talk with top automotive business leaders about their personal journeys and experiences in the tire and automotive repair industry. Today’s episode is brought to you by Tread Partners and the ReTread program. Tread Partners has designed a product called retread that is a full-scale re-engagement program to win back previously lost customers. It is a one-time 90-day program that generates a guaranteed 10 to one return from your old customers. That’s correct. A 10 to one guaranteed ROI. No tricks, no gimmicks. It’s your customers. We just get them back inside your shop for you. So what are you waiting for? Check us out at treadpartners.com. Visit us or email us at [email protected].
Mike:
Today’s episode. We have Timothy Shaffer, who is our guest. Timothy is a sales and operations leader with over 30 years of professional experience and a deep commitment to mentoring, coaching, and creating a team of category managers. His career success includes mentoring three staff. Folks from his career went from changing oil to C-Suite. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of Search Tires, LLC. It’s known as SearchTires.com, the world’s first and price comparison search engine. He is also president of a company called Yet, a subsidiary of prepared Patriot brands. Tim, welcome to the podcast.
Tim Shaffer:
Thanks for having me, Mike. Appreciate it.
Mike:
Man. I’m glad to have you on here. I’m excited to talk about this product, Search Tire, so let’s just get right into it. It’s a search engine, and it’s for the consumer. Tell us about why it’s advantageous to the consumer. What does Search Tires do for the consumer?
Tim:
Well, yeah, I’m super excited. Actually, we just launched beta this week and it’s going really good.
Tim:
So most companies have bigger companies. If you go look for airlines or anything else like that, hotels, you can go to places. You can compare all your prices. Well, tires is a 43 billion industry and you don’t have anything to go compare on, so I come up with this concept really in 2008, but been working through all this over the years and we finally come out with SearchTires.com. And what that does is knocks down the consumer frustration of searching for multiple sites, then searching, then calling the local tire shops for pricing, calling for ability scheduling.
Tim:
And there’s no aggregator to fix this problem. So we come up with SearchTires.com, which lets them in a easy three step process. Really within a minute, they can go in, year, make, model, trim, determine their best optimal tire choices, get the best price, reach the retailer by making an appointment on the website, clicking a column or getting direction to their location. This does all that within a minute. So it’s a pretty robust search engine and it not only does it quicker, it gives you the [inaudible 00:03:16] door price with your mounting and balancing your shop fees, your tire disposal fees. So when someone’s looking on our site, they’re actually looking apples to apples. So, that’s what we’re super excited about.
Mike:
Let me ask you a question. Where do you get the data to know what each shop does for their in house fees?
Tim:
So in-house fees are basically we call and get all the pricing from them. We just call a store, shop it and they enter in all that stuff. Usually we get them email to us. A lot of them, you can do it online. What we’re doing is we’re getting all that information then we’re providing it on our sites. Saves the customer that time.
Mike:
Oh, absolutely.
Tim:
So they don’t have to go do that.
Mike:
That’s why I was trying to qualify it. So it’s authentic. It’s not a guess. It’s you guys have actually done the search for them and qualified the information and this is what it is. So now you can get to not cut in time and have everything on one screen to take a look at. Just like you said, hotels, airlines, everything else. This is price line for tires, right?
Tim:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that’s why we’re super excited about it because in testing the UI and UX, we went through and we tested this. I mean, we wanted to launch in December. We just launched and it’s the end of June, but the product is really slick. It’s really easy to use and very customer friendly in the reviews and stuff. And the performance we’ve got in the first three days since we launched beta has been unbelievable. I mean, I think that we’ve had over 5,000 hit and I think we’re converting at about 20% and converting means someone going to their website, clicking the call or getting directions to their location is how we qualify conversion.
Mike:
Now, are you testing this nationally or regionally right now?
Tim:
We’re just testing it in a state of Florida right now. And probably within, like I said, we’re in beta, because we’re trying to, if there’s any kinks or anything in the beginning, we want to work them out now. Although we’ve had a team working on it for a long time to get it to this place, but probably by, within three to four weeks built, we’ll be nationwide. And by nationwide I mean all the major markets.
Mike:
I gotcha. And so you’re talking about the Dallas, Houston’s, New York’s, LA’s.
Tim:
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We’ve ran down the top 50 DMAs and that’s where we’re going and then them DMAs, they encompass a lot of things, so they carry a lot, they cover a lot of area, right? So yeah. And that’s going to get the highest and best use for our customers and for us. And then after that launches, we’ll go ahead and we’ll backfill into secondary and third markets.
Mike:
That’s awesome.
Tim:
Try to get as much coverage as we can, yeah.
Mike:
No, and it’s going to take time, but you’re right. But I think testing it, obviously, if you had a few good days on a product that people don’t even really know and you’re getting that type of conversion rate, that’s extraordinary. I mean, I love it. I love the product. I was excited about having you on here. I was glad that Chan introduced us and yeah, I can see a long future into this because A, me as a consumer will use this as soon as you’re in my market. I mean, I would have no reason not. Why wouldn’t I?
Tim:
Right. And the cool thing about it is it’s free to the customer. We don’t charge customers or we don’t charge anybody, anything for this. So it’s clean, slick use. We just want to help you get the best deal on the tire prices that you can. And you’ll be surprised when you start comparing apples to apples, that you’ll be able to save up to 73 to $74 a tire in some cases. It’s a lot.
Mike:
Oh yeah, that’s-
Tim:
It really helps the consumer.
Mike:
Absolutely. I mean, you’re talking about $280 potentially in savings.
Tim:
Yes. Oh for sure. Yeah. And we’ve seen it, we’ve pulled it. We’ve done some testing on it. Now, some of them is from going from a 60,000 mile tire to 60,000 mile tire. But we’ve had tests on $74. It’s the same tire at two different retailers and out the door it’s $74 a tire cheaper for the same tire. And that’s what’s huge.
Mike:
Really a mind boggling and it’s extraordinary that the consumer doesn’t realize that all the time. Tell me where did this idea conceive from? I mean, I know you said you thought of it in 2008. So was it a personal frustration that got you to this point or industry experience that just took you into it? Or what were you thinking?
Tim:
Well, honestly, it’s a pretty funny story actually. So I was in the tire industry for over 25 years and I was actually on vacation, which is rare in the tire industry cause you don’t usually get vacations, but I was out in Colorado skiing. I was sitting in a hot tub and I was listening to a guy on the next Villa over talking about how he was a kayak searching for his trip. And I’m sitting there thinking I was just by myself, the kids and the wife are inside. And I just said, “Why don’t we have something like this for tires?”
Tim:
And that’s where the Genesis came from and then started working and worked through a couple different models. It was hard to get to the right model. Did something earlier in the mid two thousands. And we launched, I mean, 2012 to 2014. It was a really robust thing. And it was just, it was early and it was a little hard to grasp for retailers and stuff like that at the time. And now we’re just completely forward facing to the consumer and we just want to bring the consumer to the retailers and give them the best price they can get to go get the tire put on today, so.
Mike:
So I’m going to play skeptic here. I’m going to play skeptic here as somebody sitting out there thinking, okay, well, what if these guys, what if they’re catering to dealers that pay to be listed or somehow get ranked or show their favorable pricing is … How does that work? I mean, right now, you get dealers by just qualifying them and getting their prices, but are they going to pay to be on in the future?
Tim:
We don’t know what the future plans are, but I can tell you this. One thing is for sure that the site will remain 100% transparent and agnostic. We’re not going to be tied to money to any retailer at all. We’re going to be tied to the customer, getting the best price for the tire. That’s always been my vision and my goal. And some people say, oh, that could be a race to the bottom. It’s really not a race to the bottom. There’s so many different sizes of tires and so many different manufacturers, depending on what tire you wan. It’s just going to give the consumer that deal. And in the future, I can’t speak for all the future plans of what we’re going to do, but I can tell you that we’re never going to not be agnostic. We will always be agnostic and transparent about everything we’re doing.
Mike:
Well, and that’s what’ll make it work. I mean, and but you may sell advertising on the site, right? Potentially?
Tim:
Right. Yeah. Yep. [crosstalk 00:10:21] We may do advertising. That’s something’s in there. Yeah. Keep the door open. But again, it’s agnostic. How it does it right now is it does it, when you log in and you put in your make, model, trim and you look at the tires, it goes from the lowest price to the highest price. That’s how it’s sorted. You can filter it, you can go in and filter it by brand and all them different things. But initially it’s always from lowest to highest price. And then you can go in and pick Michelin or Goodyear or Firestone, whatever one you want. And it’ll just show those tires from lowest to highest.
Mike:
So the site is SearchTires.com, correct?
Tim:
Correct. Yes.
Mike:
Folks, if you guys want to check it out, you can’t. If you don’t live in Florida, you can’t do anything on it right now, but just be patient, but you can at least look at the beta test. Correct?
Tim:
Yeah. You can go in and you can just … pulls your IP address to let us know where you’re at, but you can also just punch in a Florida address and then you can walk through it and see exactly how it works. In some markets, it actually … I was out in Texas earlier this week and it works out there. It pulls some data from stuff off your IPs out there cause some of the retailers we have set up are in Texas too. So a lot of the big brands, so yeah. You’re able to see some, but it’s just to get the robustness of the site it’s best to do it in Florida for now until probably three to four weeks from now. And then we should be in every major market.
Mike:
Well, Tim, tell us a little bit about you got in the tire industry. You said you’ve been in it 25 years. Did you just get in it by accident or was it family based? You know what I mean? Did you choose it? How did you-
Tim:
I actually chose it. I mean, I’ve always loved cars from probably nine, 10 years old, love racing and all that kind of stuff. So when I was younger, I started pumping gas when I was 15 at a gas station. And then I was in the oil change bay and I worked myself up from the bottom to being an executive at one of the biggest retailers in the United States. And it’s a great … I’m still excited about our industry. I know our industry is different than a lot. It’s a lot of hard work, but in the end, if you do it right, it’s really about taking care of people. And that’s the biggest thing for me. And that’s what I get out of it.
Tim:
I always say it’s a hundred percent about people, but it’s not just about the people you work with. It’s about the customer too, and your employees. It’s about everybody working together and completely understanding and coaching and mentoring people, why we want to do things. Educating the customer a little bit if they’re open to it on why this is better than that. And then working in an environment where you can work with your peers and come up with solutions for problems is … Anybody can give you a list of problems, but that’s just a reporter. We like people that can provide the solutions and that’s where I really come in, and I think working myself from the bottom all the way up, it let me see to the lens of everybody on the way up. And I care about everybody in an organization because without all of them, it doesn’t work, so. And I feel that way about the customer too.
Mike:
Totally agree. I mean, and I had an old gentleman one time say to me, the first set of customers that you have is your employees. If you make them happy, they’ll make your paying customer happy per se. And-
Tim:
That’s right.
Mike:
… there’s a lot of truth to that. So, who’s been a good mentor to you in this industry or outside of the industry. I mean, somebody that just had effect on your creativity as a businessman, as an entrepreneur, as an executive, as somebody that’s moved to this industry. Does anybody stand out in mind that’s a mentor that if you ever had a chance you’d go back and thank?
Tim:
Yeah, well, first and foremost, I would think that my grandfather taught me work ethic. He taught it to me by saying it. But when I looked up at the end of the day, my father showed it to me by getting up and going to work every day in a suit, because he worked for IBM and when you’re young and you’re impressionable, you really don’t notice until you get older of, wow, that really taught me a lesson. And then coming up through the industry, I had many good people that had mentored me, took me under their wing, coach me, told me why we did things and what it was. But it started from an early age and the list is long, but yeah, there’s been many in the industry that have helped me come through and be the person I am. And some mentors, not really mentors, but some people I’d worked with weren’t so good and it taught me what not to do also, so there’s a little bit of all that in the industry.
Mike:
I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, sometimes you can learn from the guy that you don’t need to mimic, or [inaudible 00:15:03], right?
Tim:
I’m afraid so.
Mike:
And you mentioned something that’s near and dear to my heart. My dad, he was a great example on me and I don’t know what it was. I mean, but I don’t think my dad ever slept in, you know what I mean? So it was like that model, just getting up and doing, and being active even when he got older and whatnot. He still got up made coffee every morning at 5:30. It was his ritual and that’s what he did. And those things you don’t know at the time, but they have a big impact on you. Now you look back and you go, dang. I mean, he did it every day.
Tim:
I don’t think my dad ever had a sick day in my life that I’ve seen. I mean, every day I woke up, I’m an early bird too. I like to get up early. I guess I get that from my dad even no matter how late I’d go out the night before, but he was always up at five every morning and he was out the door by 6:30 and I thought that was normal until I had my son.
Mike:
Well, give me a highlight of your career so far. I mean, you’ve done a lot of different things, but I’m excited about this one. I mean, would you consider coming up with this website and this whole program for searching for tires, would you consider this one of the biggest highlights of your career or most exciting?
Tim:
This is the most exciting thing that I’ve done. It’s a cumulation of all the stuff that I’ve been able to accomplish in the business itself, starting from … I mean, the biggest thing for me is I went to work at TBC corporation, which a lot of people know who that is in the business, but I mean, it was really tire kingdom in the beginning in 2000 when Sumitumo had just purchased it. And Larry Day was the chairman and Portland Wallford was the CEO and Bill Lincoln was the COO.
Tim:
And I was able to go in there and perform and work my way up through the ranks, which you’re not always afforded that. But then we expanded so much and I was on all these transition teams and being able to travel the nation in different tire retailer markets really helped me hone in on my skills of different areas, different people, different expectations, and brought that all the cumulation of SearchTires.com and it’s super exciting for me right now, just because of the … You always envision it doing well and there’s always things we can do better, but I’m just telling you that the response has been great and I think we’re going to grow and we’re going to be really good for people shopping for tires as well as doing philanthropy work too.
Tim:
That’s another big thing that the company wants to get into as well, is helping others out and doing certain things to their future as well. And as well as motor sports and everything, we all have them dreams, right, of seeing our name on the side of a NASCAR and stuff like that. It would be really cool.
Mike:
No, I can really see that. I love y’all’s logo. I love the brand. I love the colors. I think I could literally picture that right now on the hood of a car or do the whole car. Have it all wrapped in SearchTires.com. No, it’s an exciting. Well, I think I mentioned to you, I’ve been a little bit involved with software before, and I know the pitfalls. Were your expectations somewhat met in the last few days in regards to the beta testing? I mean, were you surprised by the show of, I guess…
Tim:
I think they’ve exceeded my expectations just in an engagement way just because before, when we did it before, it was a little different and the way we’re going to business now, it’s so much different and it’s so much easier for the customer to use. So, going through it before and not having it really work out the way I wanted it to and seeing this success now, even though it’s early on, has really been … I think it’s over performed for me, but you know as well as I do, it’s only been a few days, so you got to wake up and do it every day, so.
Mike:
That’s right. Well, believe it or not, our timeframe is already up, but I do want to ask you one tough question before I let you go. And you can give me up to three, but what’s your favorite movie of all time? I think always asking people about a movie gives a good insight of who they are, what they like. So you got a movie that stands out to you. If you had it’s number one, or you could say three. I’ve had here in the recent past, somebody give me a couple comedies and a serious movie, so anything stand out to you?
Tim:
Well, I think Top Gun would be one that, the original Top Gun. And yeah, the original Top Gun is just because that’s when I was a lot younger then, and then I think Tommy Boy would be a comedy that I like. And I’m a huge James Bond fan. And that’s another thing that draws me to cars is the cars that James … Who wouldn’t want to live that lifestyle?
Mike:
Well, there is something about, I mean I really like the old James Bonds. I like Sean Connery in James, those were solid. Not that the new ones aren’t but there’s something about how, I don’t know. He just, he was just so much more confident, I guess, than the older ones. It just had that style to it or whatever, but Tommy Boy, I mean, look, I’ve been a sales guy, my entire life. So Tommy Boy, I’ve got Tommy Boy’s stories. I really should document them in a book. I mean, those are great choices.
Mike:
Well, listen, I can-
Tim:
And I think also one more, Talladega Nights. I mean, you can’t go anywhere without Shake ‘N Bake.
Mike:
No doubt about it. Thanks for being on the podcast. It’s been fun and hope you come back sometime and tell us how it’s going for you, because I’m really excited about the product that you got going. And I encourage our listeners to check out SearchTires.com. It’s going to be in an area near you soon. We don’t know exactly when. Are you going to post that maybe, how you’re going to roll that out maybe on the site if somebody wanted to know?
Tim:
Yeah. Oh yeah. We’ll roll it out. Yeah. We have a really good advertising arm and we’ll let people know. And that’s another thing we got to get into not to go too deep, but we’re going to get more into grassroots too as well. So, we really like that. Yeah.
Mike:
Let’s say on the site, can somebody go on the site and see when it might come to their area, for instance?
Tim:
Well, it’s live on their area right now when they punch in their zip. Well, their automatic zip code will pull up and it’ll pull up some stores right now, but it just won’t have the robustness of that. Cause if the stores we have on right now, which are the major retailers most of them, it’ll probably show something, but it’ll be more robust in three to four weeks, so.
Mike:
Excellent. Well, Tim, thank you for being on the Gain Tracks and podcast. It’s been a great pleasure and hope you’ll come back sometime and tell our listeners. Thank you for being part of our podcast. If you’d like to recommend guests to us, please email me at [email protected]. Anything you want to add?
Tim:
No, I thank you for your time and thanks for having me. And I look forward to coming back and talking more about SearchTires and everything in automotive, right?
Mike:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, till the next time everybody have a great day.
Announcer:
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Transcript
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