Did you know that the biggest selling type of vehicle in USA are trucks? With over 17 million vehicles sold every year in America over 60% of them are a variation of truck. Yet so many body shops are still investing in old painting technology that doesn’t really cater for this growing market. So, the question becomes, why should you give yourself a competitive advantage?

With Growing Concern Over Climate Change Big Vehicles Are Gone

This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons that car painters offer for not needing to upgrade their booths to be able to cope with larger vehicles. Surely with the decrease in large cars and trucks any jobs that come in could just be handled manually.

While small zippy cars are great for very short trips when there is just two of you, for anyone with children they simply aren’t big enough to cope with day to day activities. Around the world governments are increasingly stringent about the safety requirements for children traveling in vehicles. This means large, correctly fitted car seats are mandatory in most places – which in turn means that a teeny car isn’t going to fit those car seats. An even bigger issue comes when the children start to play team sports or want to travel anywhere with friends, as each child needs to be in their own car seat.

So, for a family, trucks like the Toyota Rav4 or Nissan Rouge become the perfect mode of transportation.

However, because families have no money (ask any parent), it isn’t just the need for extra room that is driving the purchase, but the fact that these vehicles are surprisingly economic to run. Hybrid vehicles are becoming more and more popular, making a larger option only marginally more expensive that a little two door shopping trolley.

How Do Repair Shops Increase Their Revenue?

Unless you have a specialist contract you are unlikely to need a paint booth that will be large enough to fit a bus (although this could be an untapped niche in your area, so don’t discard it immediately). However, distracted parents driving large SUVs do have fender-benders. Kids opening car doors in crowded carparks with an energy only achievable by an 8-year old, do cause a lot of damage.

In fact, just living the average American family’s normal life is hectic enough to keep most paint businesses in work for years. Which is why you can increase your yearly turnover by investing in a large truck paint booth like one of these: https://www.paintbooth.com/truck-paint-booths/.

A paint booth allows for a quicker turn around time, and a better finish, meaning that you will be able to get your customers’ back on the road faster. Of course, the ultimate result of this faster turnaround means that you can book more cars through, and your customers are going to be so excited by your work ethic and professionalism that they tell all their dent prone friends.

Marketing Your Business & ROI

Still on the theme of increasing your profit, marketing is a of course a key component to this. But to successfully market yourself you need to have a point of difference and a target market. A key reason to invest in a larger booth is that this allows you to focus on who your target audience is.

While you may decide that you do not really want to get all the business from every single soccer mom in your area, perhaps you would rather work with RV owners, truck firms or specialist equipment. If you are in an area with manufacturing start-ups, a little investigation will likely yield a lot of information about their needs for powder coating and how you could work with them to increase your business and get theirs off the ground.

To ensure that any investment in equipment, particularly large investments, are going to pay off you will need to do your homework, looking at your current business, where the source of current clients come from, then consider the opportunities that may be available. Bear in mind that investing in a larger operation will not prevent you from being able to work with smaller units, but it will give you scope to expand your business if you can develop the opportunities.

You will also need to ask yourself if this investment in equipment is going to be the best use of your funds. Will other options increase your turnover? Do you need to multiphase plan to increase and grow your revenue?

What Type Of Paint Booth Should I Get?

This is a technical question that will certainly require research. There are a variety of options, but things to think about are:

• how large can you physically fit in your current space?
• How longer will it need to be to comfortably fit the largest vehicle you want to work on
• What is the air flow like?
• Will it meet your businesses worker safety protocols (see here)
• What are the maintenance and delivery/installation costs like in comparable models?
• Cross draft or side downdraft or downdraft?
• What sort of filters are used, are they going to be adequate for your needs?

There are a variety of options that will fit into most current auto shop setups, you just need to make sure that you get the right one. It is a large investment, but if you talk to the right supplier, it is an investment that could pay for itself, and then some, very quickly.