The $30+ billion tire industry is ripe for change. Researching and buying tires has become a confusing and time-consuming process for consumers.  Tire Consumer is the first online price aggregator allowing you to find the right tires for your car, best prices and availability at local tire stores. 

Tire Consumer has drawn significant attention from giants in the tire industry, including offers of purchase prior to the official launch. Ongoing high-level discussions continue to take place with the largest national tire retailers to secure marketing contracts that will allow for quick national expansion. With a methodical but aggressive expansion plan and partnerships with the biggest names in tires, Tire Consumer will soon be a household name throughout the US. 

There are now thousands of tire related websites and researching online has become overwhelming for consumers. After bouncing around multiple tire manufacture websites, consumers then must search for the local tire store and check availability and pricing. 

The Tire Consumer search-engine solves these friction points and serves as a free resource for consumers looking for the best tire prices at local tire shops. 

According to ESRI, there are now 71+ million tire transactions each year and 83% of all those tire purchases start with an online search. Tire Consumer stands to capitalize on this demand with our robust one-stop-website that's both fast and intuitive to use. 

Tire Consumer has launched in the state of Florida and has been very well received by consumers and initial marketing data shows high engagement and strong conversions.

TireConsumer.com is free for consumers to use. Consumers save time, money and avoid the typical frustrations experienced when buying tires. 

With three simple steps, consumers are able to find tire information and local store pricing & availability. 

Consumers want an unbiased website that allows them to quickly find the best tires for their car, then find the best prices at local tire shops.

Online tire retailers such as TireRack and TireBuyer are growing in popularity but are plagued with inefficiencies such as higher prices (once shipping fees are added) and consumers having to deal with shipping and installation hassles.  Tire Consumer eliminates the challenges of an online tire purchase while giving consumers the ability to purchase their tires the same day at their local tire store.

Tire Consumer gives consumers exactly what they want. 

Brick-and-mortar tire retailers are losing market share to online retailers, a problem that is increasing each year.  Tire Consumer is helping tire retailers regain this market share while also slashing their customer acquisition cost. 

Local tire retailers pay Tire Consumer a fee only when a sale is made. The typical lead cost from Tire Consumer is about half of what tire retailers traditionally see. 

Participating tire retailers also gain access to actionable marketing data and can manage their leads through the real-time dashboard in the Tire Consumer backend office suite. 

CEO and Founder, Tim Shaffer has a large network of relationships in the tire industry reaching back 20+ years, including executives in the largest companies and tire industry associations. Strategic partnerships with national tire companies will add participating tire stores quickly and allow for faster national expansion.

Bringing transparency to an established industry is a disruptive process, but we've managed to get the attention of the right people and have support from influencers in the tire industry.

Both large and small tire retailers benefit from strategic partnerships with Tire Consumer:

Lower customer acquisition cost; $40 vs $70-$80 traditional methods

More efficient marketing efforts; retailers only pay fee when a sale is made

Higher quality leads; consumers are ready to buy, compared to cold walk-ins

Future enhancements include "click to call", sales support systems and more…

The Tire Consumer team has expertise in the tire industry, technology and online marketing. Tim has spent over 25 years in the tire industry, starting as a tire tech and working his way into top management roles, including President of National Tire and Auto, Area Director at Tire Kingdom and as Area Director of Sales & Training with Just Brakes. Tim's long rolodex of industry contacts and his personal relationship with industry leaders has proven instrumental in Tire Consumer's growth and acceptance. 

Byron is a successful entrepreneur, sales leader and online marketing expert. He has more than 15 years experience in optimizing online sales flows and developing scalable direct response marketing strategies. Byron bootstrapped (with Lyle Yarbrough) an e-commerce business which does $5m annually. 

Lyle has experience with Internet start-up businesses and has been instrumental in scaling online marketing campaigns.  He has more than 20 years experience in building internal web applications and has extensive experience in growing affiliate and JV relationships. 

Pete has more than 25 years of development experience, ranging from blue chip to startups. He lead the technology side of Payperpost/Izea and in so doing helped create the sponsored social media explosion in place today. An accomplished author, Pete has written a dozen best selling books on software development, and is also the author of a number of iOS apps, one of which was featured by Apple on the Appstore’s front page.  

Tracy has 20 years experience in Sales & Marketing. She has spent the last eleven years in the Retail Automotive Aftermarket Industry in different roles from Marketing, Sponsorships, Retail Operations, and Corporate Giving. 

Proof of Concept

With a functional platform already established, the focus now is to optimize the consumer's on-page experience and increase conversions, thus lower cost per acquisition.  Once cost per acquisition is below $40, Tire Consumer will be able to scale and expand nationwide.

Additional marketing spend, and thus optimization of the platform, along with our current efforts to sign up participating tire retailers will allow Tire Consumer to achieve proof of concept and justify a raise in stock value before seeking the next round of funding.

Traction with Marketing

By using data scrape methods, we've been able to list almost 500 tire stores on TireConsumer.com for the state of Florida and launch a modest marketing campaign.

An initial Google PPC marketing campaign has allowed us to test the speed and reliability of the platform, optimize page conversions and generate hundreds of consumer reservation leads. 

November '15 campaign provided very high consumer engagement:

 4.8% website conversions, with room for improvement

Marketing lead cost (CPA) at $41.11 and falling

Bounce rates as low as 3% and average 3.5 page views

Falling cost per acquisition and increasing conversion rates

Traction with Strategic Partnerships

Partnering with the largest companies in the tire industry will allow Tire Consumer to expand quickly nationwide.

Sears Automotive (650 stores) and McGee Goodyear Franchisee have executed retailer agreements and we have Letters Of Intent from VIP Tires and Midas with 1,300 stores.  High-level discussions continue with three of the largest tire retailers; TBC Corporation, Firestone and Goodyear.