2/25/09

A Safe Way To Try Color


One of my passions is colored commercial trucks. I built it up to the point that approximately 40% of my entire commercial truck upfitted inventory was color. I stocked every color available, and some more than others. They all sold. Some said it was my insanity, and I say it was my claim to fame. Regardless of the comments of naysayers, it was highly profitable and I had no competition. I like those two in combination with each other.

So, if you want to get your feet wet in the world of commercial truck color, here is a suggestion that may be of help.

The photo above is a really good way to get into color and leave yourself an out. Order up an uplevel cab single rear wheel 3/4 or 1-ton pickup. The photo shown, courtesy of Harbor Truck Bodies is a super cab Ford King Ranch in the Mahogany/Pueblo Gold Metallic combination. With the pickup bed, this is a highly saleable truck. I recommend that you might start with non-metallic colors, but this example is such a sweet looking truck.

If you drop ship it to the service body builder, you will want to work a deal to have them keep the pickup bed stored for you. It may work out better to store it on your lot, then get it to the body company. Regardless, the idea is to order the pickup, remove the pickup bed and add the service body. Down the road, if it doesn't sell in 3-6 months, put the pickup bed back on and get the truck sold and put the service body on a new order. The truck will go down in value, but the body as new will not. There will be a cost to swap bodies, and that will be the cost to play the game, so focus on showing it a lot and not have to do that. Simple, but at least you have a solid plan B here.

In today's world, there are a lot of general contractors and other contractors who don't have a team on the payroll. They bid jobs and sublet parts and keep their costs down. A lot of these people enjoy the superior comfort and convenience of a very nice truck and still have their tools with them. They buy this kind of truck when they find them, or they create them by themselves.

You want to test the market and see what I mean. For the next week, count service bodies you see and record it in two columns. How many are colored and how many are white. I did this recently on a trip of 50 miles early in the morning. I saw 28 service bodies (includes enclosed service bodies like plumber bodies, etc) and 16 of them were colored. Yet, go to the typical commercial truck lot and see if you can even find one colored one. There's opportunity knocking here. . .

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