Cowser Tire's key to success? ‘Out-service' the competition

FORT WORTH, Texas — It's one of this industry's fundamental questions: How does a single-shop dealership compete with the industry's Goliaths that have multiple outlets in the same area?

"You have to out-service them," is the simple answer that Kevin Davis, owner of Cowser Tire and Service, a predominantly commercial-oriented dealership in Forth Worth, offers.

"Service is key to the whole thing," he told Tire Business recently. "You can be a few bucks higher, but in commercial, if you can get the guy up and running 30 minutes faster, he'll pay you."

Founded in 1989 as a single service truck operating out of the garage of the Davis family home in suburban Dallas, Cowser Tire has been established at its current 30,000-sq.-ft. location in north Fort Worth since 2007.

The business has nearly tripled in size since then to $28 million in revenue — split 70/30 commercial/retail — and 82 employees. An expansion of the dealership's retread business, Cowtown Retreading, is in the offing for later this year.

While Davis cited service as the key to competing with larger colleagues, he also recognizes the reality that these days one needs to be affiliated with a buying or marketing group to stay competitive in pricing.

To that end, Cowser Tire — which also is part of the Goodyear commercial tire supply line — joined the Independent Tire Dealers Group (ITDG) two years ago.

"Prior to that," he said, "we were a very small fish in a very large pond. ITDG incorporated several brands for us under one umbrella, providing us lots more choices at decent prices."

"We're now able to compete in most markets, … be competitive 95% of the time."

Cowser Tire — the name is a carryover from an existing business Davis' father, Mike Davis, acquired in the mid-1980s — has established accounts with lots of smaller fleets (no more than 10 trucks) in the company's business footprint, which Davis said stretches out about 100 miles in all directions from the shop's location near the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

That business model works to Cowser Tire's advantage in more than one way, Davis said.

Besides the obvious — tires — Cowser Tire has seen a marked uptick in mechanical business from its fleet customers, especially in the past few years.

"We honestly didn't see the growth of the truck mechanical business that's come our way," Davis said. "Fleets, especially the smaller ones, are outsourcing that more and more. Larger fleets have their own mechanics — we might get their overflow from time to time — but smaller fleets don't have their own mechanics."

One other benefit from developing and fostering good relations with smaller fleets is less obvious — retail sales.

"Anyone who has a fleet of trucks," Davis noted, "they and their employees all have cars that need servicing as well." That angle can add up to thousands of potential customers who already are familiar with Cowser Tire.

Cowser Tire branched into retreading in 2016 with the opening of a Goodyear system plant in a 30,000-sq.-ft. structure located a block or two from the dealership's main building.

That decision has paid solid dividends ever since, Davis said, but especially in the past couple of years during the supply-chain crisis and tire shortages.

"I think during the cycle — with prices high and supply short — people took a second look at retreading," Davis said, noting the company experienced unanticipated rapid growth in that business.

"We feel retreading is going to keep growing," he said, "despite tire prices coming down and supplies improving.

"You'd be surprised," he said, "but there are new people going into the trucking business, (and it's) shocking how many don't know anything about retreading. It's a big opportunity for us."

His confidence in the retread business led to his decision to expand the business with the addition of a third curing chamber. To effect that, Cowser Tire plans to build a dedicated structure for the expanded retread production. Davis hopes to have construction on that project under way by this summer.

Once the retread business is relocated into the new 30,000-sq.-ft structure, to be built on the same seven-acre plot where the existing plant resides, Cowser Tire will convert the vacated space to another profit center, wheel refurbishing.

Cowser Tire also has built up a substantial business in servicing forklifts and other materials-handing equipment with solid tires. "We've become the go-to guys when businesses have no clue where else to turn," Davis said.

The day Tire Business spoke with Davis, he was still recovering from the effects of a COVID infection, which led to the question: How did Cowser Tire fare during the pandemic?

"Honestly," Davis said, "we barely skipped a beat.

"We're open six days a week, and we closed a few Saturdays during COVID when the drive-up business faded away. But we do a lot of fleet checks on Saturday, and since trucking was deemed a necessary business, we had to be here as well."

Plus, he noted, Cowser Tire offers 24/7 roadside assistance, so those employed in that line of work had to be on duty as well.

He did acknowledge, though, that it was "kinda nice to close a few Saturdays, … got to do some fishing."

One aspect of business in the 2020s decade that plagues Cowser Tire is common with most other small businesses: finding and keeping good employees.

"We struggle daily with that," he said. "We've got our core key people who've been here a number of years. They tend to stay, but we have fairly high turnover in other positions.

"There's lot of competition for jobs," he lamented. "People can earn the same or a bit less for less strenuous work. Working from home [during the pandemic] hampered us as well. People don't want to work out of home any more."

To compensate, Cowser has raised wages, instituted performance-based commissions and bonuses and offered a package of health-care benefits, a retirement program, life insurance policies, etc.

"Once you have them," he stressed, "do all you can to keep them."