Specialty tire wholesaler Gallagher Tire grows capacity

POTTSTOWN, Pa. — Specialty tire wholesaler Gallagher Tire Inc. is on solid footing during the pandemic, having just consolidated two warehouses into a larger distribution center.

And despite the challenging year, the family-owned firm is setting sales records for agriculture tires.

"We're up across the board on all ag tires, which has been fantastic," J.P. Gallagher, the second-generation owner of Gallagher Tire, said. Year-over-year, ag tire sales are up about 20%, he said.

"The year has been, certainly, a challenge, … but I can't complain," Mr. Gallagher said.

"We lost some business, but compared to some others and those outside the industry who are still feeling it, I feel very fortunate to have been able to weather the storm pretty well."

In late March, he said, he noticed a number of customers starting to pull back on orders, but then he started to see some signs of life again in May.

"Like many, we had a record month in June, and it's been very busy since," he said.

The company distributes a variety of specialty tires up and down the East Coast, including ATV/UTV, construction, ag, forklift, trailer, skid-steer and lawn and garden tires, among others.

Gallagher Tire, which has been in business for 52 years, offers a number of tire brands, including Alliance, Camso, Carlisle, Firestone, Goodyear Farm, Kenda, Nexen and Titan.

Mr. Gallagher said the move to the new facility late last year/early this year was two years in the making as the company looked for the right place to grow into. Prior to the move, the distributor operated three warehouses, in Levittown and Harrisburg, Pa., and Liverpool, N.Y.

"We've been fortunate to have growth over the last seven, eight, nine years — since the Great Recession — but we didn't increase our square footage anywhere," he said. "So, we were really bursting at the seams around 2016-17. It was becoming a challenge logistically."

The company found its new location and started to move in November 2019. It was operating 100% out of the new location in February, he said. The Harrisburg and Levittown warehouses were closed for good during the winter; the Levittown facility was acquired by McCarthy Tire Service, which renovated the site to accommodate commercial tire service and foam-filling work.

The new facility is located just south of Pottstown along the Schuylkill River in Spring City, about 45 minutes northwest of Philadelphia.

"It fits our size needs. It allows for growth in the future," he said.

Mr. Gallagher said the new facility has double the size — 144,000 square feet — and with higher ceilings, "we've probably added 40% capacity," he said.

He added that consolidating the distribution centers has made the company more efficient, too. As the company's footprint grows — from Maine to the Carolinas, he said — the firm has been using third-party shipping.

"One of the motivations to move into a bigger warehouse was to decrease the amount of times we were moving tires internally and also allow us to get shipments out faster."

With colder weather in the spring, Mr. Gallagher said, "it was a little bit slower start to spring than normal without the pandemic, and then throw that in the mix, and it was definitely a challenging few months."

The company has not laid off any employees during the pandemic, though its salespeople are working from home, and warehouse hours and overtime were reduced for about a month, Mr. Gallagher said. The company employs around 55 people.

"When the pandemic hit, I was looking at my inventory — and of course with the new building, I ordered quite a bit more — and we had never been at the levels that had been in March of this year.

"It was scary for a little while, but the team came together, our customers are fantastic, and we were able to do what needed to be done."

Gallagher Tire upgraded its website, gallaghertire.com, to a dual retail and wholesale site in late summer 2019.

"It was a completely new platform for us … so it took a lot of customization and programming and a lot of hard work from a few people here at the company," he said. "… We had some stressful times (setting up the system) but have worked through it."

The wholesaler ran it as a retail website as they worked through setting it up and then added the wholesale customers in December 2019.

"Now, we are trying to look to the future to what else we can add to provide value on the site and allow the customers to get all of the information they need."

He said the company takes 70% to 75% of its orders through the website.

"It's amazing how fast things continue to change, and we try and stay with it because that's what the customers are demanding," he said.