Ever wondered if the drivers in your state wreck more often than drivers in other states? Curious how many repair dollars are spent each year in your state or what your shop’s annual gross profit potential is? Look no furtherTurns out Arizona isn’t just the place to be if you’re an allergy sufferer or a senior citizen. It’s also the place to be if you’re a shop owner.

Every shop in Arizona has the potential to make some serious cash – $945,700 annually, to be exact – making Arizona the most promising state in terms of potential gross sales per shop.

If, however, you live in Vermont and own a shop, the odds of getting rich aren’t in your favor (unless you’ve got an “in” at the lottery commission). Vermont’s high ratio of shops to registered vehicles, along with the lowest crash rate in the country, makes for a repressed market and potential gross sales per shop of only $79,124 annually.

Obviously, potential gross sales will never be split equally among all the shops in a state (we’re not a socialistic society nor are all shop owners equally adept at business ownership), but examining these numbers does give us an idea of what states have more profit potential for collision repairers.

And potential sales per shop is just one tidbit of interesting research* that BodyShop Business has uncovered in its most recent industry research project.

What else did we discover?

Our goal for this project was to determine:

• Crash rate per state (reported crashes divided by vehicle population per state);
• Total U.S. crashes (since all wrecks aren’t reported);
• The percentage of total crashes that goes on to be repaired;
• The number of repairs performed per state;
• Repair dollars generated per state;
• The overall repair market in dollars; and
• The annual gross sales potential for all shops in all 50 states (total repair dollars per state divided by the number of shops per state).

Let me just say that putting together accurate research on the collision repair industry is about as easy as getting two Siamese cats to play nice.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s lots of research out there on the collision industry – but much of it isn’t anywhere close to being accurate. The thing you need to keep in mind is that most research is based on assumptions. Problem is, some of the research out there is based solely on assumptions.

How can you tell the difference between credible and questionable research? Always check the researcher’s methodology. Where did the numbers come from? What sources were used to compile the research? If someone doesn’t list a methodology, a light bulb should go off above your head. Be wary.

What we’ve tried to do here is find credible sources with credible numbers to back up our own research. Naturally, we had to make some assumptions ourselves, but our assumptions are based on what credible sources – such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Crash Data Report – are telling us.

With all that said, we think the numbers speak for themselves – making our state-by-state analysis of the U.S. collision repair market the most comprehensive and accurate study of its kind.

Writer Georgina K. Carson is editor of BodyShop Business. You can e-mail her at [email protected].