We’ve all heard the phrase, "Some things never change." In the world of collision repair, this is particularly true. While collision repair techniques, paint matching and other tricks of the trade will continue to evolve (and, hopefully, improve) as we approach the millennium, your shop’s status as the "middle man" won’t change.

On one side, you’ve got a customer with a damaged vehicle who wants it repaired. On the other, you’ve got the insurance company that will pay to repair it but wants to squeeze you for the best quote possible.

For the most part, this day-in, day-out scenario makes for steady business and gets the bills paid — but it’s highly competitive and doesn’t necessarily allow your business to grow. To get a step up on the competition and ensure business year round, many shops have turned to custom paint/body work and other services not related to collision repair, such as window tinting or detailing. And these services can increase business, but they typically rely solely on word of mouth for success because volume and profit margins often aren’t high enough to support a promotional budget. Plus, there’s nothing to stop the shop across the street from offering the same services, putting you back at square one.

For these reasons, many body shop owners have begun exploring other opportunities to increase profits — namely, sprayed-on bedliners. Why? For one thing, all bedliner brands are set up for the authorized dealer (in many cases, a body shop owner) to achieve a 40-65 percent gross margin after accounting for both material and labor, and about half of the selling price to the consumer is available to cover overhead and profit. Also, because virtually all brands of bedliners are sold with a protected territory, once a bedliner shop goes up, you’re not going to see another one of that same brand right down the street.

It makes a lot of sense to consider a bedliner business. After all, last year almost 7 million new trucks were sold, and of all the aftermarket accessories available for these trucks, the Specialty Equipment Market Assocation (SEMA) reports that bedliners are the second most popular item purchased. Add to this the fact that the National Automotive Dealers Assocation (NADA) Official Used Car Guide reports that a bedliner enhances a truck’s re-sale value, and you’ve got a business that not only has built-in customers, but is an easy sell to boot.

And sprayed-on bedliners are a natural for body shops. With a relatively small investment in equipment and materials, a body shop with an extra 350 square feet of space can create an application area using curtains made from inexpensive polyethylene tarps available at mass merchandisers nationwide. Plus, spray polyurethane isn’t limited to pick-up beds; it can be used on rocker panels to prevent rock chips, on roofs of motorhomes to seal leaks and on the inside of industrial tanks to prevent damage/corrosion.

There are also other, not-so-obvious benefits to the bedliner business. Because sprayed-on bedliners aren’t related to collision repair, you don’t have to deal with any insurance companies; you have the opportunity to make your customers happy by providing a value-added service — rather than merely satisfying them with a correctly repaired vehicle — and the opportunity to make yourself a lot of extra money. And by advertising your sprayed-on bedliner business, you’re advertising your body shop at the same time.

When you take everything into consideration, you may find that sprayed-on bedliners are an excellent and convenient way to bring in new customers — who bring with them a new source of income for your shop.

Writer Lou Frank is vice president of marketing for Perma-Tech Sprayed-on Bedliners. Frank can be reached at (216) 663-7200 or at [email protected].