New Zealand commercial vehicle supplier Geemac Trading says stocking up on a large amount of supply was one of its key strategies for getting through the first few months of COVID-19.
Specialising in driver and operator seats, Geemac represents the well- respected Isringhausen (ISRI) brand.
ISRI seats are standard equipment in the majority of trucks sold in New Zealand and Australia while the New Zealand bus and coach sectors are also big customers of the brand and Geemac are also the preferred supplier for KiwiRail.
Geemac sales manager Callum McKendry says although business is still down to about 85% of regular trading, things are still moving along thanks in part to its strong supply of stock.
With delays at ports and vessels being cancelled due to Covid, there have been a lot of issues in securing supply chains for many distributors, he says.
“We detected early on a big issue like that so we ordered a large supply of product to get us through the Covid period,” he says.
ISRI seats and parts come from Germany through to the head office in Sydney before reaching New Zealand.
McKendry says there were “massive delays” earlier in the year when the German factory had to shut down.
However, family owned and operated Geemac was ready to respond.
From an ISRI standpoint, the company chose to airfreight in short notice an additional two units across the full drivers’ seat range. Usually they make sure to always have two of anything on hand, but this was expanded to four of everything.
When it came to parts, they looked at average sales of each part over the coming three month period starting in February, and doubled it.
“Customers have come to us because other companies didn’t have ability to adjust and to move at short notice,” he says.
“The biggest effect has been a downturn in business confidence, and we have seen customers are tighter with their wallets.”
Geemac was still able to operate as an essential service to keep trucks, buses and rail moving during the lockdown period.
“We have plenty of stock across all of our brands, including plenty of Aurora heaters/demisters, Hanover destination signs and parts and Isringhausen seats and spare parts,” McKendry says.
“Aurora heaters and demisters peak in demand when winter hits as the operators look to turn them on for the first time in 12 months.
“We brought in enough stock to cover this season, however with big delays and pending new builds, we wanted to have units available through the rest of the year, so we brought in enough to cover that too.”
*This story first appeared in the November issue of TransportTalk. Click here to download a free copy of the magazine.
