Andy's Auto Sport is a leading online retailer of automotive accessories and tuning parts. It has been a mainstay in the car modification scene for more than 25 years. It's best known for selling body kits and carbon fiber hoods.
Andy's is headquartered in Monterey, California, but is relocatable since it is a virtual dropship business model. Staff works from home and all products are drop-shipped from suppliers.
At its peak 10 years ago, it generated more than $10 million per year in sales. But the owner had changed his life circumstances and has not put time into nurturing the business since 2016. He only spends 1-2 hours per week on the business currently.
The company spends no money on advertising. All sales and website traffic are free.
KEY INVESTMENT CONSIDERATIONS
The website has excellent Google search results. It has top positions in Google for search terms related to tuning for sport compact cars without any paid placement.
The website had more than 1.8 million unique visitors over the past nine months (no paid advertising).
The website uses a scalable e-commerce platform that was made in-house. It has a product database of more than 200,000 products.
The business has a library of more than 180 tuning ‘how-to’ videos and more than 112,000 subscribers to the YouTube channel
It also has 72,000+ potential customers who have signed up for an email distribution list since the company started collecting addresses in 2015. The company currently does not market to them.
COMPANY HISTORY
Since 1997, the company has been a mainstay in the car modification scene. The company was created by the former owner in 1997, primarily as a website to promote the sale of its custom-manufactured body kits.
In 2000, the new owner purchased the business from the former owner, and the business initially focused on the design and manufacturing of body kits.
The new owner began to add additional aftermarket products to the website and have them drop-shipped directly to customers. By 2005, most sales were no longer from their in-house body kit brand.
The new owner undertook a substantial SEO effort in his first 10 years with the business that resulted in tens of millions of free website visits from people doing Google searches for automotive products. This became the ongoing foundation of sales leads for the company.
From 2011 to 2014, the company generated more than $10 million per year in sales.
In July 2014, the business migrated from a custom in-house web platform to an Oracle Endeca-based system, which had a significant negative impact on company performance.
In 2016, the owner stopped his active involvement in the business and let the company run on autopilot with just order processing functions being completed.
Today, in 2024, the owner spends 1-2 hours per week on the business. The company’s sales were $878,000 in the last 12 months. Other financial reports can be seen in the attached images with this listing.
STAFFING
There is one staff member right now. She lives in Indonesia. The cost of her time is $866 per month for full-time hours.
She answers all emails, inputs and manages orders in Quickbooks Online, processes credit card charges and refunds, and corresponds with vendors. She essentially runs the business.
The owner works 1-2 hours per week and reviews orders that require fraud verification, reviews financial reports, and answers questions from one staff member and the bookkeeper.
The bookkeeper prepares the monthly financial reports.
The company's web developer no longer regularly does web development work for the company, but he is available. He does regularly add new products to the biggest product line. This requires 1-2 hours per month.
PRODUCTS
Andy's is a one-stop shop for car and truck accessories, offering over 200,000 different SKUs. It offers leading brands including Duraflex, Carbon Creations, VIS, Seibon, Tein, Spyder, Cipher Auto, Sparco, and Injen.
It offers products for a range of car platforms, including foreign and domestic cars and trucks. Its history as a body kit company provides a strong presence in sport compact car products.
These are its key product categories:
Exterior Styling (body kits, carbon fiber hoods, headlights, tail lights, fenders, grilles)
Performance and Suspension (exhaust systems, coilovers, lowering kits, superchargers)
Interior Styling (racing seats, steering wheels, custom shift knobs and pedals)
CUSTOMERS
Andy's focuses on DIY car enthusiasts and beginning tuners. Many of the Company’s products can be installed without a professional garage (bolt-on products), including carbon fiber hoods, headlights and exhaust systems
The average order size is approximately $400. 100% of orders come from customers over the Internet. More than 92% of revenue is from customers in the U.S. and Canada.
All sales come through the company’s website. The company does not sell on Amazon or eBay and does not currently take phone calls to take orders by phone.
CUSTOMER EDUCATION
The company has a YouTube channel with videos that it creates in-house. The videos include evergreen buyers guides and step-by-step installation walk-throughs. The videos have an educational nature and cater well to DIY tuners.
The YouTube channel currently has 112,000 subscribers and 23.3 million total views
Andy's spent more than $250,000 creating these videos using high-tech video equipment and an in-house studio that it had at the time. The videos are high quality and offer a lot of potential value since they clearly set this business apart from competitors.
If you look at the Youtube channel and sort by the videos with the most views, you'll get an idea of the caliber of the videos.
FREE MARKETING
Andy's pays nothing for advertising and gets all its traffic from Google searches and from people looking for its brand name.
For the period of Jan 1, 2024, through April 15, 2024, the company received 600,000 unique visitors, according to Google Analytics.
Many people search by name due to brand name recognition. The company has been featured on many popular TV shows, such as “Pimp My Ride” and “Trucks! TV.”. It was featured in the book “How to Build the Cars of the Fast and the Furious.”.
HOW THE COMPANY CAN BE GROWN
Breathe life and passion into the business! The current owner has essentially been absent and burned out for years.
The new owner could market to customer lists. The company does not market to prior customers, email list subscribers (72,000), or to its social media channels. Also, there are no new videos being made, missing out on 112,000 YouTube subscribers.
The new owner could engage better with customers. Customers often like to show off their modified vehicles, and if it can give them an outlet to do it through its social media and customer lists, then it could inspire other prospective customers to buy while encouraging repeat business from engaged customers.
The new owner could update product listings on the website. Only one brand of products is updated regularly on the website, yet the site carries hundreds of brands. Adding the newest product offerings and catering to the newest vehicles could offer a sales boost. Also, updating prices regularly keeps prices competitive, and that's not being done right now.
The new owner could also do paid marketing. Remarketing could offer low-hanging fruit. The company also never runs time-limited sales.
The new owner could reignite an SEO effort. The seller could teach the tactics he used for SEO that served so well over the years. SEO hasn't been done for almost a decade for this business.
INCLUDED IN THE SALE
The buyer receives the assets of Andy's Auto Sport (website, domain, databases, and content) as well as its social media accounts (YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram).
The buyer also receives 100+ other automotive domains owned by the company that are a factor in its SEO success.
