Michelin Tyres buy 40% stake in French Online Tyre store, starts a series of take-Overs.

Original Article by Eric Roberts on www.wintertyres-yorkshire.co.uk

Michelin Tyres Throw Down the Gauntlet with the 40% Acquisition of French Online Company ALLPNUES

Wow I have been saying for the past two years that we in the tyre trade are living in interesting times, but this announcement is one of the most interesting stories I have yet to come across?

Michelin are going online?

This will be done with a 40% acquisition of the French online tyre retailer “Allpnues”. The online tyre company sold 3 million tyres online last year, which accounts for 7% of the French tyre market.

Michelin to use ATS as the fitting stations

Michelin have also announced that they are going to use their network of ATS tyre depots to carry out their fitting work, across Europe.

When I first read the story I thought that Michelin Tyres were just going to supply France and use the French ATS depots, but they say that they will be using al the ATS depots across Europe. I did notice that some of the local ATS depots were not doing any truck work anymore and have been smartened up for retail, and so this has been a plan of theirs for some time.

One thing is for sure, this will kick off repercussions amongst tyre wholesalers and will there be a big rush from the other tyre manufacturers to compete on the same lines. This effectively means that Michelin are missing out the middle man, which at the moment, are the big tyre wholesalers.

I can remember years ago when Michelin decided to go into ASDA to sell tyres. This too caused a huge rumpus and I think that it was ATS who eventually stopped the process and Michelin closed down the tyre shops within the supermarket. This time ATS will be one of the main players and have no complaints.

Michelin Tyres buy 40% stake in French Online Tyre store

I also wonder what Michelin Tyres will do with other brands that Allpnues also sell? Will they be pushing out their own product. I think so. It is a big investment to make just to sell Dunlop’s and Continentals products.

Whatever happens. For this reason. Has certainly changed the game big style? But I can’t help feeling that this is the way to go, it makes good business sense and will cut out the middle man as I have

stated earlier. It could be the start of another dot/com boom, but in the tyre industry, watch this space?

Pellon Tyre and Auto-centre offer car and van servicing and repairs to all makes of vehicles, also selling tyres online in the Halifax area.