By Ian McConnell
ENTREPRENEUR Mike Welch has merged his online tyre retailing business in the US with a major player in the sector.
Mr Welch will be president and chief executive of the enlarged business formed by the merger of his Tirescanner business with American Tire Distributors’ (ATD’s) Tirebuyer operation.
Mr Welch sold his previous online tyre business, Peebles-based Blackcircles.com, to Michelin in 2015 for £50 million.
He said the enlarged Tirebuyer business would “operate offices between Edinburgh, Charlotte, Seattle and Philadelphia”.
Mr Welch flagged his view that online tyre retailing in the US was at a "tipping point".
ATD declared Mr Welch would be "instrumental in creating a best-in-class ecommerce platform and the future of online tyre-buying".
The enlarged Tirebuyer will operate more than 11,000 installer partner locations.
Mr Welch said: “By bringing together these two business models we have positioned ourselves to be at the front of this changing landscape. We are approaching a tipping point for online tyre retail in the US. After meeting with the ATD leadership team I was impressed by their big plans for the future looking market and could clearly see the synergy between their vision and mine.”
He added: “In this next chapter we will focus on creating value for all, establishing strategic partnerships across the industry alongside innovative customer solutions. I am very excited to lead the new Tirebuyer and a very talented group of colleagues through this next phase of growth and opportunity.”
Stuart Schuette, president and chief executive of American Tire Distributors, said: “ATD has been on a journey of transformation to bring digital, data and technology solutions on behalf of the industry that help our customers and vendors, not only compete, but plan for the future of service, the solutions consumers will seek, and the ease required to provide it.
He added: “In our position as a connector of the automotive aftermarket, we have the unique ability to support the creation of value for the industry. Michael will be instrumental in creating a best-in-class ecommerce platform and the future of online tyre-buying.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here