UPPER SANDUSKY – A business specializing in automotive parts is cranking up the engines as it heads into the new year.
McGuire Wholesale, Inc., 215 Commerce Way, prides itself in offering quality auto parts at wholesale prices to customers in North Central Ohio and around the country. Tires and tailgates, doors, and bumpers – basically any accessory needed on a car or truck.
“We sell a lot of tires and wheels and we sell a lot of beds and bumpers too,” said owner Virgil Jennings, who bought the company in January 2017. “We can literally find a home for it if it’s a new take-off part. We’ve grown the company expeditiously since I’ve taken over.”
Jennings said the “take-off part” of the industry especially has exploded in the last few years. McGuire gets the new parts from automotive companies called “upfitters” who don’t need them after converting, for example, a $50,000 truck into a $100,000 vehicle.
“The reason we’ve been able to grow our company the way it has is because we have been able to contract with three major upfitting companies,” Jennings said. “We’ve done pretty well but we’re always trying to look for growth opportunities.”
Jennings has a long history with the company, which was founded in 1986 by Dennis and Mary McGuire in rural Wyandot County. The McGuires expanded the business in 2000, purchased the Commerce Way site, and built an 18,000-square foot facility near U.S. 23.
Jennings, a dedicated employee of McGuire’s Automotive Wholesale, Inc. for 23 years, changed the name to McGuire Wholesale, Inc. when he and his wife, Crystal, a teacher at Wynford High School, took over the wholesale division three years ago.
Since then, Jennings said, he has tripled the workforce and put on a 9,000-square-foot warehouse addition, which facilitates loading and unloading parts onto two semi-trucks that deliver orders to customers mostly in the Midwest and even Canada.
McGuire Wholesale also serves as a full-service utility trailer dealership, he said. Although orders can always be placed with a simple phone call, the company also has an eBay store online, which in December 2020 topped $40,000 in sales, Jennings said.
For 2021, the Bucyrus native said his goal is to focus on boosting internet sales as well as continuing the McGuire tradition of top-notch customer service and satisfaction. “I like the hustle, you know,” Jennings said.
“My main concentration on this now is just to get the word out that we’re more than just truck beds. Customer service has always been my focus. We don’t want just one-time customers. We want to build relationships.”
