29 Jan 2021

When opening a car body repair centre, there are several costs involved. From your rent and overheads to large machinery and equipment, there’s a lot to consider. Are you fully prepared and ready to take the plunge on your own? Or, do you need a little bit more insight as to how much you’ll actually need to invest? 

Don’t worry if you’re unsure – it’s always better to read more and expand your knowledge before making any poor decisions. With that in mind, that’s exactly what this post sets out to do. It covers everything you need to know about the costs involved in opening a car body repair centre – from the big ones to the tiny ones – it’s all in here. 

 

We’ll cover: 

 

Premises, Rent and Overheads

When opening your body shop, one of your main priorities should be sourcing suitable premises for your business. You need to find a site that’s big enough for you to carry out your services, plus, allow you to comfortably meet customer demand. Finding the right site is a major decision, so please don’t take this lightly. 

Of course, one factor that will determine whether a site is suitable or not is the cost of the rent. If you’re not buying it outright, that is. Can you actually afford to rent that space? While we know that starting or moving your business into the dream site is ideal, is it realistic and affordable? If not, you’ll massively eat into your profit margins and harm the success of your business. 

When working out whether the rent is affordable or not, you need to work out how much it’ll cost in overheads too. The rent could be dirt-cheap but if it’s going to cause a huge dent in your wallet to operate out of that unit, we recommend you look elsewhere. You need to have a tight budget when it comes to sourcing a location. 

 

Bespoke Lighting Solution

While the above is quite an obvious one, implementing a bespoke lighting solution isn’t. If there’s one thing that’s expected in car body repair centres, it’s consistency. To provide a top-quality and consistent service, you need to have the right lighting solution in place. Especially when a lot of the work involved is paint related. 

 

car body repair shop costs body shop lighting

 

Unfortunately, there’s not a solution that works for the full industry as a standard – your lighting solution should be unique to your site. Of course, your site presents its hazards, risks and challenges, so you need a lighting solution that helps you combat these factors effectively. You can’t afford to take a gamble on a standard and vague lighting solution. 

Bespoke lighting solutions require short-term and long-term investment. However, if you choose the right one, you’ll save money in the long-term (rather than pay over the odds). LED energy-efficient lighting solutions are massively beneficial in car body shops. That way, you can operate at a high energy output all day without it costing a fortune.

 

Machinery and Equipment

Within your body shop, you’ll no doubt offer a variety of services. Therefore, you’ll need a plethora of equipment and machinery to help you carry out projects successfully. Without the right equipment, you’ll be limiting your services and will be left behind by your competition. 

Of course, you can’t introduce any old equipment and expect incredible results, can you? Your machinery needs to be quality and reliable. While cheap equipment may be appealing to your wallet at first glance, it’ll actually end up costing you more in the long-run. Maintenance and replacement costs will soon add up and your quality standards won’t be as high as you’d like them to be. 

Your machinery and equipment are likely to be one of the biggest costs for your business. It’s easy to be led by the cost of equipment at this point but you should never put too much onus on that factor. Incredibly cheap products could reflect that in their performance. Therefore, you need to seek out durability and long-standing value – not just a brilliantly cheap deal. 

 

Staff and Team Member Salaries

Are you starting out on your own? Or, will you have a team alongside you? If your customer demand is high enough, you’ll warrant the case for a full team alongside you. However, you need to be aware that they’ll command a basic salary from you and it’ll continue to add up with the more employees that you take on board. 

 

car body shop repair costs of starting up a business staff

 

Salaries are a regular outgoing each month, so if you can forecast an accurate amount that’s predicted to come into the business regularly, you can work out how much to allocate for salaries. However, if your income is going to be unsteady and sporadic, tread carefully before taking on too many staff members that you won’t be able to pay properly. 

You also need to be careful about the type of person you take on board – do you get on with them? Are they driven to provide a high standard that you require? If your views and motives don’t align, we’d suggest continuing the search for the right team member to come along. Otherwise, you could clash and it could be counterproductive. 

 

Marketing and Brand Awareness Campaigns

When we think of car repair centres and body shops, we automatically think of the big boys in the industry. So, how are you going to get your name out there? Sure, a lot of your business will be accounted for on word of mouth. However, you can’t solely rely on that to drive your business forwards. 

One of the most ignored costs when opening a car body repair shop is marketing. You need to market your brand to get the name out there and become recognised! But how are you going to do that if you don’t assign a budget against it? Once you’ve nailed down the above costs, you’ll understand what flexibility you have to invest in marketing and brand awareness campaigns. 

Marketing can be vitally important to the success of your business. It can be the difference between growing and expanding or blending in with the rest of the competition. 

 

IDES Can Help Reduce Car Body Repair Shop Startup Costs

So, we’ve handpicked five of the most important costs when starting up a car body repair shop. We hope that this post has helped expand your knowledge – and now it’s time to see how you can curb your spending. At IDES, we’re body shop lighting specialists and can work with you to help secure the perfect solution for your business. 

Whether you need a full site fitting or mobile solutions that can enhance your working environment, we can help you! We’re vastly experienced in the industry and work alongside businesses throughout the UK daily. From Exeter and Glasgow – and everything in between – we’re here to help you!

For more information on how we can help introduce an LED efficient lighting solution to help reduce your business costs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our experts are always on hand to help and provide useful advice. We look forward to hearing from you!

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