Advance Auto Parts 2005 Annual Report Download - page 5

Advance Auto Parts, Inc. I Annual Report 2005 I 3
Advance’s commitment to provide industry-leading Customer Service
is evident in our quest to continuously improve our business.
L Brought more locations to our Customers by adding 231
stores, including 19 stores in greater Boston acquired from
Lappen Auto Supply and 61 stores through the acquisition
of Autopart International, Inc., ending the year with a total of
2,872 stores in 40 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
L Completed remodels of all the former Discount Auto Parts
stores in Florida as well as an additional 96 stores to our
Advance 2010 store format. Our Customers continue to tell us
they love these bright, attractively merchandised stores, and we
believe the 2010 format gives Advance a significant competitive
advantage that clearly differentiates us in our industry with the
freshest, youngest store base. At year end, more than 54% of
our stores were operating with the 2010 format.
L Expanded services to our Commercial Customers. This
year, we added 247 commercial programs to Advance stores
and ended the year with a total of 2,192 Advance stores
offering commercial delivery.
L Continued to fine-tune our category management process,
which is no longer an initiative, but part of our daily culture. The
primary focus of category management is to provide Customers
what they want and need. Category management allows us to
use information from both our vendor partners and Customers
in order to enhance what we sell, how we sell it, where we sell
it and how we price it to best meet our Customers’ needs.
L Introduced many new and innovative products to our
Customers, providing significant cost savings to them through
our Direct Import program. By partnering with manufacturers
to bring innovative and high-quality import products at
competitive prices, Advance is fulfilling our goal of being the
value leader in the automotive aftermarket.
L Implemented Factory Direct Ordering, Local Purchase
Ordering and Salvage Body Parts offerings which combined
provide availability of more than 1 million additional parts to
our Customers. This is in addition to more than 125,000 parts
available through our internal logistics network.
L Introduced our Loaner Tool program. Customers can now
come into our stores and borrow an array of different tool kits
to help them complete automotive repair jobs. This program
helps our Customers get all the tools and parts they need to
complete jobs right the first time.
L Expanded our Consumer Education program which provides
our Customers with the information they need for their vehicle
repairs. This year, we added informative in-aisle product
brochures in our stores, giving Customers detailed information
to help them select the right products for their needs. We also
re-launched our Consumer Education web site under the
banner “Advance Know-How,” adding more multi-media clips
and interactive links to a wide variety of do-it-yourself project
information. We invite you to visit our enhanced site at
www.AdvanceAutoParts.com.
L Opened our new distribution center near Allentown,
Pennsylvania. This 660,000 square foot facility optimizes our
company’s transportation costs and provides more efficient
delivery of parts and products to our internal Customers,
our stores.
L Achieved our best-ever store in-stock level across our
entire chain and improved our in-stock performance at our
distribution centers, PDQ
®
and Master PDQ
SM
warehouses. One
way to keep our Customers coming back is to have the parts
and products they need in stock in our stores when they need
them. Our improved in-stock level is helping us do just that.
While these Customer-focused initiatives helped drive our
financial success in the past year, it is Advance’s more than
42,000 Team Members and their commitment to executing
these initiatives for our Customers that is the key to our
Legendary Service. In return, Advance is committed to building
upon our company’s culture and creating a special place for our
Team Members to work, as well as for our Customers to shop.
Our focus on training and developing our team has helped us
gain ground on our goal to increase our number of
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