ATF Professional recently caught up with Tom Hayward, the founder of ineedspares.com, to learn about his adventures over the past six months and the exciting developments happening with his platform. Tom took some time to travel from England to Australia, then onward to Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Despite being on the road, Tom remained dedicated to his business, managing requests and customer service while exploring new destinations.
I decided to take an extended break over December and January with my wife, Anna. We had wanted to get away for several years, and it was the perfect opportunity. With my laptop safely tucked in my backpack, we set off. We travelled from England to Caines, Australia and down the east coast in a camper van to Sydney, stopping at regular points to soak up the scenery. Along the way, we passed several vehicle recyclers, and I was fortunate to persuade my wife to stop so I could say hello. I was lucky to get a tour of their operation, which is not so different from our UK sites. The main difference was the heat, which, to be honest, was lovely. We went from Sydney to Singapore, through Malaysia and up to Thailand, visiting temples and beaches whilst still clocking in, spending a few hours each day monitoring requests and dealing with customer service for both requesters and suppliers; I even managed to onboard two suppliers from our hostel room.
The time away was really important, and I want to stress to all job levels that taking an extended holiday or sabbatical and seeing a bit of the world will do wonders for your mental health.
After an amazing eight-week break, we returned to England at the beginning of February and got straight back into day-to-day life. I’ve been back out on the road to Wales in the last few weeks. I stopped by to see a couple of recyclers that way and got a tour, which, again, was great to see all the fantastic work and teams involved. I will bring a camera with me next time and start making site tours to document on our website, so let me know if you’re interested in featuring on this.
Back to ineedspares.com, we have up to 15 suppliers now, with just under half being daily active users. We would love to be able to onboard more this year to grow and become a great collective of professional vehicle recyclers and highlight the high standards we all carry. There is enough demand out there, and we aim to give all recyclers a platform to reach that whilst sharing insight into industry trends to help them sell more.
Looking to the future, I see more marketplace-type businesses emerging, especially with the lower barrier to entry now for software/web development. This will be great as there will be more opportunities to sell more parts. We are already in discussions with some of the leading stock management systems to create streamlined processes that help sell more parts for their clients who are registered on our platform, ineedspares.com.
I will share a quick overview if you’re wondering how much it costs to join. We want to be a cost-effective, value-for-money-driven platform to allow recyclers of all sizes to participate. Ultimately, we want to have every professional vehicle recycler here! The platform operates using “tokens”, which can be purchased in bulk for larger discounts. Sending a quote on a basic request can cost you one token (as low as 20p). We have an awesome 500-token trial for you to play with, and with access to all makes and model requests, you won’t be short of demand.
Our vision is to be “the platform for sustainable spare parts” and give all types of professional vehicle recyclers an opportunity to access more demand. We also aim to provide a trusted network for requesters and buyers to source their spare parts from.
If you’re going to do one thing this week, book in a 30-minute demo with me. I can give you more detailed information and get you signed up.
Click here to book a call/demo or email me at tom@ineedspares.com
Visit www.ineedspares.com
