Anyone having problems getting glass, last week all my distributors were out of 1549's. They at least had the same story of a glass shortage due to overseas sales.

Yes we too are seeing a few times certain #'s are not near by, and take a couple days longer to get. And I believe we will see more of this. What does anyone expect when profit margins are only on the Ins side of things.

just wait till they use that as an excuse to raise the price $40 :(

And, ah, Larry do you think it is a bad thing if some of the smart people can raise pricing, even while you try to discount this industry into subsandwich making?
Let me try to clarify for you this is not a commodity based, wholesale type business, this is for professional, "RETAIL" business people, please learn the difference.

Oh yes, I hope they do raise the price to you larry so you will start to charge a real fair price for good hard work, and stop the wholesaleing of a retail business. What a stick!

Hey Larry I hear subs calling you! Better yet why don't you advertise, windshields on a STICK, and do it real cheap!

thanks for staying with the topic this really answers my question.

This will continue to happen especially during slow economy or season
1- Production hours at all plants have been cut due to low demand
2- once stock is gone then manufacturers re-act
3- the cycle continues with different parts.

My suggestion, Service auto glass reacts faster then most. they usually have stock before anyone.
They seam to be able to react quicker.
They can go from demand to production in a week. where others it takes months before you will see product. (shipping, manuf,)
They have always had tough to get stock

OK so I dont post for almost a month, Then I post about the glass shortages and whati was told and it gets deleted. WTH did I do wrong I didnt mention any prices or any names just what some of the supliers have told us the reason was for the shortages.

If you have a problem with what i posted about the shortages please email so I know what I did wrong.

ahag214@yahoo.com

Story I heard was that the Chinese are having problems making glass.....would explain why everybody is out of the same #'s....

Today in ATL, NOBODY but Service has a simple FW799/FW2011 of any shade or color. Not Mygrant, PPG, PLK, Guardian, or even AGD. Wow.....

I will buy dealer parts before I support saflite I CAN NOT WILL NOT SUPPORT ANY BODY STEARING STEALING UNDER CUTTING PERIOD.

If any of you would be willing to go on record about the shortage, please e-mail pstacey@glass.com.

Thanks!

Dear Amateur Star, please keep up your fantastic business practices. It will make you easy to compete with. You will sacrifice service to your end customer to make a point against Safelite. LOL - this blog is fanastic reading. Thank you for the laugh!

Splane this one to me. PGW sells FW 2011 GGN for X, the GBN is X + $30.00 more and the FW 799 is 2.65 times the cost of a FW 2011 GGN.

Sglass - congrats on your success. However, sir....one phrase I will never have to worry about saying is "do you want fries with that", but thank you :)

I can get fyg no problem it is the pilk.,pgw and guardians I can't get. We have been using alot of fyg lately and to tell you the truth it has been way better than pilk. or pgw made in china. especially the 2154, 2359,2508, and 2011.

you can not buy from them but in the end it only hurts you.
it wont put them out of business!!
if you dont buy from them somebody down the street will and they'll get the job and you wont.
So in the end the only one who suffers is you from not doing the work because you dont like the supplier when his is the only one who has the part.

yours is a very foolish stuborn business method. that will only keep you small

I never said I let the job go. If SGC is the only one with the glass, I have my local Dist. buy it & send it to me. I said "I will not buy from them."
I havn't lasted this long being dumb, but people who buy from SGC when tney have options won't last long.

That's what they say, but in actuality they're probably too busy working on OEM orders and pushing exports to the side.
http://www.insideline.com/car-news/chinas-auto-sales-still-up-but-pace-slowing.html

Here we go again,We buy from Service on a have to bassis.In fact the sales rep. came around a few days ago and lowered are prices some more to try to get more biz from us.I prefer not to feed the machine that is trying to put me out of Biz.But again I wont lose a job to them just because Im not willing to directly buy a part from them.I rather not get a independant vendor involved that mite cause dameage to the part or just tack on more money then I would pay just because I dont want to deal with them directly.that to me doesnt make sense.

Times have changed and still changing in the auto glass Biz.You have to adapt to survive or you will be eaten up alive.I guess dealing with Service directly is adapting to new bizness conditions?.

Or buy from them & get eaten up alive faster.
Don't fool yourself all the Dist. you buy from sell & buy from SGC.
If my Dist. gets a part from SGC it doesn't cost me more so, SGC is selling to them for less. If I have to pay more to my local Dist. for the part, so be it.When all the other Dist. are gone, SGC will be the industry & you will be a memory.
Go ask your local hardware Store owner, if you can find one.

Believe me Sglass I know that my indy vendors buys from Service.They get parts that they dont have in stock"buyouts" and then they sell to you.Most of the time you wont even know that you bought from them after they retag the part with their stickers.But some vendors tell you up front that they need to do a buyout and tell you to buy from Service direct to either save you money or they dont feel the little profit from a part transfer is worth their time.By they send their driver to get the part,bring it back to their warehouse the brand it,then redeliver it to you.Was it really worth it?Maybe to some.believe me,Ive seen what it cost most vendors pay at service.The vendor does it more for customer service then it is make a profit from us.

And there is still a couple of local hardware stores by us.They carry things that the big box cutter stores dont carry and KNOW more.Buyer beware,you get what you pay for.

Well I just started buying from SGC last month. Seeing how PGW refuses to adjust our prices back to what they where in Jan.(I know part by part blah blah ) I have only Purchased 2 parts from PGW (in OKC) in the last 4 months. I have been getting 80% of our parts from SGC .

The reasons are many ,but here are a few.
* They deliver (On Time 3- 4 times a day)
* They clean and inspect the parts
* Tape the edges & corners all the way down
* They cary OEM (yes real OEM w/ dealer logos))
* We have a 99% fill rate ( meaning they have had every part but one in stock when we order FB20992GTN)
* I can choose what brand of part I want SGC,PILK,CAR,FYG, MOPAR (or OEM)

* The Pricing
* The friendly staff
* The Sales Rep does her job and even returns calls.
* They offered to let us park or vans over night and pick up in the morning loaded and ready to go ( I dont but its the thought )
* Fuel Surcharge less than all of our other suppliers
* FREE Night Drop Box (PGW wants almost $2K for one)

Its amazing to walk into a supplier and they know you by name and they have the parts pulled,cleaned and ready to go . They even carry it out and load it for you. Reminds me of the old days when my grand mother would take me to Woodmans grocery store in Beloit. They would load your car for you.

Our profits for one month have increased by almost 30% since we made the change. So If I keep seeing numbers like that in this economy,while others are retiring,closing down or having to dip into savings accounts to make payroll. I dont care what you say .

It has made my company more profitable by allowing us to get parts when we need them and at a better cost than from PGW or American and seeing how SIGMA wont sell to us.

You look tired from flying so much. Come sit on my web & rest.
Said the Spder to the Fly.

"Our profits for one month have increased by almost 30% since we made the change. So If I keep seeing numbers like that in this economy,while others are retiring,closing down or having to dip into savings accounts to make payroll. I dont care what you say ."
----AHAG
Very Nice!
and well said!

AHAG,

They are awesome people! Just watch your back.

AHAG,

These people eat their own.Believe me,Ive seen it.They will bite the hand that feeds them,Like a vicious PIT BULL

Hey I always watch my back, I have worked to long and too da*n hard to get where I'm at.

I Understand the reasons some of you will not buy from Service and I respect that. But when it comes down to that point when you have to close up shop or suck it up and put you pride aside to keep the doors open what are you going to do? Tell your family that you failed becasue you refuse to purchase from Service,not me . I'll wave and tip my hat when you guys close up but I'm going down swinging even if its with a FYG windshield w/ a Service A/G sticker on it.

Lucky for us there is like 6 vendors to choose from in our area plus service all about the same prices.they mite vary about 5-10 bux...

S Glass
you say you dont buy from them but you let another vendor buy from them then sell it to you.
So in truth you really are buying from them and just fooling yourself.
All you are doing is paying more by purchasing a buyout from another vendor.
Your pride just costs you money.
Not smart from any point of view.
i dont think you are even paying attention to how silly what you wrote sounds.

Bill McObvious:

Safe your breath my friend. I have heard Sglass make that statement on here more than once. The sad part; none of his industry buddies on here chime in to let him know how flat our ridiculous his strategy is.

Sglass - I would LOVE to hear you defend that position. The stage is yours....

I have no position to defend. I'm doing what has worked, is working & will continue to work for me in the future.
I not going to buy a life boat from a company, that is selling me a boat made from card board.

When I first started my current SHOP, I tried sgc glass. It was not a wise choice at all. The shields were no where close to the quality of PPG or Pilk or oem. It was just plain JUNK glass. we had to use it up with only cash, cheap, car lot types. It did not help our business overall. it was sad.

I vowed then I will never stoop to that level again! Luckily we have real good service from PGW, Pilk, and 1 other independent. We shop smart, but we are very willing to pay more for quality, and service, and we CHARGE more for it. What a concept! Something the quantity based, wholesalers can't figure out how to do.

Sometimes the tough choices are made by those who really want to help this industry. Buying cheaper, so you can sell cheaper, only devalues this industry. So what side of the fence do you really want to be on? I know where I stand, and I hold firmly in place always have, always will.

The side of the fence where I can make money.........

Pilkington has been out of FW2011 in Florida every other week. They run stock so low and they are very slow to adjust inventory. If I was a sales rep for Pilkington I would be sreaming how do you sell glass when the backend can't get it in the warehouse.

Well, back to the original question; “Is anyone else having problems getting glass?”

bqa, if they are telling you the shortages are due to overseas sales, they are probably yanking your chain. The reason that you start getting shortages during a bad economy is because of cash flow, plain and simple. Expect to see a lot more of it.

Cutting production:
1. Reduces expenditure on raw material
2. Reduces labor cost
3. Reduces cost of excess inventory

It has nothing to do with raising prices, explosive (overseas) sales or trying to create an artificial demand. When times are good, manufacturers can afford to tie up cash flow a little longer & sit on product. When times are bad they cannot. It’s just that simple.

the SGC glass was bad years ago, but since belron injected money into their production quality is awesome.
even sl will tell you their glass 10 years ago was not great.
i install their parts all the time and have no fit or finish issues. in fact i have more trouble with product form PGW and Pilkinton latley.

Well check the dot #s they all probably come from the same plant in China.

Used to be a standard joke years ago about how many boxes of band-aids you got with a pallet of w/s because of not grinding edges.

j
you obviously are not using their glass, talking about bandaids, you are thinking 20 years ago.
the glass is just fine

the only problem is you are thinking about a Model A
in a Model Z world. (that product is long gone and not made anymore and has a new owner)
just try their glass get your personal feelings off the table. it only will hurt you.
truth is if you dont buy from them it wont put them out of business.
it will only hurt your ability to have a part to do a job.
try the SGC glass
if you dont like it they will take it back
however its not the only brand they sell
they have OEM logo glass as well as any brand you want.
not buying from them is as stubborn and stupid as the redneck who wont buy from the store where he doesnt like the color of the owner.
and just cause that owner sold a bad piece of fruit 20 years ago doesnt mean the new owner is selling the same.
hate is a poor way to choose suppliers

Glass mfer I do admire your loyalty to your company. Shame of it is, they have no loyalty to you.
You will find out the hard way before long.

i didnt say i worked for them
i just use their product and how ever else has stock.
you can only read the article in glass bytes to prove what myself and Bob said in this thread.

truth of the matter is you buy from who has the part.
to say that safelite parts are bad is just plain un-true.
i use them, i install them i make money.
if you dont want to buy from them i will and i will do the job.
you will be stubborn when nobody else has the part but them and i will get the job.
then who looks stupid.
once again anyone who says their parts are junk dont use them NOW and are just talking sh--.

We just replaced a ws on a fw2347 a acura mdx rain sensor because customer was unhappy with SGC glass installed dot 65 date code.B K 6 7.customer did not like the way the top molding corners rolled in.the ws was replaced 2 times.They used their brand 1st and then replaced it with a SGC brand again with a oem molding.Had same effect.By this time customer got a refund and wanted to go somewhere else.He was recommended us from bodyshop.We replaced ws with a lof.Went right in.fit perfect.happy customer ,we got paid.The customer showed us both receipt for replacement when we asked him out of curiosity.He still had it in the customer survey envelope..lol..

I do know that they carry oem logo glass and other good brand glass.I have no problem buying it when I need to.But I would not purchase Dot 65 glass as of rite now.Still to many issue's.

Mfer-I think you need to get your blood pressure prescription refilled. I made a humorous statement about an event from years ago. I have probably used more SL glass over the years than you have ever seen. j

I believe that those of you who would somehow consider Surface/Stagelite/Boltron as a viable wholesale supplier to your retail business have not been in auto glass long enough to have lost the insurance work that used to allow some of us a reasonably good lifestyle or at minimum keep our businesses operating in the black. Go ahead and continue to try and convince yourselves that these people don't wake up every morning to figure out a new way to take more of your business. Think about it your cometitor is your supplier. I have to guess that those of you that can still make a decent living in ARG are not in Southern California where what little insurance work available is theirs first and when you are fortunate to have it come your way you have to keep on your toes to keep from losing it to them. SAG glass; no thanks.