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When Ryan Meachem took the reins as Parts Manager at Hyundai of the Shoals, he found himself staring down the barrel of a challenge: a parts department struggling to find its footing. The dealership had never had a parts manager, and with a mountain of obsolete inventory weighing down operations, it was clear Ryan had his work cut out for him. In just a matter of months, Ryan had transformed the department with a strategy that combined airtight processes, expert inventory management, and online parts sales.

But, how did he manage to take a department in desperate need of strong leadership to a pinnacle of efficiency and profitability? This is Ryan’s story of grit, innovation, and the strategic use of modern selling tools that has quadrupled sales in Hyundai of the Shoals’ parts department in under a year.

The Challenge:
A Department on the Brink of Change

When Ryan joined Hyundai of the Shoals in October 2024, the sales volume in his first month hovered just around $15,000. Ryan saw an opportunity for change. 

His first order of business was to stabilize the department’s daily operations. “I knew I had to break bad habits for my employees and create good ones,” Ryan recalled. He started with the basics: inventory management. The team before him didn’t have a process for returning unsold parts, which led to a stockpile of unnecessary inventory collecting dust. So, Ryan added a new system for tracking special orders and keeping a healthy stock rotation. 

Ryan isn’t the type to settle for simply keeping things running. He knew there was more potential in the department, which led him to propose taking the department online. His GM and directors were skeptical because this was new territory, but Ryan was confident. “They trusted my idea and ambition, even though they weren’t sure about the whole online thing at first,” he said. And it paid off—the results were almost immediate.