The publicity generated by car audio shops who produced face shields for essential workers back in March/April, did in fact raise community awareness about those shops in many cases.
And it also translated into higher sales for some.
Early in the pandemic dozens of shops converted to producing face shields on their CNC or 3D machines. This act of service reached all the way to People magazine, and was recounted on the evening news in many cities. While it wasn’t the intention of the retailers to win sales from their efforts, with a few exceptions, that is what happened.
Carlos Ramirez of NVS Auto, NJ estimates the shop has taken in $5000 in sales due to publicity from making face shields. “We definitely had new customers come in and spend money with us as and thank us for helping out. I had a trucking company give us $2,000 in fleet work just because of what we did.”
Milton Benevides of Speed of Sound, CT said, “We’ve gotten maybe a handful of people who said, ‘I saw you were doing medical face shields. I thought it was great. I’m here to get some work done.’”
John Schwartz of Perfectionist Auto Sound, AK, said his shop got a lot of media coverage and customers have come in saying they used to shop at other stores, but they want to support Perfectionist because of the work they’ve done making shields. “I didn’t market it or anything, I did make [social media] posts just so people knew I was the place to come to when they needed [the face shields]. I’m actually still making them. I said through the whole thing that without the community there is no Perfectionist. I’m very proud to help my community out.”
Mark D’Elia of SoundFX, RI said, “I truly feel that it helped greatly. Many customers have told us that they saw us on TV and they are coming to us because of what we did.”
One retailer in Canada has actually converted to producing face shields and protective gear full time. “I have my license from Health Canada and am trying to get our products into the retail market. Car audio is on hold for the foreseeable future for me, but after 40 years it is a nice break,” said Charlie Lamble, formerly of Car Trek Autosound & Security. He sells equipment commercially via LambleShields.ca and he also donates shields through LambleShield.org.
Ironically, three of the leaders of the 12 volt face shield movement did not see a sales bump. Although that can be explained by the fact that their shops don’t cater to a wide audience or that they kept their activities under the radar. Jeremy Katz of JK Automotive Designs, MA said he’s seen no impact on sales and never expected to. “We are not in the same category as most shops. Our work is large scale projects and we just have a bunch of repeat clients. We specialize in one of a kind complete street rod and hot rod interior projects. We still do electronics but pick and choose which ones we want.”
Gary Bell of Define Concepts, CA and JT Torres of Automotive Entertainment also saw little impact in sales. Torres worked behind the scenes with Bell and Bell said his shop did little to publicize making the shields and his clientel comes mainly from word of mouth.
Dozens of dealers back in March and April selflessly produced over 76,000 face shields by the end of April, and some are still producing them. The publicity generated over 49 million views by the most conservative estimates.
Whether this movement produced sales or not, we believe it saved lives. And as a side benefit, we believe it helped the entire industry in the eyes of many consumers.
