JohnC0721

I've been in business 9 years and may was my best month ever by about 40%.  I did start advertising with yelp a few months back so maybe that's some of it 

I'm a one man and one bay shop that's been open since '09 as well. my shop is dead center in an office / industrial park so it's very easy for those people to leave there cars for the day.  It also doesn't hurt that my shop is in the town and neighborhood I grew up in so I already had a good trusting customer base.  I opened at 23 and haven't slowed since.  I'd hire someone but the one bay really limits things.  I don't do the numbers these other guys do and I don't even know my average ticket but I put $130k in my pocket at years end.  maybe your problem is location or population?  My shop is also in a fairly affluent area so that helps

If I have the time or if the customer isn't scheduled for a few days I use rockauto or amazon prone to buy a lot of OEM parts.  Just last week I got a motorcraft transmission filter housing for a diesel for $229 from rockauto when the list at the dealer was almost $600.  Doesn't always work out time wise but Amazon also has those same parts often for a little more than rockauto but they can deliver next day.   Not exactly what your question was but good way to make more profit off quality parts