Vegas, outerwear, and heavy-duty autobody repair are all parts of the Big Rig Collision Group’s success.
With a 40-year history in Grande Prairie, Big Rig Collision Group is now one of North America’s heavy-duty autobody repair industry leaders. They repair heavy-duty trucks and equipment but pride themselves on being able to repair and refurbish a variety of vehicles and pieces of equipment.
They recently expanded their operations to Calgary and Las Vegas, Nevada, reaching new markets.
In the company's announcement, Kenton Schultz, President of Big Rig Collision Group explained, "Las Vegas geographically has a lot of reach through the western U.S." He adds that this combined with the connection between Grande Prairie and Calgary casts a wide net on western North America.
“Typically, Grande Prairie businesses are bought out by companies from major centres. We've been fortunate to build a very, very strong business in Grande Prairie, the community and industry have supported us for many years. I think the combination of a younger management team, [with a] little more ambition, plus the success that we've had, allowed us to kind of reach out to these bigger centres” said Schultz.
Young & Ambitious
Over the years Big Rig Collision Group’s ambition has grown. First starting with building relationships in Grande Prairie and growing a reputation of specializing in heavy-duty trucks. Then further developing their portfolio to include services for trailers, recreational vehicles, and eventually specialty equipment.
But they didn’t stop there, further diversifying their offerings to include supplying parts for their own business needs, other businesses and customers in the Grande Prairie region.
Initially, Big Rig Collision Group only intended to supply parts to the Grande Prairie region but with the help of the City of Grande Prairie’s Local Marketing Grant, they accessed funding to improve their website and market their parts business online to an international audience.
“We needed to build an e-commerce website, we needed to get ourselves online. We looked at it as a catalyst to get going,” said Schultz.
“Applying for the grant puts deadlines on you, deadlines force you to perform.”
“Once we got [the website] to the public, we could start selling. Those sales contributed to the growth of the site and expansion to other markets.”
For Big Rig, the results of their marketing efforts had an unexpected result.
“The grant took us to international markets. We ship all over the US now, we've been to Puerto Rico, Hawaii, [it’s] kind of interesting where the parts from Grande Prairie end up.”
Big Rig Collision Group credits their investment in marketing and the City’s grant program itself for providing a framework to complete the website project and allow them to reach a new audience.
“Without that City of Grande Prairie grant to kind of initiate the process for us, I don't think we would have gone for it” said Schultz.
HonestWear – Big Rig’s Clothing Line
A new business opportunity presented itself to the Big Rig Collision Group as customers started asking if they could purchase Big Rig branded clothing.
“It started off as our Big Rig branded hats and t-shirts, [with] our truck logo. Customers were responding really well to some of the gear that we have around here, so we put it online for sale.” Kenton said.
“My brother, Curtis saw what we were doing and has always kind of had an itch for the artistic side and for fashion. What started as hats and t-shirts, has now evolved into what's called HonestWear has now expanded into a full line of denim jackets, vests, and kind of custom outerwear.”
The Big Rig Collision Group developed another e-commerce website featuring HonestWear’s high-quality vintage and up-cycled clothing.
Further Expansion A Goal For Big Rig Collison Group
Currently, Big Rig is focused on cohesiveness and consistency to the brand, operational processes, and merging the best of those processes from Calgary to Vegas. The young and ambitious Big Rig Collision Group doesn’t see themselves slowing down anytime soon.
“There are some other things we're working on in terms of expansion to kind of continue the growth that we're seeing” he said.
Learn more about Big Rig Collision Group by visiting their website.