NAPA Auto Parts UK and Ireland has announced its sponsorship of The Blend, an event bringing together business owners and senior managers of garages from across the UK and Ireland, hosted by the team from Garage Hive.  The Blend, taking place on Saturday 18th October 2025 at the Eastside Rooms in Birmingham, offers attendees access ...

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The latest episode of Garage Hive’s The Blend Podcast has shone a spotlight on the lasting impact of the pandemic on workshops five years on. It also offered practical steps such as smarter workload planning, customer retention strategies, and embracing innovation to help businesses thrive in today’s shifting landscape. Host Mike Ruff was joined by ...

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Digital platforms have an essential role to play in the modern workshop. We asked some of the leading providers of software solutions to offer their advice to garages looking to beat the dealers at their own game. Bringing together customers and workshops ClickMechanic updates the traditional repair quoting process by automatically generating price quotes based ...

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Community-driven garage management system Garage Hive has enhanced data website Garage Industry Trends. Trends 2.0, released at The Blend last October, now adds revenue analysis by car age and fuel type. Since launching a year ago, the Trends data collection platform – which is a free research resource to access – has seen 140 garages ...

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Garage Hive has announced the launch of an international partnership programme to expand its availability to garages worldwide. Prospective partners will benefit from business support, training, and guidance, enabling them to launch Garage Hive in  international markets using established methods. Ray Dilsons, Managing Director of Garage Hive, said: “As we expand our reach internationally, we’re ...

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Garage Hive has released its 2024 gross profit calculator, which helps workshops establish their gross profit and the efficiency required to cover daily business running costs. Garages will need to enter their overheads into the spreadsheet template to automatically generate daily and monthly gross profit targets. The updated calculator accounts for an extra three working ...

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PMM sits down with Garage Hive’s Operations Manager and the woman behind its trade event, The Blend, to find out more about what the event holds for workshop owners this month. Hi Dawn, could you tell our readers about The Blend and what it offers workshops? The Blend started in 2019 as just an idea ...

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Garage Hive’s the Blend 2023, kicked off in Birmingham this morning with talks from keynote speakers Ray Dilsons, managing director of Garage Hive and Andy Hamilton, CEO at LKQ. The event brings together workshops and busness owners from the UK aftermarket, delivering advice on best business practices, with a wealth of industry expert speakers providing ...

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Garage Hive has announced a seven-day extension for entries to The Blend Awards giving garages in the UK and Ireland one last chance to enter. Submissions to The Blend’s ‘Garage of the Year Award’ and ‘Staff Recognition Award’ should be made by 7th August online at www.theblend.events/awards. Ray Dilsons, Managing Director of Garage Hive, said: ...

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A line-up of guest speakers has been unveiled for annual conference and networking event, The Blend 2023, which takes place at The Eastside Rooms in Birmingham on 7th October, 2023. The event’s programme will reportedly cover topics including business operations, challenges and opportunities presented by the likes of Tim Benson of Oldfields Garage, Tom Cockings of ...

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