Kansas City, Kan.--The independent parts dealer has become an unfamiliar face in the parts industry. In the past 20 years, the number of independent stores has continually declined. Many have found it tough to compete in an industry now saturated with larger corporate dealers. Cheryl Hogan, general manager of Eastside Auto Parts, an independent parts store in the West Bottoms of Kansas City, said its solution to maintaining business is, "Say yes." 
Hogan said that is key to developing and sustaining a good relationship with customers. "Customers come to us because they trust us," she said. "I take care of them. If they have any problems, we are going to help. They are No. 1. Without them, we are not here."
Growing up, Hogan said she witnessed that philosophy firsthand. Her father, Harry Bratt, the president and founder of Eastside Auto Parts, has put his focus on customers since he began working for his father's used-parts store in the 1940s.
By the early 1950s, Bratt saw a need for new automotive parts in the Kansas City area, Hogan said. He purchased $350 worth of new parts from International Parts out of Chicago, she said, and opened up shop at 435 Highway and Truman Road. The final touch to the business came when Bratt, who was short on funds, found a sign laying on the side of the road that read "East Side." Thus, East Side Auto Parts was born, she said.
In its prime, East Side Auto Parts had seven locations throughout the Kansas City area. By the early 1990s though, Bratt had sold all the stores and left the business, Hogan said, but Bratt couldn't stay away for long. Soon after his retirement, he purchased a parts store in Kansas City, Kan., and another in Tonganoxie, Kan. East Side Auto Parts was back in business.
In a short time, Bratt, with the help from his daughter, who purchased half of the business in 2000, had turned the once struggling parts stores into the thriving businesses they are today, Hogan said. Now, she said, three generations work for the company; her son, Daniel, is a counterman.
In the past 20 years East Side has seen a complete change in the ratio between retail and wholesale customers, Hogan said. The parts business that Bratt saw in the 1970s and 1980s was 90 percent retail and 10 percent wholesale, she said. Today, she said the numbers are 15 percent retail and 85 percent wholesale. The original East Side Auto Parts did not deliver parts, she said, while today, it regularly makes deliveries to more than 15 shops in the Kansas City area, and their two main parts suppliers are CARQUEST and Star Automotive Warehouse.
Hogan added that if a customer needs a part that East Side doesn't have, staff members take the time to find it. The store also gets called on for parts for vehicles from the 1940s-1960s. "I recently had a customer call looking for a carburetor for a 1964 Buick Wildcat," she said. "It might take some time, but I will find it." East Side Auto Parts has seen tremendous growth at both stores, Hogan said. However, the two stores provide parts to a very different demographic, she said; the Tonganoxie store sells most of its parts to farmers and therefore stocks a lot of top-end parts for tractors and other farm equipment. The Kansas City store, on the other hand, has a customer base that rarely purchases such premium parts, she said.
"We sell to completely different markets," she said. "The store in Tonganoxie carries the premium brand that CARQUEST has, and we don't down here, because at this store people are price conscious vs. quality conscious."
The customer base at the Kansas City store is 70 percent Hispanic, and nobody at the store speaks Spanish fluently, Hogan said, adding that the language barrier hasn't proved to be a problem.
"Even though we don't speak Spanish, we get by, we manage," she said. "We all know enough to get through it, and I have people that I can call if I do need translation," she said.
The growing wholesale business and demographic change was a big transformation for Bratt, who thrived on the retail side of the business, Hogan said, but her father was always one to keep up with the times. "In the 1970s, Harry was one of the first to put a computer in for inventory control," she said. "He wanted to be with the times, and he was not going to let them pass him up." She said she also recalls her father being the first in the area to offer import car parts. "It was Beck Arnley, and we were the first in the area to carry it. He was always trying something different."
Bratt said he credits much of his success today to his daughter, who brought new life to the company.
"You know how they say history repeats itself? Well, in business it does not," he said. "When I came down here, I started doing what I did 20 or 30 years ago, and I could see that it was not working. It was a different situation and it needed new blood, and Cheryl brought it in."
Bratt said there is no looking back now, "To hell with the past; the future is what I am looking for."
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