60 Cars a Day at This 12V Shop

This car stereo shop pumps out 60 to 70 installations a day out of its main store alone.

Proline Car Stereo is that rare store that can drive volume because, for one thing, it’s located in Brooklyn, NY, home to 2.6 million people in 71 square miles.

And customers in NY don’t like to wait, so 80 percent of Proline’s installs are done on the spot, which means the shop has 12 installers on hand (and it is looking for more).

The store runs in what CEO Shef Sadik calls “organized chaos.”  But the truth is there’s a lot of organization. Proiline photographs every car that comes in with a date and time stamp because many cars in NY are filled with dents.  And  there’s a meticulous check out process.  In fact, after inspecting dents, Proline offers its customers dent repair at a local body shop.

There’s a shop manager, a store manager and all employees are trained to be aware of the movement of cars through the shop and “getting parts right so there’s no down time.  We open at 9 and we are constantly going…” said Sadik, who came to Proline out of school as a hobby and never left.

There’s a bay area for working on 8 cars at once and then there’s 3 parking spaces outside..

“There’s no other car stereo store like this,” said Sadik. Even Proline’s two other Brooklyn locations don’t come close to the volume done here. And the shop may open even more locations.

“Doing business in New York is not easy…Our overhead is so high, we had no choice but to keep expanding to save those [vendor] discounts and then advertise,” he said.

Rents in Brooklyn are more than $100/square foot.

Proline does some Yellow Page advertising targeting anyone in a 5 mile radius who bought a new vehicle. “We invite them to bring the car in for a free evaluation to upgrade the car audio system.  We show a picture of someone wearing headphones and say, ‘You can get headphone sound quality in the car,” said Sadik, adding, “We spend a lot on advertising but we think it’s the only way to succeed.”

The main store on Utica Avenue has been in business for 25 years.  It hit a wall after the recession, around 2010.  It closed a location and customer traffic fell off.

Then Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, and it actually helped business.  The store was deluged with flood vehicles, rim repairs, requests for window tint and other work.   Everyone who came in was given a tour and told about car audio upgrades and remote start.  Business picked up, said owner William Sullivan.

But Sadik, 31, began noticing that the store was attracting fewer young people.  He started posting photos of car builds every day on social media.

Also, Proline began holding events at local high schools and it advertised at nightclubs where kids hang out and at some local bars. It attends a lot of local shows including the NY Auto Show and finds that many people don’t know about aftermarket backup cameras or that you can upgrade your sound system.

Facebook followers number more than 15,000 and  Instagram active users exceed 11,000. The shop also sells Proline sells hats and T-shirts

Sadik knew the social media campaign was working when a kid came in to buy a hat.  He was saving up for a full system and just wanted a hat to keep him going.