Most people would agree that any given day at the local Wal Mart is not a very profitable time for anyone to be selling car keys. This is because customers are looking for an honest, legitimate business to deal with, and when they see the large billboard advertising “Car Keys” in black and white, they tend to think that this is the only place you can go to make car keys. This is not necessarily the case. If you have a computer, a printer, and a small business card, you can make money by selling Wal Mart makes car keys to your customers.
Wal Mart makes most of their profits from their contract with a car manufacturing company called Cherry Motors. Cherry Motors manufactures the majority of cars, including the popular Honda Civic. These cars need a special key to start them, so the factory needs to order a number of them at regular intervals. Instead of paying a contractor to fix their key making process, Wal Mart decides to design their own key making process, and they assign this process to a contract manufacturer called Cherry Motors.
Whenever a car needs a key made, it must have its own key code installed. The key code is a series of numbers that identifies the make and model of the car. This number is usually assigned by the customer, since Wal Mart wants to maintain the ability to customize the make and model of each car. By having the key code, the customer can keep his car safe without worrying about a stranger stealing his identity or having his car cloned. The only way to know if your car needs a new key is to call the customer service center and ask them, and they will tell you what kind of key needs to be made.
When a customer calls to order a new key, he gives his own phone number and code. Instead of calling back to ask if the correct key has been sent or going to the store to try and remember which code is for which make and model of car, the customer can simply go online to Cherry Motors website and log in. Once there, he types in his product information and submits his credit card number and other information. With a few clicks of a mouse, Cherry Motors will ship the correct make and model of the car key required by the customer.
Wal Mart does not use chips when sending keys back to customers. Instead, the company sends the customer’s car model and make (which is stamped on the bottom of the key) to a distribution company. The distribution company then puts the car key into an electronic database. Every time a customer orders a new key, the keys are sent directly to the customer without using chips.
Wal Mart does have a chip in their system though. WalMart itself does not create or collect the customer’s personal key code; instead, the customer’s key is entered into a data entry device within the Wal Mart system. The device will only accept keys that are entered into the system by the customer. WalMart does check to make sure that the keys are actually coming from Wal Mart. However, if the customer is somehow able to get around the system, the Wal Mart charge for the lost key will not be refunded. Instead, the customer will need to contact customer service and order a new key from Wal Mart directly.
