Back to resources Notes from Raleigh: shop owners at ASTA Expo 2026 are ready to stand out Posted on September 29, 2026 in Blog The Shop-Ware team spent September 24 through 26 at the Raleigh Convention Center for ASTA Expo, the annual training and trade show event put on by the Automotive Service & Tire Alliance. We came home with a full notebook and a list of fruitful conversations to follow up on. Learning how the marketers market One of our favorite moments happened in the classroom. Cavan Robinson, our VP of Operations, teamed up with Tony Mercury of Autoshop Solutions to teach a session called "How a marketing agency markets: insights from the experts." The idea behind the class was simple. Shop owners get plenty of marketing advice, but they rarely get to look over an agency's shoulder and see how the people who do this for a living approach their own marketing. Tony brought that agency perspective. Cavan brought the operations side, because a marketing plan only pays off if the shop can deliver on the promise once the phone starts ringing. Two things stood out from the room. First, shop owners are actively looking for new ways to stand out. Doing good work isn't enough on its own when every shop in town says the same thing, and the owners in this session wanted realistic ways to show customers what makes them different. Second, this group was extremely engaged. They came with questions and left wanting more, specifically strategies for continuing to raise their standards and for attracting the right kind of customers, the ones who value the way they do business and come back because of it. The conversations we came for Attendance felt a little lighter than in past years. With more digital learning options available and the cost of travel climbing, that's a shift a lot of regional shows are seeing, and it says nothing about the quality of what ASTA put together. If anything, a quieter floor gave us more time for the connections and conversations that make an event worth attending. We shared booth space with our partners at 360 Payments as well as Autoshop Solutions, and we had a steady run of new and familiar faces stop by to discuss what's on the horizon for the aftermarket industry. Customers sat down and explained what's working in their shops and what they'd like to see next. We met shop owners who are thinking hard about how to run a better business and what role their software should play in that. Those conversations were the best part of the show, and they're the reason we'll keep coming back. Thank you, ASTA! We'd like to shout out the ASTA team for putting on a well-run event, and to everyone who stopped by to talk with us. Tony and the Autoshop Solutions crew, thanks for sharing the stage. We were glad to be part of it! Next stop: SEMA in Las Vegas. Want to connect before we hit the road? SEMA Show is right around the corner in Las Vegas, November 3 through 6. We'd love to see you there, but a busy booth isn't always the best place for a real conversation about your shop. If you're weighing a change in how you run your business, or you just want to pick up where the ASTA class left off, let's talk before the show. Schedule a conversation and we'll come to Vegas already knowing what matters to you. Then stop by booth #11253 on the SEMA show floor and say hello in person! About the Author Shop-Ware Founded by a fellow shop owner, Shop-Ware understands the importance of your shop’s management system. Our staff have decades of combined experience in the Aftermarket. We are accustomed to meeting complicated needs and offering new solutions.
