The beauty of retail...

Inquiring about parts today. A 2003 VW Golf GTI looking for Koni shocks. The parts wholesale cost was 116 and 89 through wholesaler. Went to Tire Rack where the prices were 78 and 60.
Another asked me about a pair of Sparco Land 3 gloves, which retail at $75. He proceeded to send me a link to Speedway where they have them listed for $60, which is also below my wholesale cost.
A large box containing two seats also arrived today at my shop. Sounds great, except this particular pair was supposed to be drop shipped to the customer in New Jersey.

On a positive note, I sold a damaged seat with only a few hundred dollars loss. We finally have power for the welder/plasma and bender is mounted. Now just have to figure out where to mount profiler and a few other boring details.

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Grant Hughes

Supposed wholesale pricing is quite the scam. I have 4 parts stores that belong to different buying groups. The inventory and pricing is always different. We've seen radiators vary $30 on a $100 part. Weird stuff like headlights or trailer hitches I can often buy on Amazon or Ebay for less than any of my other suppliers. Specialty stuff like you're messing with is a lot tougher.

I worked for years in the cycling industry and the pricing structure there is pretty solid. Rarely would I find an online retailer under selling our wholesale price. If they were, it's because they wanted to blow out the last of their inventory to make room for the latest and greatest.

Now the autoparts/motorsports industry boggles my mind. Rockauto/amazon/ebay can beat most WorldPAC prices by a fair amount for the same product. Piston prices vary wildly for some reason as well. My dad actually started buying pistons through a competitor because their online pricing was better than his dealer pricing on the same part... and it had free shipping.

Yup. I regularly finds stuff cheaper than WorldPac online.
We aren't really looking to do a ton of retail. We have some seats in stock so people can sit in them. We have some harnesses. We have hubs, quick releases, and a steering wheel. Tons of Porterfield pads. , a few Monit rally computers, hood pins, and a few other little things. It often isn't worth the effort though.
The whole system is screwed up though with more middlemen than an Annabel Chong film. I contact a product sales team and they just refer you to a distributor or never call you back. I contact a company about a product a friend recommends and they say that P-Sport is their North America distributor though everyone I've talked to has had to order it from Canada. Another product someone recommends from the other side of the world has the same result, contact P-Sport. Others just never reply in any form.

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Grant Hughes

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NoCoast
Yup. I regularly finds stuff cheaper than WorldPac online.
We aren't really looking to do a ton of retail. We have some seats in stock so people can sit in them. We have some harnesses. We have hubs, quick releases, and a steering wheel. Tons of Porterfield pads. , a few Monit rally computers, hood pins, and a few other little things. It often isn't worth the effort though.
The whole system is screwed up though with more middlemen than an Annabel Chong film. I contact a product sales team and they just refer you to a distributor or never call you back. I contact a company about a product a friend recommends and they say that P-Sport is their North America distributor though everyone I've talked to has had to order it from Canada. Another product someone recommends from the other side of the world has the same result, contact P-Sport. Others just never reply in any form.

Well everybody with a keyboard is a retailer, welcome to the On-line-world-of-we're-all-ex-spurts...Everythings the same and we're all special and unique snow-flakes.

Check addresses and you find 10-12 different "businesses" all at the same address, go google maps and its a house so one fucking fuck is out bullshitting themselves as 12 "distributors" and ready to tell you what you need...

"Oh like wow, the rear struts are like 3.5" shorter? Just wind the fronts down till the car sits level" A real ex-spurt.....
But hey you got a website and a checkout you're a retailer.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2014 08:37PM by john vanlandingham.

Grant, I think you, and many others, will find that selling parts is not your business. You can sell advice, service and fabrication. The parts just enable you to do your job. They aren't your job.

And part of the business is to find good sources. I don't know who your sources are, but I've seen some startups that think they can nab two or three big wholesalers and can go into business, like the ones JVL spoke about. Buying from clearing houses like Turn14 should enable you to fill in the gaps when you need a part, but they don't give you enough elbow room to make any real profit.

FWIW, we're in with a few of those wholesalers. It's not for stuff we stock, but for when we need this or that part to complete a car. We are direct with a number of manufacturers. But we didn't get "direct" by ordering a few parts. We ordered five figures from some of them. Others we worked with to promote them to our mutual benefit. Still others we actually developed products for. But even after all of that, parts sales from other companies is too thin to really use as a base for our work.

Instead, our profit comes from sales of our own parts and building cars for customers. Everything else we have just makes it easier to do those two things.

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Jason McDaniel

I had the same experiences from my time at Group 2 Motorsports.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

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modernbeat
Grant, I think you, and many others, will find that selling parts is not your business. You can sell advice, service and fabrication. The parts just enable you to do your job. They aren't your job.

Part of what inspired us to start doing some retail is that we'd built ten cars and sold nothing else to go along side of those parts. Terry had an interesting interview I listened to where he talked about the challenges of the business and retail and the "race to the bottom" when it comes to part sales. (Terry Fair, owner at Vorschlag).

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Grant Hughes

We did an end-run around the problem by buying a lot of our stuff from Atech.

You may recognize Atech better as Summit. The margins are slimmer than most retail, but at least you end up with a margin and not a loss.

And, yes, selling parts is NOT our business. Anybody can pick up the phone and ring up Summit or Speedway or Rock Auto or any one of a bazillion places that sell Worldpac (truth: when I want to look up something at Worldpac but I'm not at work so I can't, I just go to 034 Motorsport's "OE Parts" section of their online catalog. It's Worldpac. Other specialty houses do the same thing) and, if not beat you for price, get the same experience. The parts are just the supplies you need to be able to get work done.

You don't want price-matchers as customers, they are almost always not worth the hassle of dealing with them, and usually represent a net loss after you factor in the time wasted dealing with them vs. the productive things you could have done with that time.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2014 06:45PM by Pete.

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Pete
We did an end-run around the problem by buying a lot of our stuff from Atech.

You may recognize Atech better as Summit. The margins are slimmer than most retail, but at least you end up with a margin and not a loss.

And, yes, selling parts is NOT our business. Anybody can pick up the phone and ring up Summit or Speedway or Rock Auto or any one of a bazillion places that sell Worldpac (truth: when I want to look up something at Worldpac but I'm not at work so I can't, I just go to 034 Motorsport's "OE Parts" section of their online catalog. It's Worldpac. Other specialty houses do the same thing) and, if not beat you for price, get the same experience. The parts are just the supplies you need to be able to get work done.

You don't want price-matchers as customers, they are almost always not worth the hassle of dealing with them, and usually represent a net loss after you factor in the time wasted dealing with them vs. the productive things you could have done with that time.

Plus Juan bazzillion.. Add to that the cost of a good lawyer to get the charges down to "Justifiable Homicide" when some clown whines so pitifully "Doooooooooooooood, cantcha cut me a deal on this____________________(stupid shiny junk thing that is stupid) I can get it for $2.69 from this guy... And that's shipped, come on maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, do me a deal I'll tell everybody how awesome you are and the business will pour in! BANG! thud.
Damn criminal denfese lawyers are 'spensive...

Well he has gotten me off 4 or 5 times now so maybe its worth it.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Here's the interview with Terry Fair I referenced earlier for any interested.
http://www.carsforaliving.com/cars-for-a-living-podcast/c4al-45-how-terry-and-amy-fair-built-and-market-vorshlag-from/

Click the Play button or download the MP3 if you are interested.

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Grant Hughes

give out free espresso,

its all about those impulse buys....

Quote
alkun
give out free espresso,

its all about those impulse buys....

Joe Isuzu again?

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
alkun
give out free espresso,

its all about those impulse buys....

Joe Isuzu again?

What was done there, I see it.

Still, The Best Rally Car in the History of the World (according to Bill Luton) will Save Rally!

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Sounds a lot like what Flatirons and Shawn go through all the time. "Hey I found these parts on ebay/amazon for $### less, will you sell them for cheaper or match the price?"

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R.Sealey
http://www.facebook.com/SealeySport
http://www.youtube.com/ryolse