Quote:
Originally Posted by ironworks
I have a few thoughts for you. I have seen this kinda of drama your describing going on for years. I think it is a sign or people selling the parts too cheap. They have to sell so much volume to make up for cutting their own throat daily. I personally think if everyone was required to sell the parts at retail there would not be all these vendors commiting profit suicide. Apparently some vendors think they would rather make only 1 dollar profit then lose the sale. They don't realize the work they have to do for that one dollar. But if there was no way to get the price any cheaper because you have a strong knowledgeable vendor network of your products, not just some guy with a business license.
I have been thinking alot about this subject as I'm building our product line. If I selected just a few vendors of our product that sold my product and were able to make good money from it and not have to worry about price battles with some other guy trying to sell the product out of his garage on Ebay that has no clue even what a camaro is. I would cut down on the after sale phone calls you guys get because the vendor deals with you or knows enough to handle the issue. But because he is able to make a "PROFIT" on the product he can afford to treat the customer how they want or need to be treated. But when a guy has to sell 3 brake kits to make the profit he should have made from just one kit something has to give.
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Roger,
This has been my number one gripe over the past year. Nobody has a shop anymore, just a website, and a business license. Meanwhile, we're paying rent, liability insurance, payroll, and a light bill on a real brick and mortar location. So meanwhile, my competition just pays his mortgage on his house, and sells a product for 5% over cost. What good does that do anybody? Then, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, when every arm chair warrior with a computer will buy from a guy, who doesn't know anything about the product, or the customers car, and I have to price match him to stay in business?
I've actually written a 3 page essay about the problem, and I'm about to post it to google here in the next week. I'm sure it won't be popular with some people, but bottom line, is people need to know, that what your paying for is somebody's knowledge, and you cant call a guy like you, pick your brain several times for hours at a time, and then call
www.(blank) because they sell that product for 25 bucks less than you do.
Oh, and then call you and ask you to trouble shoot a problem with said product. That's always a good one too.
We're making some huge changes around here at my shop too. We're not discounting to match these guys anymore. And we're pushing more of our own products, and products where there is some sort of dealer protection. We're just wasting time with everything else.... I have a huge problem with this over at Pro-T, but we're dealing with it.