Flawed business model

[patooyee]

This industry / niche is the only one I've ever been a part of where this whole model of "you pay me for promises, I deliver on promises when I feel like it" seems to fly. I'm done with it. Here's how I shop from now on:

- I ask if you have parts on the shelf ready to ship to me.
- If you do I pay you.
- If you don't, I don't pay you.
- When you get them on the shelf I'll pay you.
- If you say you have it, take my money, and then it doesn't ship because you lied and didn't have it in the first place I'm INSTANTLY filing a fraudulent charge claim. NO WARNING, NO GRACE PERIOD. Your warning should have been your mother teaching you not to tell lies when you were 5 years old. Sorry you didn't learn that lesson back then. I don't care if the name of your shop is Jesus Christ Fabworks: Buggies Built by The Lord Himself ... your promise is worth less than a steaming pile of feces to me.

If you went to the grocery store and needed bread would this **** fly?

"I'm sorry sir, we're out of bread. But we are currently taking orders for bread in advance. If you kindly place your order now we can ensure that we will have bread for you when it comes in. Otherwise when it comes in we can not promise that we will have any left over after the pre-orders for bread are filled. We do not know when we will receive the fulfillment for the pre-orders. Right now we are expecting 2 weeks. But that could change at any minute and we can not commit to anything firmly."

I understand extremely custom ****, like one-off axleshafts, and stuff that just wouldn't get built unless pre-ordered. But things like rod ends which are generic, everyone uses, and are sold in large quantities, should be on the shelf at all times. If you don't have enough confidence in your own product to keep it on the shelf you are just a shady mofo to me. Yes, there are occasional SNAFU's and that is to be expected. But asking people to pay for promises as a standard practice is shady IMO. There is no longer a promise worth a single penny to me in this industry, I don't care who you are. I'll put your promises in one hand and cold hard cash in the other and see what fills up first.

I've been through this rigmarole so many times, both with "reputable" companies and ones that turned out to truly be shady, its dumb. I'm beginning to think that our willingness to do it is what attracts the shady ****ers to our industry to begin with. "Hey, there's a bunch of dumb-asses with a ton of money willing to pay for promises! Let's go make some money!"

Here's Patooyee's Parts promise to the 4x4 industry: We stock what we sell. We don't operate on such a tight string that we need the income from our last batch of parts before we produce our next batch. If we run out of something, which is RARE, there will be a large red warning note on the product page on the website and all eBay listings for that item will be taken down. If for some reason there is a SNAFU that results in you being able to place an order without product being on the shelf and without the red warning note WE WILL CONTACT YOU IMMEDIATELY to let you know the situation and offer you a refund. You will not have to track us down and fight for your money back, WE will track YOU down and OFFER your money back WILLINGLY.

Thank you.

 

[bbone]

Agree with you 100% With that being said, who have you been working with that is at fault?

Another thought is, are we somewhat to blame for putting up with this type of ****? I am always hesitant to spend a lot of $ on something that is on the wrong side of the country ..its not like I am going to drive that far and whoop some ass but..its nice to deal with people from your area.

 

[patooyee]

With that being said, who have you been working with that is at fault?

Another thought is, are we somewhat to blame for putting up with this type of ****?

I'm not going to throw anyone under the bus at this point. It wasn't really the intent of the thread. I do think we are partly to blame for it though. I think if everyone operated by the simple purchase policies that I outlined it would happen a lot less. I think we enable the behavior by tolerating it and raising awareness to a possible remedy was the intent of the thread. If no one paid for promises the companies that only had promises to offer would just go out of business. Eventually they would move on to a different industry where promises held value.

I have a couple thousand tied up with one vendor right now that was dumb on my part.

Then another vendor I'm not paying until they have product on the shelf. The email threads are hilarious. They go something like this:

I want $2000 worth of your product, is it on the shelf ready to ship?"
No, we don't generally keep our product on the shelf. We only do pre-orders. But if you would like to place your order now we should have it ready in about two weeks.
Sorry, that's shady, I'm not giving you money until you say you have product ready to go.
We may never be in that position but please check back with us in 2 weeks.
[This is for a very standard product, one which everyone uses, orders in large quantities, not custom at all. 2 weeks go by ...]
Just checking in on the status of the product ...
We just got a new machine and have been installing it. We haven't done anything yet, maybe another 2 weeks.
See why I wouldn't pay you 2 weeks ago now? That seems pretty shady. You didn't know you were getting a new machine 2 weeks ago?
I'm very sorry, we are working as fast as possible to fulfill pre--orders and if you want anything you should pre-order.
I'm not pre-ordering. You've only given me reason not to do so. I'll check back in 2 weeks again.
[2 weeks later ...]
Just checking back in ...
We still haven't started on anything yet, excuses, excuses, blah blah blah.
Nevermind. The end. Glad I didn't pre-order!

 

[bbone]

Although me and you are in very different lines of work..

My work:
Dr...sorry the implant you want to use today is on back order...no release date...yes you used one yesterday sorry

Your work:
Customer...we are out of food sorry...want something else to drink

 

[bgredjeep]

Someone order from Ballistic again?

 

[patooyee]

Someone order from Ballistic again?

No, I know better than that.

 

[patooyee]

Agree with you 100% With that being said, who have you been working with that is at fault?

Another thought is, are we somewhat to blame for putting up with this type of ****? I am always hesitant to spend a lot of $ on something that is on the wrong side of the country ..its not like I am going to drive that far and whoop some ass but..its nice to deal with people from your area.

[derail]What have you decided to do about your motor?[/derail]

 

[bbone]

[derail]What have you decided to do about your motor?[/derail]

Still on the trailer. Been working on a huge home project, just finishing garage up. I have got it ready to pull out..hopefully soon. Wont know the plan until we know what is wrong with it.

 

[pplblazerdude]

Although me and you are in very different lines of work..

My work:
Dr...sorry the implant you want to use today is on back order...no release date...yes you used one yesterday sorry

Your work:
Customer...we are out of food sorry...want something else to drink

I am in the same line of work as you are. From being in this line of work and being held to the standards of you "better have my product here when I say to" I have little to no patients for backordered products I want.

Current I want a bikini top for my 4 runner but the company says 4-6 weeks before it would be ready. I just can't stand sitting and waiting for the product so I still have not ordered it. If i would have placed the order when I first started thinking about it I would have had it by now.

 

[patooyee]

To me, not having standard product on the shelf is like saying, "I don't believe enough in my own product to risk capital on inventory. Instead I risk my customers' capital and time." Even if you do believe they'll make good on their promise, is that the kind of company you want to invest in?

 

[Mortalis5509]

Re:

I am behind on a project due to a main part. They are holding me up, and ample time has been given. They to are a big name in the 4x4 as well. I have heard several other stories about this company from other people about not being on time with parts, payments to other companies, and people taking their stuff to other shops to get it right.

 

[pplblazerdude]

To me, not having standard product on the shelf is like saying, "I don't believe enough in my own product to risk capital on inventory. Instead I risk my customers' capital and time." Even if you do believe they'll make good on their promise, is that the kind of company you want to invest in?

This idea is how you build business and keep long time customers. When people can order from you knowing the item the want will show up then business will roll in.

One thing that has pissed me off in the past was, I ordered a very large order from a company and the order went through like nothing was wrong. Well I never got a email stating the item had shipped or had not shipped within 7 days. I called them and they told me that they had been at king of the hammers and pretty much shut down during this time. No where on the site did they post this info or anything. I would have been fine with this if it was knowledge up front but in turn I was pissed.

Be Honest is the key

 

[patooyee]

I've gotten bit by KOH also. The funny thing is, I don't think ANYONE out there is making enough off that race to logically justify blowing off ALL of the rest of their customers for 2 weeks straight.

 

[Nuts]

I just ordered a PS pulley from Jegs, it says next day shipping on in stock parts. So I placed the order, they took my money, then sent a conformation email saying my product is expected to ship on the 5th of next month. I trust that jegs isn't going to **** me but it still aggravates me a little that on the site it didn't say anything about the pulley being out of stock.

 

[Craig_c]

A friend is going through this right now with a chassis builder. Guy won't answer calls or txt messages.

I got the same deal ordering a part right before the Hammers, but that really didn't hold my order up. They took my card info, shipping address and all that, and then "oh man I think we just sold the last one, next batch won't be for a couple weeks"

 

[paradisepwoffrd]

I agree with everything you guys are saying about this industry. It seems crazy to me how some of the big names are known for being slow/backordered yet have been the primary source for things for years.

Although me and you are in very different lines of work..

My work:
Dr...sorry the implant you want to use today is on back order...no release date...yes you used one yesterday sorry

Your work:
Customer...we are out of food sorry...want something else to drink

The industry I work in is slightly different than this, but we don't sell to the public much. Typical lead time on anything we sell is 4-6wks. You know up front though what it is and receive a ship date within a week. We have some standard/contract parts that we stock in distribution, but with 26k part numbers its hard to keep inventory on everything.

 

[Stretch]

Custom parts, builds, etc: Defined timeline with goal/stage oriented payments. X % at initial deposit, X % at a certain stage of the build, X % on delivery.
Retailer of basic parts: Have that **** on the shelf and keep a decent inventory or management of said inventory. Thats your damn business. If it is not on the shelf, give me a hard date as to availability. If you pull the "oh well call back in Xweeks" then expect me to buy elsewhere.

The other thing that kills me too, is E-storefronts that work solely off of drop shipping from a supplier/manufacturer. I understand that there are some companies with distribution centers, but the off road market in particular is loaded with these types of businesses that have a vendor account with someone and just drop ship. I totally get the fact that someone wants to make a buck but doesn't want to carry a bunch of overhead and sit on parts. Its annoying to order parts from someone that you search and see they are located within a day or two on ground shipping, then the part ships from California and you don't get the tracking for 2 days because someone had to forward your order to the supplier.

I won't throw anyone under the bus, but there are only a few companies I order from these days. ECGS being about the only one that I feel comfortable paying before the parts are in, simply because I can walk into their offices and place the order in person. BudBuilt was the same way when I was living close to his shop.

 

[TBItoy]

Re:

We usually quote anywhere from 32-52 week lead time... But we're designing and building machines from the ground up. And we get paid in stages, usually
deposit-design approval-mechanical completion-machine run off-delivery...

Now some of our suppliers for purchased components like gearboxes or pumps blow my mind, when you select and order an item with a part number, from a catalog, that is not "custom" or "special order" in any way, and they give you a 16 week lead time on it!

So we go ahead and order it, but NO money changes hands until the item is delivered to our shop!

 

[civicmindedex79]

This is one of the big reasons I have always like Scott at Sunfire Offroad. He will be the first to tell you if you will have it and when. Even if its months out. He will tell you the truth. Might not be what you want to hear but it is honest truth.

 

[patooyee]

Re: Re: Flawed business model

This is one of the big reasons I have always like Scott at Sunfire Offroad. He will be the first to tell you if you will have it and when. Even if its months out. He will tell you the truth. Might not be what you want to hear but it is honest truth.

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