Pelican Fix The New Garbage Parts Catalog

[Sebscst]

I have tried several times in the course of two weeks to order parts and every time there is a freaking problem! Never happened before the “new and improved “ website. It’s garbage bring back the old one.

[Steam Driver]

I agree entirely; new web site sucks! Harder to navigate, and totally scrambled and useless on my iPad.

[sean m]

This has been ongoing. I've had similar issues. Previous posts on the "new Website" issues yielded no improvements.

VERY FRUSTRATING and makes it difficult to find/purchase expensive parts for our cars. After a lot of effort on my part (due to supporting Pelican because of the forum).......I end up buying elsewhere.

[Trackrash]

Agree. It has gone from bad to worse.

I searched for ball joint in the Porsche parts catalog and got "no results". Really?

[dailydriven911]

It’s horrible I like the old version much better lol

[76FJ55]

I agree the search function is about useless. I default to looking up the parts I need in PET and then searching for the specific part number. this seems to be the only way to find what I'm looking for. haven't tried searching for aftermarket parts yet though I can see running into issues there since I won't have a reference for the actual part number I'm interested in.

[pkabush]

Yep. Lots of threads about this. It’s pretty ridiculous. Come to think of it, I just realized that we made it through most of the weekend without the site crashing. Yay!
If I’m looking for a specific part I always google it. Pelican is usually the first option

[john walker's workshop]

As usual, no response from the sponsors.

[WolfeMacleod]

Yup, the new catalogue is about as bad as the prices these days. I know dealerships with better pricing. I love Pelican and all but... yikes.

[lateapex911]

Did pelican get sold or something when I wasn't looking?

[75 911s]

It feels transitional. Let's hope. They obviously have a database of parts, reviews, customer data. It's likely a massive beast that they are trying to update the look for. Order tracking was broken too. If I tried to access it via link in email, it wouldn't work, but going directly to the site, then adding the number in worked.

It needs a lot of work though.

[Jonny042]

I placed and order for a handful of things all showing "in stock" and "ships monday" a few weeks back.

I didn't get an order confirmation, nothing. Couldn't track it on the website, finally had to contact them. I just cancelled it. The holdup on the order was valve guides which was the one thing I actually needed so I got them somewhere else for 20% cheaper.

They REALLY need to pull up their socks.

[tholyoak]

Pretty sure Wayne sold Pelican Parts back in 2017 to ECS Tuning. Just another online company since then. As mentioned, you can get genuine parts from many of the dealers for less or equivalent prices.

[RDM]

My only concern is what that means for their interest / ability to maintain the forum.

[Sebscst]

That’s the sad part, I want to continue to use them for parts as that must support the forums. I’m willing to pay a little more just because we are not only buying parts but years of knowledge from forum members that is priceless. Without this forum I would have never been able to complete my cars. It’s frustrating because losing this community would be detrimental to future Porsche enthusiasts. So as many have started to buy parts elsewhere how long will this forum stay around.

[emac911]

I usually use part numbers when searching or put the part number in google and look for the Pelican link. Google can search Pelican better than Pelican!

I have returned a few things and they have been very responsive, once you realize you have to contact them directly (phone or email) as there is no place, that I can find, to submit a return and get a RA#. Most places have a way to return items from the original order. I have been very pleased with their customer service and just put up with the website.

[monkeyodeath]

I get that websites need to be updated every once in a while, and often times doing so is less about the external design and more the moving on from the obsolete (and insecure) technology that the site is built on...

But the new frontend design on PelicanParts just feels weirdly inefficient to me, tons of empty space, massive fonts, redundant info. Miles of padding on everything. Feels more like buying car parts on Amazon than a site optimized to sell car parts.

I've put in my specific car make/model/year information and I'm looking at a list of parts. Why does every single part listing have a huge graphic indicating "This Fits Your 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe"? Uh, no shi*, that's the car I'm searching on?

That's hundreds of pixels of space dedicated to telling me something I already know. It's annoying and fatiguing to look through. I shouldn't need to scroll through 2000 pixels of webpage just to see like 8 part listings.

[Discseven]

Originally Posted by Sebscst

That’s the sad part, I want to continue to use them for parts as that must support the forums. I’m willing to pay a little more just because we are not only buying parts but years of knowledge from forum members that is priceless. Without this forum I would have never been able to complete my cars. It’s frustrating because losing this community would be detrimental to future Porsche enthusiasts. So as many have started to buy parts elsewhere how long will this forum stay around.

Company related forums are online marketing tools that drive traffic numbers for the respective host. The more traffic to a website, the better the search engine ranking for that site based on traffic data. So we're helping Pelican's traffic data every time we visit here. More, the longer time we spend on the site, that also benefits Pelican's search egine rankings. Every time someone writes "Porsche" or a Porsche part number, that's also benefitting Pelican in that we're adding relevant content. To say/think Pelican is doing us a favor with this forum... true but at the same time we're doing them a favor each time we visit the forum.

[Jeff Alton]

Originally Posted by Jonny042

I placed and order for a handful of things all showing "in stock" and "ships monday" a few weeks back.

I didn't get an order confirmation, nothing. Couldn't track it on the website, finally had to contact them. I just cancelled it. The holdup on the order was valve guides which was the one thing I actually needed so I got them somewhere else for 20% cheaper.

They REALLY need to pull up their socks.

This is because they have very few things "in stock" They rely on drop ship or ship to their small facility from a WD that has it is stock, and then ship to you. Has been this way since inception, though not managed as well lately. It is what most of these online stores do. It is what E-commerce is all about....

They buy from many of the same sources your local Indy buys from.... I know we do...

Just sayin...

[Showdown]

The irony of the promise of globalization and e-commerce was that we were going to be able to cut out the middlemen and go directly to the manufacturers; eliminate additional cost and time yet here we are where drop shipping is the norm for just about everyone save some Amazon products.