Well sure, but my response was an answer to the question...perhaps Performance products marketing effort is working. Surprisingly not everyone knows about Pelican. Heck there might still be people out there with a computer! :)

Chuck

I would bet the reason that PP is running a 20% sale is because they are experiencing the same slump and are using the best known marketing tool for combatting the problem.

The last retailer I worked for would never offer anything more than a 10% off sale unless it was needed to prop up sales.

I think many of us Californians are saving up for the triple-car-registration tax starting Oct 1st. I am not happy about this, BTW.

I hear through the PCA that the $100 certs PCA sent out to all members did spike sales figures and was deemed successful. Sure Porsche's parts mark-up is probably much greater than PP, but its all about the marketing.....

Chris

I have not seen any info about a 20% sale at my other competitor. I know firsthand that they have been struggling for quite some time. Heck, the company was sold last month to a 4 Wheel Drive company. Guess what that means for the Porsche side.

As for our hiring, that notice was placed about 3-4 weeks ago, before this slowdown has started. We have not filled this position, although we have turned away quite a few people who didn't quite meet our requirements. If the right person came along, I would probably still hire them, as good quality people are hard to find. I would rather lose a little $$$ in overstaffing in the short run to gain a quality employee.

We're not big into the race parts just yet, as these require extensive product knowledge and a lot of support in an area where we can't keep on top of everything. The new guy I hired will be responsible for expanding this section and educating our sales people.

We are "shifting" people around here. If you have had a problem with emails from Pelican employees, please email me at wayne@pelicanparts.com

Thanks,

Wayne

Ummmmm just bought over $1.200 of restoration parts (all new weather stipping, headliner) from ya in the last 3 weeks.
Koo

Bought the Prototipo from you--which got here very quickly. Right now, in the midst of disassembly of a 67 "S". While our economy in Alaska is fairly solid right now, I am in the wait and see mode as to how much I will budget this year on the project. I anticipate some PP purchases over our nice 7 month winter, but right now I'm focusing on some specialty items that are "R" based-especially some "R" panels etc. I think it is the combination of summer vacation and the precarious economy that has perhaps slowed the disposable income spending.

Once the summer vacation is up, kids in school, more free time + hopefully the economy stabilizes. Should be just fine. I'd like to buy a lot of items right now, but will probably wait until fall winter--If we can pick up some decent backlog work -wise.

A.B.

Prototipos, ahh, no longer available. Although a secret stash is rumoured to exist in the vast recesses of my office...

-Wayne

Not much $$$$$$
 

But last purchase from Pelican was over $200....still waiting for
$50 credit on parts returned weeks ago. Overall pleased with
service/shipping from Pelican. In support of this board I will give
Pelican first chance on parts needed.
Let me take this opportunity to thank you for the board and the
service/answers it provides.

I recently made my second order in about 30 days. I hope you guys got it. Requested 2 day delivery, I think, but still have not received order. Already got my fabspeed and stuttgart performance stuff I ordered on the same day/night. I am not the most patient person, but quick service would keep me coming back.

Just got my SC back after 7 mo. and $8.5k. Sorry, Wayne, I'm out on the road again!!!http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/...sun_smiley.gif I'll be back after the snow flies. (New seals, interior on the list for this winter)

Definitely driving season here in Ohio, along with Family Vacations that are draining my cash. Should resume my frivolous spending on my car come 4th Quarter, if everything goeas as planned!

Tough business to forecast, huh!

laid off from the crashing music buis, broke, starting my own business just to have a job and a way to finance eating.

BTW, would it be wise for you to start mailing notices (at the minimum the postcard type) about any 'sale' days/one-time discounts days/competitor matching sale/etc.? I understand postage could become expensive but, hey, it takes $ to make $.
As an alternative, or in addition, to the mailing, you could start emailing the info! Maintain a database, ala, Harbor Freight. You let people plug in their email address, and voila.

Lastly, have you compiled how many customers you have without a PP alias? Somehow, someway, you give me the impression that you heavily rely on the bb users? I still think you need exposure based on my dealings with other Porsche owners (about 50% do not know Pelican). Exposure! Exposure! You have a great thing going with a great knowledge-based website, lower-than-discount prices, etc. Come up with $5 or $10 or $1.00..... discount reward when an existing customer refers a new customer with $xxx.xx purchase.

-- begin beating on podium ---

I come from and IT and a catalog retail background and I have found that most companies need to look at the business in a number of new lights. My belief is that your company considers itself to be mostly based on Web marketing. Consistently I have found that companies with a large Web based presence have some fundamental misunderstandings about their websites. When discussing their websites it becomes apparent that they believe that their website is a marketing campaign. This is not true. A website is a marketing tool; just like a desk, a computer, or a printing press. A marketing campaign is structured attempt to reach customers. An example of a campaign would be click through banner ads, mailers, emails, or even the direct responses to people's posts on this or other boards.

Having a website is critically important to your business but your business is completely based on marketing. Do you track the cost, response rate, and conversion rate of all of your marketing? If you do something can you tell if it is working, and if so how well? If you are doing it by feel then I can tell you from experience that you would be amazed at how often your "feel" can be wrong (even when you are succeeding!).

You said that you don't have figures for previous years. Gaaak! You need this. You need to know that if you send out "X" number of emails or postcards then you will get this kind of response over this long of a time period. You will be able to know when to market to cover an expected slump in sales or even to reduce expected orders to adjust for key employee's vacations.
A couple of specific suggestions:

• - When you go to "shows" (such as Dunkles or Pomona) come up with a large backdrop that really highlights the bulletin board, maybe showing some threads and pointing out the response time. It is the perfect way to bring people into "the family".
• - Look at having someone go through all the posts and put responses in that point directly to the part numbers being discussed. I don't think anyone here would mind you beating your own drum if it isn't to loud. Hey, you gave us the playground.
• - Come up with a way to track the numbers of what you are doing. Tracking sales is obviously important but from a couple posts here I would be interested in your inventory accuracy and order accuracy. I would not be satisfied with an inventory accuracy of less then 99.5% (measured as 99.5% of SKUs having perfect accuracy). I would also want to see an order accuracy of over 98%.

BTW- I like cab83_750's ideas.
Also- It is too hot to work on the car right now. :) Besides, I am saving for some 3.5 P&Cs.

Wayne

Competition?? You have competition?? Hmmmm...

Actually, I've been: Racing my race car, repairing and improving my race car, buying tires, outfitting my trailer, fixing (aka rebuilding) my house.

And I would LOVE to be driving the 911, but I need to find the time to figure out that darn ignition issue.....

Yup, Quicksilver hit the nail right on the head but I normally keep such opinions to myself since these are the kinds of things I get paid to implement for paying customers. ;)

Lets just say you need tracking systems for all lead generators and customer shopping patterns. These tracking systems need to distill this information into easy to understand statistics that you can use to tailor your marketing programs.

I already have recieved two post cards in the mail from my former employer since its the slow part of the season, my test orders in the system make me appear to be a big and frequent spender and I did not place an order after the first post car arrived several weeks ago. The first was for 20% off, but since I did not respond to that one I have now been offered 20% off and free shipping.

I would normally be getting e-mail instead the post cards since its a cheaper form of customer contact but my old e-mail address is no longer vaid so the system has switched me over to snail mail based promotions.

Each promotion has a code I must use and that is part of the information that will be used by my former employer to decide the effectiveness of their different promotions.

Your system should also keep track of what search engines and other sites are linking people into the on line catalog so that internet lead performance metrics can also be generated.

wayne, you've all my business, maybe we need Pelican Points on our accounts...I can see it now...sales increase, I purchase more, and I earn Pelican Points for future purchases...I know you give out the coupons after the sale, but my problem is they expire b/f I use them b/c I'm on a budget (3 kids and wife budget)

Wayne, Management had decided there would be no more 20% discounts offered and passed the word to the sales reps. No one thought to stop the printing,mailing and e-mailing to customers for the 20% discount campaign that had been planned months before. They were stuck with the promotion on the street and immediately updated the website with the 20% banner. Banner lasted about a week. Dont recall the expiration on the postcard but thats the end of the 20% discounts.
Matthew

Very good suggestions from everyone. Alas, not everyone here is privy to our internal struggles and problems, so the suggestions, while very good on general terms do not address specific problems that we have right now. Our biggest problem is indeed coping with our tremendous growth. There is only so much you can do. If I have a big marketing push, I have to make sure that my warehouse and sales team will be able to handle it. It's tough to find good quality employees. The people I recently hired are not sales people (although at least one can double for Porsche sales), so it's not like I can move them into the BMW sales area if I need to. That creates the strange situation of laying someone off, while still looking for BMW people to hire. I'm not going to lay *anyone* off right now, although our current sales level (as of the past 4 weeks) cannot support the current staff level that we have.

We have also decided to invest time and money into the revamp of DriveWerks. Without saying too much, I think everyone here will be impressed. Talk is cheap though - when we relaunch in two weeks, I'll let the harsh critics here decide. The real proof of the pudding will be whether you guys acutally use the site to purchase stuff for your other cars, and actually spread the word, much like you have done with Pelican.

Speaking of which, this website's most effective marketing tool is word of mouth. I find more people by having other people tell other Porsche owners about us than by any other means. It's good, free advertising, and makes me wonder why I'm spending $$$ on print ads. We're planning on using the same formula (kick-started of course) with the BMW side.

We also realize that the Porsche market is our home-grown market, and it is what we have built this business on. We have made sure that we keep in touch with our Porsche customers (by having knowledgeable (most of the time) Porsche sales reps) and by expanding our Porsche sections. I've written two books on the 911, and have plans to expand on them, both in print and with the website. Planned are a multitude of "Wizards" just like the Engine Rebuild Wizard. These things all take time, of course, and we're working (at least for the next 2-3 months) on our DriveWerks overhaul. I realize that many of you will say "why are you dilluting yourself with DriveWerks?" Well, the Porsche market is just not big enough to support the level of business and standard of service that we wish to achieve. Without expanding, we will not be able to implement all the future plans that we have. Never fear, we always plan to be full supporters of the Porsche market - it's our bread and butter. Without divulging too many details, when I have discussions with friendly competitors, they are always shocked and amazed at the amount of resources we have dedicated to expanding and growing the site and catalog. We fully funnel nearly 100% of the profits back into the business so that we can grow and expand it.

Regardless, thanks everyone for your suggestions. I didn't mean to imply that Pelican was doing poorly (we're not). I just saw a distinct and consistent slowdown in sales (call it a blip) over the past four weeks that seemed to be sudden, and somewhat unexplained...

-Wayne

I guess I'm one of folks helping to keep up numbers, I've been buying parts for my running P car and my friend's non-running P-car that's still sitting in my garage. I still check prices other places and Pelican still has the best prices or low enough for the customer service to make up any difference.

I'm going to do some DE prep for my 930 one of these days, roll bar, harness, seats, etc. I sure would like to buy them from Pelican.

Keep up the good work, thanks.