The Latest Gimmick...

[Wayne 962]

Would you expect nothing less from us?



http://www.pelicanpartsexpress.com

-Wayne

[brandett]

If i didn΄t know better I think You have visualised my suggestion to an eariler post from You

Nice, smart and probably easy to maintain.

[Rick Lee]

Excellent Wayne - kudos! Now I can shop for my 911 and my Mazda truck at Pelican. This is especially useful for us East Coasters, since the order has to be substantial to make it worth the shipping. I'd just assume deal with you rather than start searching for Mazda parts sources.

[jriera]

Wayne, some 'constructive criticism' ..

-- too many clicks to reach 'No parts found' message.. if an item/part is not available do not show the category on the left pane

-- I prefer the 'old' user interface (the Porsche Pelican Parts) which includes the group (ie engine), description, PN and price.. a lot simpler and faster to browse.

I hope this helps.

[Paul_Heery]

Wayne -

There is something seriously wrong with the site. On my first time ever visiting the site, I put in the year, make and model of my car (1999 VW Passat V6). I drilled down, found a Bosch oil filter and click on "Add to Cart". The next screen showed the image below.

Now, I can see making some additional margin by encouraging the purchase of "impulse items". But, I was expecting an air freshener shaped like a pine tree not a brake disk and an intake valve.

Additionally, there appears to be no way of combining orders with orders from the Pelican Parts site. Consolidation of orders and lower shipping would encourage me to order everything from you.

[boyo]

Hey, cool...but where are the Big Healey parts?

Would love to see you give Moss Motors a run for their money. I'm tired of every part being backordered for my Austin-Healey 3000 Mk III... Waited 8 months for 2 carb float valves, 6 months for a gas tank, etc. etc...

Now if only you sold Chevy and Willys parts!

-Boyo

[Wayne 962]

The system is setup through an outside vendor, while we work to integrate it with our own shopping cart. I am aware of the user-interface problems, and I agree 100%! However, I gotta get the book done before I can start messing with this.

As for the shopping cart error, I'll have to look into this right away...

-Wayne

[Wayne 962]

Whoops, I was up until 7AM working on this and made a minor mistake - which is now fixed!

Thanks for informing me!

-Wayne

[Planter91C2]

don't spread yourself to thin and sacrifice on service, which is what i believe your competetive advantage is.

also, aren't you watering down your brand identity. pelican parts is associated with knowledge and specialization in porsche, isn't that identity valuable?

[9eleven]

Originally posted by Planter91C2
don't spread yourself to thin and sacrifice on service, which is what i believe your competetive advantage is.

also, aren't you watering down your brand identity. pelican parts is associated with knowledge and specialization in porsche, isn't that identity valuable?

I'm not sure there is much choice.

I looked into buying a Porsche/BMW parts business (or starting one) several years ago. It seemed to me there are 2 ways of going these days - (1) a small business owned by one person, specializing in parts for one or two makes (like Europroducts, GPR, Vertex, Paragon, etc), or (2) a giant congolmerate, like Automotion/Performance Products, or Mid-America (or whatever the name of that giant company is that bought Tweeks). Even Automotion, Performance Products and Tweeks were pretty big companies that ended up consolidating or getting aquired by even bigger companies.

Number 1 was not a viable option for me. The margins are so thin on most parts these days, with all of the competition, that it seemed very tough to make a decent living. With the thin margins, you need a lot of volume. A lot. Esp. if you have 2 partners involved in the business - both need to make a living so you need double the volume.

Number 2 would require a major investment of capital, more than most individuals would have and very difficult to get without a track record in the industry.

Wayne obviously knows better than I, but my guess would be that it would be difficult for Pelican to sustain 2 people (Wayne and Tom) selling just Porsche parts, given the thin margins it would be difficult to obtain the needed volume selling just one make.

I also found in my research that catalogs and mailings are what drive the big parts sellers. And that the cost of doing that is astronomical. It separates the Vertexs of the worlds (which are not bad businesses at all - just a different model than Performance Products, etc.) from the "Big Boys."

To me the Pelican experiment is very interesting - the plan seems to be to become much larger than Vertex, etc., but without catalogs. In place of catalogs is the Internet. Which is pretty novel in the Porsche/BMW parts arena (everyone has web sites, most seem pretty perfunctory).

The big question, of course, is while a Web site like this generates a lot of traffic, does it generate significant sales? Can it become a substitute for printed catalogs? An interesting question.

Of course, if this were 1999, there would be some great options. Drive up the revenues as high as possible (without regards to cost, profit, etc.), and sell the company to Mid-America! At that time, dotcoms were selling for 10-20 times revenues (regardless of whether the company was making a profit or not, in 1999 revenues were all that mattered). I don't think Wayne is intending to sell, but I'm sure he'd listen to an offer at 20X revenues!

Anyways, too much competition plus too thin of profit margins is what turned me away. My hat is off to Wayne and Tom for making a go at it. From my perpective, they are doing everything right and optimizing the chances for success - I sure wish both of them the best of luck.

[Wayne 962]

Yes, pushing yourself too thinly is a bad idea. However, PPExpress is a program that is linked to one of our suppliers. Parts are drop-shipped from this supplier, minimizing the amount of effort and handling of the parts. Other vendors are using this system, in this case, it's join up or be left behind.

Besides, we have developed a good repore' with our customers over the years, why send them to carparts.com (JCWhitney) when we can make the sale here.

When we integrate the system with our own shopping cart (in a month or two), then we'll really be able to give one-stop shopping, all in one place.

Tom and I made the call that this (because of the special arrangement with our supplier) effort would not significantly distract us from our core business. If anything, this took 1/100th the time that DriveWerks took. The plus with DriveWerks is that a lot of the products can be also displayed on the Porsche/BMW site.

We know our core audience is here. Why is it that I'm spending so much time writing this book? (10X more than it took to develop DriveWerks and PPExpress) Right now, this site is *the* place for 911s (trying to capture more post-1989 people), and we've made a commitment to you guys. Seen our catalog lately with all those nice pictures? The 1974-89 911 catalog got the first make-over. 1965-73 is coming soon.

Thanks for your support, and feedback!

-Wayne

[rstoll]

Pretty competitive on the Volvo parts Wayne. I have been using Roger Beasley in Austin for 15 or so years. You're right there.

[Wayne 962]

We priced ourselves competitively, since most of the 'hard work' is taken out of the equation...

-Wayne

[davis911s]

When you get back from vacation try to get older VW sources too. Westy's, Ghia's and Beeltle's etc

Shawn