Shipping Costs Questionaire regaring Pelican?

[Wayne 962]

Okay, the recent Shipping and Handling thread has gotten me thinking about our shipping policies. I have been kicking around some ideas for a while now.


Certain ground shipments (say from LA to NY) take about 5-6 working days. Supposing that we offered all of our customers who were four days or more out a free 3-day shipping upgrade. In other words if you were located in Pennsylvania, then you would have your package shipped out via 3-day at the ground rate.

People who lived within the 3-day boundary of Los Angeles would use regular shipping.

Would this make the left coast people order more?

What about fulfilment? Sometimes we can't ship out the parts the same day or the next day (due to special order parts?). Would people be more angry if they didn't get their parts in exactly three days...

-Wayne

[Doug E]

Wayne -

I think you mean east coat instead of left coast when you wonder if they would order more?

If that is your question then being an East coaster (VA) my inital answer would be yes, assuming there wouldn't be a corresponding price increase to cover your portion of the shipping. Unfortunately there are sometimes other variables that factor into repairs but as a general statement the policy of getting an order in 3 days at the cost of 5-6 day delivery would be a powerful customer service tool.

[john_colasante]

Yes.

If I knew I could order parts by Tuesday and still have them the same week for a reasonable fee it would be a great selling point.

I know people (myself included) like free shipping options. I remember reading surveys during the Internet boom that free shipping was rated among the biggest incentives for dotcoms to sell more.

Now I do not expect Pelican to ship for free. But I'm wondering if it doesn't make sense to offer very low discounted shipping. I think businesses like Pelican pre-arrange special discount rates with UPS. Why not pass those discounts onto the customers and make little or nothing on shipping as an incentive for mail order customers to buy more - especially from the East coast where shipping costs more?

[rstoll]

For small parts USPS Priority Mail is $3.50. I get priority shipments in Louisiana from Pelican in 3 days. Much better than UPS at 6 days and almost twice the price.

[silverc4s]

Wayne,
I am in Texas, and yes, shipping time is a consideration here. Also shipping costs can be a factor. It seems that 4 day or 5 day is cheap, the next increment is $10+, and 2 day is 2 much, always.
Here's a thought, how about orders over $XXX free shipping, or as you surely track a customer's total spend with you on a database somewhere, how about we build up shipping credits we can use when we really need them??
YMMV,

[speeder]

Bill, What does YMMV mean? And while we're at it LOL? I always thought that it was for "lots of luck", but I guess that here it means "laughing out loud"? And ROFL? TIA, (thanks in advance).

Also, I do not see a "C4S" in your extensive list of vehicles. Am I missing something? Thanks.

[silverc4s]

Speeder,
YMMV, means "your mileage may vary" and LOL is laughing out loud, I believe, ROFL is "roll on (the) floor laughing" , some folks do use ROTFL, but they are just being anal...
You are so correct, the only C4S that I have is a scale model, and it is silver. It's the last Porsche made that I really want to own....so maybe someday, who knows? Actually these days I would have to add the GT2 to the list although the entry fee's a bit steep for me at $250K or so....

PS....
You may also see: AFAIK "as far as I know" and IMHO, and IMNSHO, which are "in my humble opinion", and "in my not so humble opinion"

See you later,

[speeder]

Bill, Thanks for the glossary. I had guessed that ROFL meant "right out f'n loud!" Oh well.

[dean]

When I order from the west coast it takes minimum 7 days to me. 3 day would help but I order from Maine and it is on my doorstep the next day. Hard to beat that.

[osidak]

Wayne- I would very much like the free upgrade to 3 day. I live in NC and that would be very nice.

[H.G.P.]

Three day would be an incentive here. I usually prefer 2 day special shipping, but three day would help also. Please post when this policy is activated, as I'm preparing to order some new parts! Thanks.

[ChrisL]

Three day for the cost of ground sounds awesome! Also, cheap USPS (dollar or so) shipping for low cost parts would be great. I don't like paying more for the shipping than for the part...

Chris.

[Noel]

That would be an incetive for me in Ohio. I find myself sometimes ordering from Tweeks just because I'll get it faster, even though their customer service is not even close to yours.

Noel

[Jim Sims]

I would recommend shipping (and handling ) service that would allow me to send in an on-line order Sunday or a phone order at the start of business Monday morning and have my parts in hand by the following Friday evening so I can continue/finish my project or repair the next weekend. The shipping cost doesn't have to be as cheap as standard ground but should be less than overpriced overnight (rarely is achieved overnight anyway) or 2-day. I'm only a 1000 or so miles away from Pelican and other California Porsche parts sources but often the order processing and shipping cycle time results in my projects being delayed until the second weekend. Because of this problem I'm slowly building a stockpile of parts (by double ordering) that are used a lot and often needed in a hurry (spark plugs, points, brake fluid, brake bleeder valves, fuses, braided metric vacuum hose, oil filters, fuel filters, one-time use metal sealing rings, etc.) but I can't do too much of this because of the expense. Cheers, Jim

[Wayne 962]

A big part of the problem is the distribution. A lot of people order parts that are special order (like the rear seat leather straps) and take a day or two to arrive. So, if people are expecting 3-day shipping, and they order something that takes more than a day to get, there is the tendency for people to become very disappointed.

We don't have a warehouse filled with $8 million worth of inventory, and we don't have any same-day or even next-day shipment guarantees, because we offer so many different parts from so many different suppliers. Right now, our catalog is about 300% larger than Performance Products' on the Porsche side (not including their truck stuff). There's no way that I can stock all of the stuff that we offer, in order to guarantee that items would be shipped out the same day or next day.

It's tough, because people expect that items like the 1975 main bearings (unique to that year) will be in stock and ready to ship out the same day if they call at 2PM.

The choice we made a long time ago was to offer a wide (huge) selection of parts, with the sacrifice of delayed fulfilment times. Implementing a 3-day shipping program will emphasize that particular weakness of our business model, I fear, and piss off a lot of customers.

It's this type of comment that makes me nervous about offering this service:

"If I knew I could order parts by Tuesday and still have them the same week for a reasonable fee it would be a great selling point. "

This would be a typical person who would call up at 1PM on Tuesday and expect that their parts would be shipped out the same day via 3-day shipping. Unless they order very generic items that we have in stock (which is almost never the case, there is always some silly 0.50 cent special-order nut that they want) this would be very difficult to do.

Then, the program (which would cost us more $$$) would actually result in an increase in customer complaints and a decrease in customer satisfaction...

Any thoughts?

-Wayne

[H20911]

Wayne.....I really like the idea that if I call up Darren on say.... Monday and ask for some generic stuff, I know that I will (can) have it on friday to do it over the weekend. This is more important to me then a few bucks off the shipping.

He usually can tell me if the entire order can be sent out or if there is a wait involved with something. I also know that the longer I wait in the week to order, the less likely that I will get the part by the weekend. That will get me not to order something until the following week, when I hopefully remember to order it monday.............vicious cycle

[walt]

Yes, If I order something from Ca. on Monday I would like to have it before the weekend. Several times my order did not arrive until the following Tuesday or Wednesday.

[North Coast Cab]

Wayne,
First let me say you guys are the best! Living in Ohio I feel the shipping delay pain as many others do. However, virtually every good source for P-car components is out west so you'r not at a disadvantage. Anyway, to me the quick shipment turnaround is most important. I, like so many others, do most of my work on the weekend. I typically order parts on Sunday, Tom reviews and checks order in on Monday, it ships Monday and I receive them Friday, just in time for another wekend in the garage. From a distribution standpoint, I'd spend my energies getting the orders shipped the same day before subsidizing the shipping rates. Keep up the good work.

JG
P.S. The way things are going you should have that $8M in inventory soon and solve all of your problems.

[scottb]

Wayne:

The trend in online retailing seems to be free shipping for purchases over "x" dollars. (See, e.g., Amazon.com and Buy.com.) Maybe you should consider such a program, and then if people want 3-day, 2-day, or overnight shipping they can pay extra for that.

Any thoughts, group?

[Targa77]

Yes Wayne, it would. I love your prices and your customer service is hard to beat, but it takes forever to get something from you on the East coast when ordering UPS ground. I have ordered several much-needed parts from Vertex because they are in Florida and UPS ground takes two days.