[whiz05403]

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

To address quickly some of the issues you guys brought up.

- There is no such thing as free shipping - it's incorporated into the price of the product. We can give free shipping away, but then we would have to build it into the price of the product - not really fair to International customers. We are able to offer free shipping on drop-shipped items because we cut out our middleman warehouse (Pelican HQ) in the process and saved those costs which we pass onto the customer. For specialty items, there is a *lot* of handling going on behind the scenes and those costs can't simply be "absorbed". What we're talking about here are $2 million worth of actual costs. That said, we will be looking at ways to try make things more efficient and that will be a major goal in 2013.

- As for packaging, the number one goal is to make sure the parts arrive undamaged at your door. You'd be suprised at the abuse some packages take - we want to make sure they arrive perfect, so we make sure they are packed well. Sometimes, this can result in packages looking a bit "overkill". Still, we are currently looking into using more variable-sized boxes in the future.

- With our new catalog overhaul, we have a new search engine. On the Mercedes side (where we have rolled out the new catalog first because it's less complex than our Porsche side), the search engine is much improved.

Thanks again!

-Wayne

Wayne,

Obviously everyone here loves this site and your products/services. Thank God you guys exist or many of us would be lost with our Porsches.

Regarding shipping: Of course there is no such thing as "free shipping", but my beef is that in many places on your site and especially in your magazine ads all say "Free Shipping". I think those misleading statements should be removed from your ads. Many consumers buy from people based on their honesty in advertising. I'm willing to bet many new guys out there have been deep in the ordering process only to see a rather large shipment price added on, get turned off, and cancel their order.

I think your business is amazing, it's just the "free shipping" ads are very misleading.

Thanks.