Pelican "Parts" sour grapes!
 

Pelican told me what I wanted to hear when I ordered a set of rear brake pads from Jon (ex 248) early Friday.

With my order I expressed that is was important that I receive my part so I could attend a Porsche Club event.

However, last night I received an email that my order was delayed.

I was very careful to confirm that they had the parts and that I would receive them.

After two emails and on my second call I talked to Jon and was told he had checked inventory but there was only one set and that he could not be expected to be accountable as the warehouse was 65 miles away or some thing.

No solutions were offered to cure the situation.

Luckily I was able to impose on on old Friend ship, pay twice the price, and drive accost town and I should have a set locally tomorrow.

If Jon had been Pelican/Jon had been honest with me and informed me of the risk I would not have been put in this upsetting situation.

I have canceled my order but fully expect they will ship it anyway based on my experience. We will see.

I love this form (almost 4k posts) and hope my note here will help Pelican Parts to focus a little more on there business and being upfront with there customer.

Regrets.

:(

I think it's possible on this forum to PM Wayne.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/kao5.gif Waa! Waa!

Anyone who orders from Pelican on a regular basis knows they are the best. Next time don't wait until Friday to get a part delivered Saturday you're luck they even offered.

I just waited over a month to get a refund on an order from a competitor that never fulfilled or shipped them, the parts were unavailable. I'll never do that again I'll stick with Pelican.

For every order that does not go as planned, there are many, many orders that are correct.

Never had a single problem with Pelican... all orders are quick to ship and very well packaged when I get them. I think you had a fluke experience. An order taker is only as good as the data he sees in front of him. I'm sure it said that he 'saw' the part in stock when he completed your order. It was just a timing/data update fluke, don't let that discourage you from ordering from our host. They are simply the best.

-Troy

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1251827137.jpg



If you have a stock brake setup, you can probably buy pads at pretty much EVERY p-car shop in your area, including the dealer. It's great to use PP, but if you are in a hurry, why in the world would you mail-order something? Go see a real person at the counter at a shop in your area, and you might have a great time!
SmileWavy

I'm sure there's another side to this story. Pelican does a pretty good job overall - far better than most. I bet Wayne will personally set this right - he does take a personal interest in the satisfaction of his customers, which is not something you see anymore.

When you get right down to it though, it does seem inappropriate to get on Wayne's own forums and trash him over what was (most likely) a simple inventory error because YOU did not leave adequate time to repair your toy. It ain't the end of the world. Yes, I'd be disappointed too, but if the worst thing you've got going on in your life is you didn't get the brake pads for your Porsche on time, you probably have it a lot better than you realize.

Perspective. It's important.

I can't wait to hear Wayne's side of this. I've no doubt he'll handle it with the courtesy and professionalism that his business is built on.

I don't care to hear Wayne's side of it, because it's a frickin NON-STORY. 911st, I'm sure you're a nice guy, etc., and hugs to you.

Well said.

I wouldn't even bash somebody on their own forum and I am a prick. :D

chit happens with all businesses and I'd chalk this up to chit happens but I think 911st was relatively tactful in his telling of this transaction.

However there is no need to overpromise and underdeliver no matter how good the intentions are.

- He should have been told that it wasn't 100% guaranteed that he'd recieve his order in the time needed.

Mistakes happen and if I were 911st I would still do business with Pelican but I would be sure to let Wayne and Jon what happened. I'm not so sure I'd post it to a public forum but like I said he did it with some tact.

Dude, bad form. You should know better! :rolleyes:

i have ordered around $3k worth of parts in the last 3 months, and i have never had any issues with ANY of my orders. I think i would have ordered some brake pads through Advance, NAPA, etc. Things like that, id just rather find locally.

I'm getting really sick of these Pelican bashing threads. For Christ's sake, missing an event is not the end of the world, and if it was so important you should have planned better. And to claim that Pelican &/or Jon was "dishonest" is complete BS. His computer said there was more inventory than was actually on the shelf. It was a simple mistake. Get a life.

Hi there. I'm sorry that we were out of stock on these pads by the time the order was filled. The computer systems we have for more than 100,000+ parts are occasionally off, particularly when we get down to very low inventories. For the most part (99.9% of the time), they are highly accurate and there are no problems. Unfortunately, with this business there is nothing that is 100% guaranteed - FedEx loses packages, parts are mislabeled from the factory - a whole variety of problems can occur. We do what we can to rectify the situation and make it right if we can. It's also highly possible that the brake pads were in stock at our supplier's warehouse when you were on the phone with John, but then it were gone when the order was actually processed. I have seen that before.

I personally checked with all of our suppliers and none have this particular brand of brake pad in stock right now. I spoke with John, and he mentioned that he told you that he could ship out a different brand today. I wasn't privy to your conversation with John, but I see that you are located within a next-day shipping area, which means they would have shipped and you would have received them tomorrow (Wednesday - like you requested in your email). There is still time to ship out an alternative brand of pads today for you and you *should* have them on Wednesday as you requested in your email. I say *should*, as there are lots of hiccups in the supply chain right now due to the wild fires in California, so delivery times may be impacted.

The previous error where you canceled an order and it was still shipped was caused by a rookie employee who did not properly flag the order to be placed on hold. For that order, I see in the notes that we sent a call tag to have FedEx come and pick up the parts at no charge to you. For this most recent order I have confirmed that it has been properly closed.

Our distribution system is pretty darn good, but not 100% perfect. I monitor and track all the problems and exceptions we have on a daily basis. We are constantly working with our suppliers to improve accuracy, on-time performance, and Customer Satisfaction. I see in this case, the order was placed early Friday morning - we *should* have known from our supplier that the part was not coming late on Friday morning. I will be looking into this and asking my staff why there was a 1-day delay on this at our weekly performance meeting.

Thank you for your patience and continued support.

Wayne

1. I've order quite a few things from PP and have never been disappointed. They've always have arrived in a timely manner and the parts have always been exactly what I've ordered.
2. If time was an issue for you (911st), you should have gone to your local P-shop and purchased the brakes over the counter.
3. Why in the world did you wait until the last minute to order brakes? Those should be checked on a regular basis.
4. If PP inventory is off by only one set; they're doing great. That means 99% of their stuff ships!
OK, that's my .02
Oh, and one more thing (now you've got me started), even if PP shipped on time, now you're relying on UPS/FED EX to do their part and not screw it up! Too many "if's" in this equation for expecting to make it to a show or event.

another good reason to have an extra set of pads around. If you drive it enough and go through enough you should always order 2 pairs.....

Well there you go Pelican is not perfect. Thank god the government is. When they take your money they take it all and are never late.

I never had an issue with PP up to Belgian customs. That is when the trace goes tits up. Actually I do not know Wayne but I have always been impressed with his ordering and tracking set-up. I actually suspect Wayne to be a stereotype Nerd with fat glasses and pens in his breast-pocket, claiming to drive a Porsche cause it sits well with the birds.:D

Classic http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/pray.gif

++++1

(I've just GOT to get me one of those shirts.)

Wayne,

Thank you for the follow up.

I know this is a sour grapes post and my only desire here is to vent a little.

My apologies.


However, to be accurate:

John did not offer me any solution at all!

He did not offer any alternate part!

He did not offer to stand behind things in any way nor offer and ship a replacement overnight!

He only offered a limited explanation as to why I was not going to get my part as represented.

If he told you that it is in accurate.

I am sure this is a small occurrence and unfortunate luck of the draw.

Again, I did go to extra efforts to try to keep this from happening by expressing my need and the importance very clearly when I ordered.

As such he assured me I would get my part as agreed with out any problem which was what I needed to hear.

Wayne, please do delete this post as it can serve no further positive purpose. Your response was satisfactory.

Again, thank you for providing such a wonderful forum for us fellow Porsche lovers to share our ideas.

Regards