Vendor issues….CCC….What REALLY goes on? (kinda long-maybe boring)

This happens in all of the Car or Performance parts industry. Its not just the mini parts.
Since Summit and Jegs opened there doors and started selling mail order parts how many shops have closed in your area that can no longer compete with there prices?? Here in Detroit for example Ramcharges a very large well known parts company was around for 30 years. They closed there doors and went under 2 years ago. Why ?? They could not compete on prices! I worked there for a year and was surprised to see them ordering a lot of stuff from Buckeye sales (AKA Jegs!) when I asked about it they said they could buy the stuff cheaper from them than threw the vendor directly! I made some phone calls and found out the vendor wanted $20 more for an intake then Bucky Jegs did! Now why would you do that?? They have to be making less $ On every item sold to Jegs right? SO why not pass that on to the small guy?? And allow them to compete with the bigger parts companys?? The whole thing made little to no sense to me at all. ut: The vendors didnt seem to care at all. It mostly has to do with the volume of items your purchasing and selling in one order. The more you order the lower the price on each item or your total discount. Now jegs and summit have the space and funding to purchase HUGE amounts of items at the same time and stock pile them till they sell. The small guy can not afford this nor has the room in his shop to stock the parts. SO they get screwed! Its all over the place in the auto resale business. The only shops around our area that are left (Mini and other wise) are and have always sold at a higher price and have also matched prices but charged out the butt to install the items. Hence making enough to cover the over head and make a few $$. Sad to say but the world is very internet sales oriented now and if they can find something for less after being in your shop they will purchase it then return with the part to have you install it :rolleyes5: I have seen this 100 times or more in my buddies shop. Its a joke but he always bites his tongue and says ok this is what it will cost to install drop your car off and well get it done for you. He always marks the install up but he did lose the profit of the item so I dont disagree with it.

I really think vendors need to look at the pricing and discount structures a bit more and make some changes. Will it happen ?? Not likely in this life time :nonod:

 

I can't stand when this happens, but the reasoning is that large places like jegs and summit have too much leverage. They want to have the lowest prices available so that customers will order from them. Due to their large size, popularity, and low prices, they sell the largest volume of intakes. Imagine how pissed the large company would be if the supplier was giving the same lower price to smaller companies so that they could compete. The problem is that the large company has the leverage to threaten to no longer continue carrying the intake. Since they probably sell 500 times as many intakes as any of the small companies, that would drastically hurt the intake supplier/manufacturer. As such, the large company is able to demand the unique lower prices in exchange for a larger volume of sales.

 

The local shops ( performance NOT MINI) use the Catalogs FOR their Pricing for the major items! ( intakes/Cams/Heads ect) and make the larger profit on what they can control.. gaskets/oil/misc small parts...

The small vender HAS to modify and compete! Usually it is thru the personnel and knowledge, becoming a friend, building "Loyality". But you can bet... he knows that his customer base is STILL shopping around! If he can do it all from a desk in the basement and over the internet.. the better for HIM ( less over head) and the Customer ( less cost). Then have the buyer sort out the labor to install!!

"They want to have the lowest prices available so that customers will order from them." HMMMmmm... Walmart?? Sams club?? Costco??

Slaming other Vendors BY Vendors, is the issue the moderators need to address!! Not banning them from the site... pretty soon there will be "only one" on the site, and they they will control the pricing..!! Just a thought there..

Just me............................

Thumper

 

Well i'm not sure what will eventually happen here on this forum, but I caught flack today on the sewing site for mentioning that AutoZone is advertising the Scanguage for sale. I mentioned that there are Mini vendors trying to sell the same thing already, and I got flack. Oh well, it will a sad day when all the Mini vendors bail out and all we are left with is AutoZone :frown2:

 

Sewing site SUCKS. SUCKS. SUCKS!!!! Grrrrrrr.

 

BTW, guess I should have copyrighted "sewing site". LOL

 

Sense I was the FLACKER that is mentioned, thought I'd post the flack below. Keep in mind that I have very good friends that own local tire shops as I'm sure many of you do and no one is/has complained that TireRack being a site vendor was going to be the complete downfall of said sewing site....

Quote:
I'm all for supporting the Mini vendors but I do own more than one make of car/truck and the Scangauge isn't a Mini only product, so I was happy to find out they were available just down the street for the best price I've seen!

 

Tell us what you really think

Mark

 

Most of the time the vendor doesn't have control over the price. The manufactures have MAP (minimum advertised price) structures that keep us from whoring down the price. Because there is always some guy that is just selling parts to make friends and willing to only make $5 on it like Jegs does. The manufactures do that to level the playing feild and encourage customers to buy from a vendor that they like, not just cause of price. This helps customers develop relationships with vendors that can actually help them acheive their goals.

 

Exactly and the fact that there are thousands of stores and the advertising dollars spent by a AutoZone brings to the table make's the manufacture's more than willing to sell their product for a smaller profit margin. You also have to consider that when you manufacture at a higher volume you usually reduce the per unit cost... Hurts the little guy's like me and you Way that have our own small business. It pisses me off:incazzato: to no end that I pay double the credit card fees that a Walmart does, but such is life and if my business ever got that big, I'd demand lower rates too...:rolleyes5:

 

OMG.......... after all that about Dustin. He ISNT Banned from NAM!! LOL......

Thumper

 

How can you say what Tire Rack does and what AutoZone does on NAM be the same? Alex actually comes into the threads and helps people and also sells his stuff, like I said there, when is the last time someone from AutoZone came into a thread? Sorry not the same. We need to do all we can to support Mini vendors in ALL we do.

 

Alex - Tire Rack does not come on MA. I think it would be correct to say it is a numbers game -- if the numbers are there, they will advertise and go after sales.

To compare them to the real MINIac verdors like "Texas Speedworks or Way Motor Works" would not be accurate at all.

Tire Rack is just like Summit and Jegs, except they do a much better public relations job in the MINI community.

 

TireRack and Autozone are both paying vendors from what the mods said, both sale products that Mini only vendors do. So what is so different besides maybe their business model and the way they go about exploiting their vendor status. Besides as Alex once told me when I ask him if he could help me with the price of something, he said that Tirerack participated and were vendors on MANY forums and there was no speacial deals for one or the other, other than the advertised prices... Fair enough.

So pray tell what is the difference in one paying vendor or the other, other than the way they go about doing business?

That'll be my last words on it here on MA.

 

There is a difference here as to what is going on with this Tire Rack Auto Zone thing.

Tire Rack is a vendor that has a presence on many sites including the one in question with a dedicated rep from the company that "monitors" the site. The rep was more active at one time but has become less so over time for unknown reasons.

AutoZone has a banner ad purchased on many IB automotive sites by an ad placement company. There is no user with an account that anyone can speak to.

AutoZone is just a banner ad, there were Mustang ads that popped up often before. Next week or next month when this ad buy is over a new one will pop in place.

The easy wat to tell the difference between those that are really on that site and those that are ad buys is the size of the banner. Buy in's get Leaderboard (728 x 90 pixel) banners while that actually have accounts and pay IB directly have smaller Full Banners (468 x 60 pixel) and may possibly be found in the directory.

 

If true, I stand corrected Nathan on the vendor status, then AutoZone purchased ad space that the sewing site had for sale. Just business, nothing more. Do I like all the ads? NO. One big reason I like MA and I'm here.


Last, last words...:lol:

 

Earlier he described himself as being banned. He says his vendor status is being canceled.

MINI COOPER :: North American Motoring - Saying Goodbye to NAM not becuase I want too. You'll want my next newsletter too

 

Fer cryin out loud. He had had 10 different versions of that post up already. Enough.

 

Just for yucks I looked at this a little more. Clicking the banner takes you direct to the Scan Gauge site where Scan Gauge is displaying an AutoZone link. I'd venture to say this is a joint marketing effort from both Scan Gauge and AutoZone.

One may also notice now that the month is new there are more banners of the actual MINI vendors being displayed. This is from the IB model of creating limits to the number of impressions a vendor has depending on the package purchased. As the month goes on and some of the MINI vendors run out of impressions more and more agency buy in banners are displayed. While that advertising model seemed to work well in the past in these days of banner blindness billing by the number of impressions is antiquated IMHO.

 

I wonder when they plan on telling us vendors about this stuff?:lol: I haven't heard a single thing about "impressions" or anything of the sorts (I haven't heard anything from IB at all). Where did you hear about it? The forum-admin grape vine I assume?