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You get what you pay for!

K

Kevin

Diamond Member
I'm not sure if I labeled this correctly but here is the scenario. I work for a small (read 2 employees) company whose business is 99.5% online. We deal exclusively in aftermarket car parts. Our prices are extremely competitive, in some cases the lowest you will find. Reason being we're extremely small with minimal overhead and some trade-offs. Essentially people order through our website and their product ships within 2-3 days. The problem lies when there is a delay of some sort either shipping or product availability.

If a product cannot be shipped out within the time frame, we immediately contact the buyer and offer a same-day refund. The mostt common responce is "Well my car has been on jack stands/lift/etc. for 1/2/3 months/weeks and I need these immediately." Then most try to extract some kind of freebie or demand to have shipping upgraded to overnight delivery. At first it was uses sparingly. Now if you don't send a tracking number within 5 minutes of someone placing an order we'll get an email with the phrase.

In my opinion, if securing these parts in a timely manner was of the utmost importance, I would personally contact the vendor before placing my order to check on stock status. Many of our customers do this so I know atleast some of us actually exist.

Am I the only person who believes that if you purchase a product at a discounted price, you should atleast expect some kind of trade-off?
 
Originally posted by: Kevin
I'm not sure if I labeled this correctly but here is the scenario. I work for a small (read 2 employees) company whose business is 99.5% online. We deal exclusively in aftermarket car parts. Our prices are extremely competitive, in some cases the lowest you will find. Reason being we're extremely small with minimal overhead and some trade-offs. Essentially people order through our website and their product ships within 2-3 days. The problem lies when there is a delay of some sort either shipping or product availability.

If a product cannot be shipped out within the time frame, we immediately contact the buyer and offer a same-day refund. The mostt common responce is "Well my car has been on jack stands/lift/etc. for 1/2/3 months/weeks and I need these immediately." Then most try to extract some kind of freebie or demand to have shipping upgraded to overnight delivery. At first it was uses sparingly. Now if you don't send a tracking number within 5 minutes of someone placing an order we'll get an email with the phrase.

In my opinion, if securing these parts in a timely manner was of the utmost importance, I would personally contact the vendor before placing my order to check on stock status. Many of our customers do this so I know atleast some of us actually exist.

Am I the only person who believes that if you purchase a product at a discounted price, you should atleast expect some kind of trade-off?
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IMO, it depends on what store (B&M or online) your getting the discounted item from.
 
Originally posted by: AdamSnow
No. If you have the product on sale, you should be able to deliver.
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Well, as long as the OP has clearly stated the terms on which the order is placed, i.e. shipment in 2-3 days, possible same-day refund, etc., then the OP is right. But to the OP, just because it's cheap doesn't mean there should be a trade-off, in any circumstance. You need to clarify your particular "trade-offs" with the customer, but it shouldn't be expected in any form or fashion.
 
Am I the only person who believes that if you purchase a product at a discounted price, you should atleast expect some kind of trade-off?
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No. I can buy OEM (or aftermarket/performance, for that matter) parts at a discount online, and I expect them to be just as prompt as the NAPA across the street (within reason - I don't expect next-day delivery.. 😛)
 
Usually, yeah.

It's good business practice to make sure the customer knows that before placing their order.

But in your defense, if you offer a same-day refund and they don't take it in favor of trying to bargain for a freebie or faster shipping, that's their own damn fault if you don't want to give one out. It's not your responsibility to give them free crap just because they don't want to go with another supplier. If the issue is that you want to keep their business, it sounds like you already have, but they're too stupid to realize that if they need it today, tomorrow, etc. then maybe they should suck it up and pay a bit more from a different supplier.

If I were you, I would just put some small text at the bottom of your order page that says something like "We cannot gaurantee the availability of all items. In some cases the item may take up to 3 weeks to ship, in which case we will contact you to blah blah blah."

If you have free hands to answer phones, you could also add "If your order is urgent, we suggest calling to confirm availabilty before placing your order".

Then when the jerks try to weasel you because they don't have it in their hands 24 hours after ordering, you can just refer them to this text and then offer them the refund again.
 
If I were you, I would just put some small text at the bottom of your order page that says something like "We cannot gaurantee the availability of all items. In some cases the item may take up to 3 weeks to ship, in which case we will contact you to blah blah blah."
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:thumbsup:
 
Be harsh and tell them it's a refund or a wait. If I need parts in a hurry I very much doubt I will order them online. There are just too many potential delays in that method.
 
Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
Be harsh and tell them it's a refund or a wait. If I need parts in a hurry I very much doubt I will order them online. There are just too many potential delays in that method.
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QFT....


if they needed it yesterday... then they should have ordered it 5 days ago... and picked it up in person.
 
We do have a lengthly Terms & Conditions page on our site that I'm pretty sure no one reads. One of the the stipulations is "Availability of product(s) is(are) subject to change without notice."

"But to the OP, just because it's cheap doesn't mean there should be a trade-off, in any circumstance."

See, I disagree wth that on a few levels. Everything costs money and money is generated from sales. If you want a low price something has to be eliminated from the equation to allow you to offer the lower price. For example, we sell brake pads at nearly 50% off MSRP. Thats a huge margin to 'lose' so there are certain tradeoffs maybe in stock or shipping times. If we were able to sell all our brake pads at list, we'd have huge stock and would probably be able to overnight them without a problem. However since we're discounting it so heavily, we don't have the margin to offer certain perks.
 
Everything costs money and money is generated from sales. If you want a low price something has to be eliminated from the equation to allow you to offer the lower price.
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Profit margin & overhead? 😛
 
I get what I want not what I paid for 😛
ie if I paid for something no matter how cheap, I expect the seller to deliver. Whether or not that item is defective is another story....
 
Originally posted by: sindows
I get what I want not what I paid for 😛
ie if I paid for something no matter how cheap, I expect the seller to deliver. Whether or not that item is defective is another story....
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We always delivery, just sometimes it takes longer to secure some products than it does for others. Things like brake pads are shipped within 24 hours when ordered M-F. Things like Carbon Fiber hoods can take days to ship out, sometimes longer.

Basically my main argument is if you're paying a low price for an item, you shouldn't expect the world, e.g. chances of it being at your door in 2 days or less is pretty slim.
 
I think your attitude sucks. You advertise something for sale that you don't have on hand, and just because your price is lower than everybody elses that gives you a free pass? I think not. In the world of auto parts time is as important as price, if not more so. But since you came here to complain about your customers it sounds like you are already getting the grief you deserve.
 
Well, do you expect the same level of service in Walmart than you do in Nordstrom? They both sell clothes. And sticking with the car scenario, do you expect the same level service from a Mercedes dealership than say a Ford, Honda or Hyundai dealer?
 
To me it sounds more like people trying to get free stuff from you if they aren't offered a refund in 24 hours.

OTOH, I'd be a bit unhappy if it took more than a week for any specific part to get to my house when I order it online. I don't care who I bought it from or for how much, in this day and age, it really shouldn't take more than a week to get something to a customer, unless there is some sort of hangup and subsequent correspondance regarding it.
 
Originally posted by: Kevin
Well, do you expect the same level of service in Walmart than you do in Nordstrom? They both sell clothes. And sticking with the car scenario, do you expect the same level service from a Mercedes dealership than say a Ford, Honda or Hyundai dealer?
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Yes i expect the same level. When i gi into Walmart to buy a shirt that they have for sale i expect it to be on the rack. If its nto its not. not much else i can do about it. Same with nordstoms. Its not like i need help getting clothes off the rack or trying them on.

As for the dealerships damn right i do. When i go in to buy car parts or get something down i expect them to be cuertous and proffesional. Since this is a dealership i know its not going to be fast or cheap. IF it is going to take 3 weeks i expect them to tell me up front.
 
What I love is when I get something from someone off of ebay and it takes them two weeks to ship and they act as if it's no big deal.

Key to keeping customers happy is getting things shipped as soon as possible. The faster you ship it, the more the customer will look at the shipping service rather than you regarding why their shipment is on time or behind schedule.

I know when I order something I'd ideally like it to ship the same day as I order it, and at the latest the next day (especially if it says it's in stock).

I ship out all my items the same day someone orders something (or very close to it)
 
Originally posted by: acemcmac
You need an in-stock indicator on your website
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We do have a status indicator but its not updated in real time. So if have 5 left of an item and get 6 orders in 1 day, we're not going to know its out of stock until we get to that 6th person. If an item is out of stock, we contact the customer via email as soon as we are aware, which is normally towards the end of the day. If we don't get a responce from them by the next morning, we call them to let them know what is up. A typical call sounds like this: "Hello my name is Kevin from ___. I'm calling in regards to the order you placed yesterday, unfortunately we are out of stock at the moment. I can issue you a refund or I can backorder it. Its expected to arrive in ____."

The customer will normally reply "Thanks for calling, I will wait" or "That sucks, can I get a refund" but then we get the few who inspired this thread: "My car is on jackstands, I need the part ASAP, why don't you have it? I can't live without my car for much longer." Then they start demanding discounts and upgraded shipping.

We are upfront with all of our customers and I feel 24-48 hours is plenty of notice to let a customer aware of a situation. I just need to know if I'm wrong to think that way. I mean there have been times where we screwed up and sent the wrong parts. In those situations we pay for return shipping, discount the original purchase price and offer a coupon for savings on a future sale.



 
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