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Honky Lips

Honky Lips

Welcome to the shit show.
Joined
May 21, 2020
Member Number
876
Messages
371
Loc
Omaha, Ne “ish”
Buddy just sent this to me. Anyone else experience similar?

Parts world must be hurting. Keystone sent a sales rep this week to ask us what they had to do to get more sales, we said to lower the price. Guy got online and immediately dropped us to the $5mil a year and up price matrix. Next day the Advanced Auto rep came in and asked what he had to do to get us away from oreillys. I said beat their price and delivery times. He went on and dropped us 30% across the board on the wholesale site! I was shocked. I am calling all my vendors this week!
 
Parts is a race to the bottom. All there is anymore is price, service, and availability.

Right now everyone is undercutting as much as humanly possibly. I know for a fact orielly is operating in the red in one of my markets trying to starve me out.

Edit: the number is shops ordering consumables online is growing every day too.
 
Yep places are going belly up ! Parts stores are empty everything is going online .

Quality control is absolute shit , things boxed incorrectly , bad out of the box ,etc . I’ve had to purchase multiple new parts to get one good one more times than I can remember in the last few years .

They are knocking on doors and showing up unannounced everywhere . Hell the fast food places are hurting, I don’t think it’s specific to one industry whatsoever . I’ve seen a few dealerships close shop lately , substantial ones .

The economy is not in a good place .
 
Here's the problem I'm seeing in my world, yours may be different.


I head to town for a widget (part or consumable, what haveyou)

Mom and pop don't have it.

I head to the chain...they don't have it.


Fuck it, order online from the parking lot in town and it's there in 1-2 days.


It sucks.


I'll hold out as long as I can but damn, shit sucks.
 
Captain Call said:
Here's the problem I'm seeing in my world, yours may be different.


I head to town for a widget (part or consumable, what haveyou)

Mom and pop don't have it.

I head to the chain...they don't have it.


Fuck it, order online from the parking lot in town and it's there in 1-2 days.


It sucks.


I'll hold out as long as I can but damn, shit sucks.
Click to expand...
If it is here now, I'll pay a higher price. If I have to wait regardless, I'll order it.
 
A better question is with shops getting better deals as mentioned by the OP, do they give price break to the customer?

For majority that is likely a no, and they will keep asking full shop rate/inflated parts price/shop consumables.

What Will said, it is a race to the bottom. Everywhere, and across many industries, hence why quality and skill is suffering for it.
 
I'm glad I got outta retail when I did ( 18 years ago now..) As soon as you could go online and order with a CC, I knew it would be game over for small stores/speed shops.

Its always been a rat race for the outside salesmen..."hey, buy from us and we'll give you X off"...two months later, competition undercuts and that shop says come get all your inventory...

For me ( dealer world ), parts availabilty has gotten way better in the last year, almost back to "normal", QC is slowly climbing too, for a while it was complete shit because everyone was scrambling just to get stuff and didnt GAF...

While I miss the small store/speed shop, I couldn't imagine working for one now, I mean shit, we all have the "I looked my own shit because tge parts guys sucks" stories...fuck, try being a 30+ year parts guy and going to there..:homer:
 
Similar is happening in the construction industry.
I’ve had two new supply vendors stop at my office in the last month practically begging to get my business. My three main local vendors are stopping regularly now when I’ve barely seen them the last four years. On large quotes they are calling to try to work out under the table deals to secure the projects. I can talk them down to single digit percentage markups on packages they’d normally be close to 20% on.

There is a sense of doom out there.
Part of it is because the economy is definitely slowing down.
It’s also because these vendors were cutting a fat hog during Covid and forgot about customer service and maintaining relationships.
 
well no point in paying more for the same crap.

I've really noticed this look for a tow strap last weekend, yeah I know not a car "part". But I wanted something nice, went to 5 different ranch, hardware, and outdoor stores and they all sell the same crap with a different label. Did find a bubba rope at Cabela's. And prices were all over the price for the junk stuff.
 
Captain Call said:
Here's the problem I'm seeing in my world, yours may be different.


I head to town for a widget (part or consumable, what haveyou)

Mom and pop don't have it.

I head to the chain...they don't have it.


Fuck it, order online from the parking lot in town and it's there in 1-2 days.


It sucks.


I'll hold out as long as I can but damn, shit sucks.
Click to expand...

M92PV4U said:
If it is here now, I'll pay a higher price. If I have to wait regardless, I'll order it.
Click to expand...
Every time I am looking for shit locally and I get the answer of "we can order it" my answer is "Yeah, so can I" or "No, I'll just order it myself so I don't have to come back"
 
I know I need to support the local shops. But sliding into my shop office and pushing a button is pretty nice
 
granitestatedestroyer said:
Every time I am looking for shit locally and I get the answer of "we can order it" my answer is "Yeah, so can I"
Click to expand...

Same here. I can also order it cheaper with faster delivery.

Hell, oreillys wants to charge delivery, it'll be here in 3-5 days, I have to pick it up in store, and they're more expensive. Order off their own website while standing in the store showing the guy and I can have it in 2 days for cheaper delivered to my front door.

When a brick and mortar says they can't match their own online price you know it's over.
 
Captain Call said:
Here's the problem I'm seeing in my world, yours may be different.


I head to town for a widget (part or consumable, what haveyou)

Mom and pop don't have it.

I head to the chain...they don't have it.


Fuck it, order online from the parking lot in town and it's there in 1-2 days.


It sucks.


I'll hold out as long as I can but damn, shit sucks.
Click to expand...
It’s been like that for years now and I only work on my shit and our farm equipment.
 
MuntCuffin said:
I think I order 90% of parts online.

Brakecleen, gloves, and towels come from napa.

I typically mark parts up to what autozone charges, and it's a significant markup.
Click to expand...
I order brake clean by the case, gloves by the brick and shop towels by the brick mostly from amazon. Sometimes gloves from other places too like welder supplies. But I buy all of my consumables on line or at swap meets depending on what it is.
 
Landslide said:
I order brake clean by the case, gloves by the brick and shop towels by the brick mostly from amazon. Sometimes gloves from other places too like welder supplies. But I buy all of my consumables on line or at swap meets depending on what it is.
Click to expand...
Believe it or not, if you have a commercial account, it’s still cheaper to pick it up in store. Granted I’ve got a platinum account, but Brake clean is like $2.30 a can for crc. I’ll normally buy 3 cases at a time. I quit showering with it when it went over $2 a can.

Depending on parts and timeframe, I’ll order online, roughly 20%, shipping normally makes the online part more than in town.

Gtrplyr78 said:
A better question is with shops getting better deals as mentioned by the OP, do they give price break to the customer?
Click to expand...

Fawk no, every mechanic got a massive pay bump to keep them employeed with us. Stealerships were offering $32+/hr when all the old guys retired during lockdown. The price of an oil drum shot up 6 times in the span of a year. We waited as long as possible to raise that price.
 
Parts stores need to figure out how to compete with online prices. I told the clerk at the local NAPA (only part store within 20-30 minutes) that I was done buying from them. I can get the same Chinese made junk online for far less. I’ve also got enough vehicles that nothing is an emergency.

Nuts and bolts now are also solely coming from McMaster Carr. Super fast shipping and over half the price of local.

I think we’re close to seeing a full scale depression coming. They’ve been floating us along since like 08’ anyways.
 
A couple weeks ago I stopped at Carquest to order two shocks on a Wednesday late afternoon. They said they could have them early the next week. I told them to go ahead and order. Thursday afternoon I looked online and found some I could have delivered Saturday for the same price. I called Carquest Friday morning and told them to cancel the order because I found some I could have Saturday, which worked better for me. They said I'd have to come in and pay the shipping fee because they were already ordered. I said "you told me you wouldn't have them till next week, prove they shipped and I'll pay that fee".
They called me two hours later and said "hey, your shocks are here you can come pick them up whenever works for you". :homer:
 
Tin Roof said:
They called me two hours later and said "hey, your shocks are here you can come pick them up whenever works for you". :homer:
Click to expand...
I love carquest because they have a distribution hub an hour away, so parts are normally ordered in the AM and delivered in the PM.
I hate carquest because I have to deal with 1 of the 10 geriatrics working there, and He is talking about leaving...

FleshEater said:
I think we’re close to seeing a full scale depression coming. They’ve been floating us along since like 08’ anyways.
Click to expand...
Yep, I think its already here.
 
Will12785 said:
I know for a fact orielly is operating in the red in one of my markets trying to starve me out.
Click to expand...
I was surprised an orielly just opened a new store here in Henrietta ny, a plaza over from Auto Zone.

Regard auto parts availability, I had a hell of time to find enough motor oil I want to do an oil change. 5W-20 full synthetic.

I remember in middle of covid scamdemic a lot of us had issue sourcing diesel motor oil.
 
bad zuki said:
Fawk no, every mechanic got a massive pay bump to keep them employeed with us. Stealerships were offering $32+/hr when all the old guys retired during lockdown. The price of an oil drum shot up 6 times in the span of a year. We waited as long as possible to raise that price.
Click to expand...
In our world doing bid jobs that stretch out two years, you roll the dice on what commodities are going to do. If you don't buy everything right away and it jumps 20% you just lost money on that job. If you do buy right away and they drop 20% you missed out on a lot of money.

Playing that game and guessing wrong over the last 4-5 years while the commodity market was volatile put a lot of contractors in a bad spot. On the flip side some did really well.

As soon as things got weird when the covid years started, GC's started adding clauses in their sub contracts to not allow cost increases due to commodity cost escalations worded specifically towards covid.
 
A lot of the parts are just trash too, so the price doesn't matter. Put ball joints in a car for inspection, it needs them again when it comes back next year. Sure you can claim the warranty but you still eat the labor and the customer suspects your work because the repair didn't last. The dealership parts prices aren't far off the aftermarket and they at least seem to have some QC in the supply chain.
 
Tin Roof said:
Part of it is because the economy is definitely slowing down.
It’s also because these vendors were cutting a fat hog during Covid and forgot about customer service and maintaining relationships.
Click to expand...
Both of these at my work. And customers who got poor service before are now finding there's lots of shops out there who are slow and will do almost anything to get work. I've seen my work load slow some but am still plenty busy as a mobile tech, my shop not so much. Of course I stand behind my work and if I screw up I don't charge the customer and I tell them the truth that I screwed up, my shop not so much and the chickens are coming home to roost now.:grinpimp:
 
Gtrplyr78 said:
A better question is with shops getting better deals as mentioned by the OP, do they give price break to the customer?

For majority that is likely a no, and they will keep asking full shop rate/inflated parts price/shop consumables.

What Will said, it is a race to the bottom. Everywhere, and across many industries, hence why quality and skill is suffering for it.
Click to expand...
We aren’t getting better deals compared to 2019.
 
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