Seriously what's with these vendors...

They list these items on their website, charge your bank account, and then you sit there and wait and wait for some shipping information. Finally you decide to call a week later for an answer and their response is "Well we are out of stock and the supplier is shipping them out in a few days, so you should have it in like a week or so."

What in the hell is so hard for them to send out a message to let you know? It's happened three times these past two weeks and one of them is a place this site/mag supports or well they publish their adds. The concept is not hard and if you have dedicated staff for customer service then shame on them.

One of these items was something that was need fast and paid for overnight shipping.....

Who runs a website without some sort of inbuilt automatic inventory system in the first place these days?

Nobody wants to stock parts anymore so often they drop ship. Summit has done this to me, and although the delivery was fast, if I had known beforehand, I would have ordered it locally as the shipping and added importation ate up the savings. So fair is fair. Who are the vendors?

Ugh, it happens to me all the time. This time, I ordered a spare tire carrier for my Jeep that matches the bumper by the same company. I ordered it Feb 20th and while I got an initial order email, I have heard nothing since. I shot them an email today to see what is up. I'm sure they will tell me that it wasn't in stock and is being drop shipped. I'll probably end up cancelling the order. I have been after this damn tire carrier for over a year. I just keep hitting dead ends

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Who runs a website without some sort of inbuilt automatic inventory system in the first place these days?

Nobody in the Porsche industry. I personally know of only one that does.

I bought a cordless radio from Sears a while ago and the checkout informed me that I would get free shipping if I spent another $20.00 or something. So I bought a drill I didn't need to get the free shipping, and two days later I got an email saying the radio was not available. So I just got the drill and of course paid the freight. I wanted to bitch slap someone.

DNA Motoring/Speed Daddy just charged me a 20% restocking fee for returning a DEFECTIVE radiator that 1) didn't fit and 2) leaked like a seive.

I'm afraid i don't understand how that works.

Swank Force One wrote: DNA Motoring/Speed Daddy just charged me a 20% restocking fee for returning a DEFECTIVE radiator that 1) didn't fit and 2) leaked like a seive. I'm afraid i don't understand how that works.

Sounds like you've never had the fun of getting a mis-boxed part, sent it back, then got the same exact part again since that ONE is the only one in inventory and they used it to fill your order once it got back to the main warehouse.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Who runs a website without some sort of inbuilt automatic inventory system in the first place these days?

We do. Just don't have the manpower to get the new site up, although it's close. Even then, it's surprisingly difficult to show accurate inventory for the sort of complex assemblies we carry. A turbo kit isn't a part, it's hundreds of parts - some of which are composites of other parts that are assembled when the composite is needed. Every ecom vendor gets a little dizzy when I start asking questions.

Still, we do follow up every order with an email showing stock, and if someone does order a next-day item we'll usually make a phone call.

We have live inventory at work. I have had someone call to check on inventory, and watch it disappear when someone else buys it out from under them. Then the accusations begin. So, when someone calls and asks, I now throw it up on my order screen, so that no one else can touch it while we discuss the purchase. Or, you call because we showed them yesterday, but they're out of stock today, and we don't have an ETA from the vendor yet. Can't keep all the people happy all the time.

Swank Force One wrote: DNA Motoring/Speed Daddy just charged me a 20% restocking fee for returning a DEFECTIVE radiator that 1) didn't fit and 2) leaked like a seive. I'm afraid i don't understand how that works.

contact your CC company and dispute the charge ? this type of behavior really pisses me off

I have an inventory at work I manage. While it's not a lot of items it's a lot of expensive items. If one item leaves I know within 30 seconds and I'm using a system I created. So I can't imagine it's that hard, tough, or expensive for one of these companies to do so. Especially someone like saferacer. Speed-freaks - same thing. I had to call and e-mail them to find out the status of my order which I am cancelling. I called another carbotech dealer and they can have the part to me in 3 days.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

From what I've seen, Flying Miata has built their reputation on quality parts and service, and not on being the lowest price source for Miata hop-up parts.

Many online vendors seem to be trying to be the cheapest. When that happens they're working with extremely tight margins and something has to give somewhere. In most cases, it's simply a lack of man-power to spend time communicating.

wbjones wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: DNA Motoring/Speed Daddy just charged me a 20% restocking fee for returning a DEFECTIVE radiator that 1) didn't fit and 2) leaked like a seive. I'm afraid i don't understand how that works.

contact your CC company and dispute the charge ? this type of behavior really pisses me off

Just for grins, I googled DNA and checked the website. The "Store Policy" section specifically refers to their 20% restocking fee but an honest vendor should never punish a customer when a defective product is returned. It's not like it's hard to see that a new, leaking radiator deserves a full refund.

That same search revealed a merchandiser review link that was dedicated to DNA. After reading the reviews, there is no way in hell I'd even consider doing business with them.

oldsaw wrote:

wbjones wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: DNA Motoring/Speed Daddy just charged me a 20% restocking fee for returning a DEFECTIVE radiator that 1) didn't fit and 2) leaked like a seive. I'm afraid i don't understand how that works.

contact your CC company and dispute the charge ? this type of behavior really pisses me off

Just for grins, I googled DNA and checked the website. The "Store Policy" section specifically refers to their 20% restocking fee but an honest vendor should never punish a customer when a defective product is returned. It's not like it's hard to see that a new, leaking radiator deserves a full refund. That same search revealed a merchandiser review link that was dedicated to DNA. After reading the reviews, there is no way in hell I'd even consider doing business with them.

yeah, saw the re-stocking fee listed … but who re-stocks a broken part, hopefully they wouldn't then try to re-sell it …

I'd at least investigate getting the charge removed … reason for the charge back would be that they couldn't/shouldn't/wouldn't re-sell a defective part …. so there shouldn't be a re-stocking fee

DirtyBird222 wrote: I have an inventory at work I manage. While it's not a lot of items it's a lot of expensive items. If one item leaves I know within 30 seconds and I'm using a system I created. So I can't imagine it's that hard, tough, or expensive for one of these companies to do so. Especially someone like saferacer. Speed-freaks - same thing. I had to call and e-mail them to find out the status of my order which I am cancelling. I called another carbotech dealer and they can have the part to me in 3 days.

just a suggestion … try Carbotech themselves … I've always had great service from them

wbjones wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: DNA Motoring/Speed Daddy just charged me a 20% restocking fee for returning a DEFECTIVE radiator that 1) didn't fit and 2) leaked like a seive. I'm afraid i don't understand how that works.

contact your CC company and dispute the charge ? this type of behavior really pisses me off

It was paypal payment using paypal balance through Ebay, and i made the mistake of trying to work out issues with them since at first they seemed like they were going to make it right. I'm past the window.

Any ideas? This was purchased back in last December at this point. Finally got partial refund in March.

wbjones wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: I have an inventory at work I manage. While it's not a lot of items it's a lot of expensive items. If one item leaves I know within 30 seconds and I'm using a system I created. So I can't imagine it's that hard, tough, or expensive for one of these companies to do so. Especially someone like saferacer. Speed-freaks - same thing. I had to call and e-mail them to find out the status of my order which I am cancelling. I called another carbotech dealer and they can have the part to me in 3 days.

just a suggestion … try Carbotech themselves … I've always had great service from them

I called and Mike Jr. told me to try speed-freak or brakeswap. In retrospect I should have ordered from brakeswap. Maybe carbotech didn't feel like processing an order that day lol.

I ordered some EBC pads in November last year through an online store I've dealt with before and had good service...they tell me someone upstream of them hasn't shipped them out. No updates for a while. I need some pads for the end of May this year so I'm gonna have to cancel the order and get different pads if there's still no news in the next few weeks.

Needed to order Banks Powerpack for my truck.

Banks sells direct but I will have to wait a week while they put the kit together.

Check Summit Racing, they sell it but none in stock, will drop ship from Banks and will have to wait a week.

Check JEGS, in stock, will ship next day.

Order from JEGS.

Order processed, credit card charged.

Next day I get an e-mail from JEGS "Sorry, item not in stock, will be drop shipped direct from Banks in a week."

Wrote back explaining WHY I had used JEGS, why I was disappointed and why this would affect any future orders I might be placing with them.

Received a "too bad, so sad" form e-mail from customer service.

Well, F-you too JEGS...

That's one of my hot-button issues. If any vendor pulls that, I cancel the order to do my part to teach them that hiding the fact that they're out of stock doesn't work. If they'd instead been up front about it, I'd have been okay with it... it's the sneaky-weasle part of it that sours the deal for me. The charging my card up front is just more gas on the fire...

DirtyBird222 wrote:

wbjones wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: I have an inventory at work I manage. While it's not a lot of items it's a lot of expensive items. If one item leaves I know within 30 seconds and I'm using a system I created. So I can't imagine it's that hard, tough, or expensive for one of these companies to do so. Especially someone like saferacer. Speed-freaks - same thing. I had to call and e-mail them to find out the status of my order which I am cancelling. I called another carbotech dealer and they can have the part to me in 3 days.

just a suggestion … try Carbotech themselves … I've always had great service from them

I called and Mike Jr. told me to try speed-freak or brakeswap. In retrospect I should have ordered from brakeswap. Maybe carbotech didn't feel like processing an order that day lol.

gotcha … it's been a while since I've used carbotech .. maybe they're getting "too big to do individual orders" …. back when I was ordering from them, I never found anyone else that could get carbotech for me

GameboyRMH wrote: I ordered some EBC pads in November last year through an online store I've dealt with before and had good service...they tell me someone upstream of them hasn't shipped them out. No updates for a while. I need some pads for the end of May this year so I'm gonna have to cancel the order and get different pads if there's still no news in the next few weeks.

Tire Rack and Hawk … assuming it's for a car they have pads for … you should get them in a couple of days

In reply to kb58:

Even better, I got an e-mail from Banks replying to a couple of my tech questions. I thanked them and dropped in a "Here's what your distributor is doing" comment with a cut-and-paste of my conversation with JEGS.

I don't know if it will go anywhere but if it were one of my distributors, they'd get an earful.

Shawn

blame motovisity for allowing anyone with a credit card/checking account and tax id # to sign up as a wholesale account and become an aftermarket parts supplier and allowing them to dropship EVERYTHING.