A few months ago, Stens had a $50 limit on free shipping. I was ordering like crazy. Now, I find myself getting OEM stuff from Amazon because I can't seem to get to the $150 mark. I'll have say $100 worth of parts in the Stens cart. Then need a part they don't have, but Amazon does. So, I'll put it in the Amazon cart, then check to see if there's anything in the Stens cart, I can get from Amazon for about the same price. By the time I'm done with all that, There may be very little or nothing in the stens cart. But everything I wanted bought and paid for on Amazon. Especially if it's after the cut off time (1 pm EST). So it's gonna be two days before I can get my stens parts anyways.
And here in lies the big difference in service times.
I walk into the shop pull the part off the shelf & fit it then when I go upstairs for a cuppa I check the price on a major on line retailer and invoice my customer slightly less, Then if I am not sure I check the scheduled hours and do the labour charge.
The parts used get written on an old Allpower/ Stens order pad ( cause I kept forgetting to reorder ) and once ordered I put a line through it .
You on the other hand have to go searching for parts, Amazon, Ebay Stens whoever and that takes a lot lot more time & if you are buying retail substantially reduces your profit margin.
When I need parts that are not available from one of the regular wholesale suppliers I buy them from a dealer where I get a small discount and when I bill the customer I charge them the same price & include the dealers invoice , thus the customer feels they are still getting a better price through me than they would going direct to the dealer. Those invoices with a lot of dealer parts have a $ 15 delivery fee added .
Oz is as big as the USA with the same population as California so next day delivery is never going to happen 3 days is the best I ever get.
When I first started I ordered 2 of everything that I needed on the assumption that if I needed one once then there is a good chance I will need another and by & large this has worked very well.
If I ended up using both before I had replaced the one I originally used then the "par" stock level gets doubled & I order 4 of them.
Thus over the 7 years there is now about $ 80,000 ( Aust ) sitting down stairs.
Stens do a preseason sale down here with additional discounts if you order large amounts with repayments staggered over 3 months so for some one like you a gift from the heavens as what you buy counts on you regular volume discount and you get the extra discount plus you get the goods 3 months before you have to pay for them so good chance you can sell most of them before hand.
More than one ebay vendor will suddenly drastically increase their ebay shop the instant that the pre-season sales get announced.
