The benefits of PD.

[PTmowerMech]

I hear ya. Most distributors don't want to deal with the really small time operators like me and i understand that. Stens seems to be the least aggressive distributor. If i can't get it from stens I just order from an online source (jack's, pat's) I don't stock a lot of inventory other than carb stuff and general maintenance items. Haveing a distributor to work with for Oregon and Rotary would be nice, but not happenibg so far. Shipping charges just get passed along to the customer. If a customer wants OEM i get OEM as long as they know i am basically buying retail and i am marking up the parts. Do you really want that John Deere Kawasaki air cleaner $56 my cost from dealer or one half that from Stens?

I'm in the same boat. I just want good parts cheat and delivered fast. I could care less where or who I get them from. Except from Amazon. But even then, I know Amazon/Ebay is just the platform sellers use to sell their products. So even that's not so bad.
Stens is not only the least aggressive. But they're not very restrictive either. Prices are good enough to make a decent profit off of and still not get price complaints from customers. And as long as I order by 1pm, the parts are usually here the next day.

The thing with PD, I have to go through someone else, just to get Oregon parts. I'd like to just go through Oregon.


I'm gonna get in touch with Rotary and Primeline to see what they got going.

 

[StarTech]

Considering what Stens want for Kawasaki 11013-2213. I would use the Stens 102-182 filer combo.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Have you asked Prime Line for an account ?
When I took over we had accounts with RGS ( Oregon, Rotary, Victa, some Briggs & Walbro ) , Bynorm ( Stens & local brands ) , Prime Line ( PL, Warner ) & Jackmax ( Farmer Tech , Pix , Carlton & Chinese parts )
All of them just did a credit check so I was good to go .The Jack Max rep came around & was pissed that I had few JM parts in stock and none on display so he closed the account as I was supposed to have a "retail Presence" accoording to the terms & conditions.
This ended up being a blessing as the only parts I had problems with were theirs, but loosing access to Carlton was a bummer as the other suppliers stocked no name Chinese saw chain & Oregon was too expensive for my cheapskate customers.
Next to go was Prime Line, they lost the supply contracts with local auto industry so closed down as OZ is a tiny market and since deregulation & the lifting of import quotas we end up with every brand in the world selling 5 mowers each thus volumes are too small to be profitable .
The financial reprocussions of Bynorm paying $ 2,000,000 for exclusive distribution of Tecumseh in OZ finally came home & Bynorm collapsed to be taken over by Stens who used Bynorm to relaunch Ariens & Gravely mowers.
Stens could not turn a big enough profit, because USA companies do not understand the Aust market and found a new agent ( Allpower) then exited .
Allpower took 3 years to go bankrupt and the Stens distribution was taken up by Masport
Thus in the past 8 years I have spent more time filling out credit applications than ordering parts.
Mr Haark used to mark up parts substantially till many were more expensive than buying retail from a dealer and charged very little for labour.
HE also used a lot of second hand parts.
As I was working 2 jobs when I kicked off , I just followed suit but this got me into grief when mowers were taking a week or more to repair but there was only a 1/2 hour labour showing on the invoice .
So I changed things to using scheduled service times , increasing the hourly rate & dropping the parts price to 10% less than parity with the local on line retailers.
This served me really well.
The other thing I have started to do is upping the labour rate for while they wait repairs 50% to $ 90 Hr.
Also nothing is ever returned same day
Everyone gets quoted "about a week depending upon parts availibility " then if it is a one day fix, I leave it at least 2 days before I call them back .
That makes it look like you are both busy & quick .

A trick we learned running the local transport company, quote 2 hours & deliver in 1.5 and you are a hero
Quote about an hour & deliver in the same 1.5 hours and you are a lazy lieing bastard .

 

[bertsmobile1]

Considering what Stens want for Kawasaki 11013-2213. I would use the Stens 102-182 filer combo.

And a lot of those filters can be ordered in 10 packs which makes the unit price even better.
If any thing I want can be bought in a "trade pack" then that is the way I order them.
By virtue of them being sold in bulk packs they are either really cheap parts where logistics is more than the selling price ( walbro diaphrgm packs for example ) or fast moving parts like air, fuel & oil filters .

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I buy champion spark plugs in 24 shop packs, some air filters in shop packs, odd ball ones 2 at a time, oil filters in shop packs. Fuel filters a dozen or 2 at a time. These are my money makers. Next are the packs of walbro and zama diaphragms and gaskets and a dozen different sizes of fuel line. I stock a few other things like fuel pumps and recoil rope. I don't stock belts, blades or spindles. My customers know i am not a parts warehouse and i order most everything. Less tied up capital and time maintaining inventory. Hasn't hurt business. Ethanol is my friend.

 

[PTmowerMech]

I have to be tax exempt, it seems, before I can get any more distributors. I'll check on that next week.
I really don't like the idea of giving any government any more paperwork.
Wished Stens had all I needed and Partstree didn't screw up so many of my orders.
The last thing I ordered from Ereplacement, Friday before last, still hasn't showed up.

 

[StarTech]

Well that have been part of doing legal business as long as I been in business. When you are selling by suggested list price and the paying of sales taxes on orders just eats into your bottom line. Currently I owe $456 in sales tax to both the state and county which gets paid the first of July. Meanwhile I use it as part of operating capital as a loan that must be paid back by the of the quarter. When I get to certain level they will switch me to monthly payments. Anyways that is taxes that I not paying a second time.

Covid-19 is part of the problem on shipping delays. Several of my distributors are taking longer to ship too. I haven't used Partstree or Ereplacements in a while so I can't answer about them but all my sources are still fairly timely on deliveries as long as UPS don't screw up and send them all over the state of Tennessee which they have done. UPS even lost a few packages doing this.

If you got a tracking number then used it to where the package is. No tracking info usually means the vendor hasn't shipped the package. I recently had this problem with an eBay vendor that gave an estimated arrival time and didn't even bother to ship until a week and half later. After a week I requested a cancel and he within two hours gave me a tracking number but still didn't brother to ship the parts until four days later. By the time the package I had already got the air filters in from my regular distributor so refused the package and demanded a refund. I would have kept the parts if the vendor haven't intentionally try to pull one over on me. When I order parts and is given a delivery window I expect the parts to be here by the end of that window.

I think worst delivery time so far this was a HFT order that took a month to get. Even they subbed a screw set as it was to have left hand drill bits but the one I got had right hand drill bits. Not going to fight when them as I requested a cancellation and they shipped two weeks later anyway so there goes the Insider's Club membership. It up for renewal this month and I am not renewing it. I just going to order a set from McMasters instead, most likely they are going to be better quality anyways.

Just hang in there things will improve over time. The current shipping problems are just a speed bump (I hope) in doing business.

 

[PTmowerMech]

Well that have been part of doing legal business as long as I been in business. When you are selling by suggested list price and the paying of sales taxes on orders just eats into your bottom line. Currently I owe $456 in sales tax to both the state and county which gets paid the first of July. Meanwhile I use it as part of operating capital as a loan that must be paid back by the of the quarter. When I get to certain level they will switch me to monthly payments. Anyways that is taxes that I not paying a second time.

Covid-19 is part of the problem on shipping delays. Several of my distributors are taking longer to ship too. I haven't used Partstree or Ereplacements in a while so I can't answer about them but all my sources are still fairly timely on deliveries as long as UPS don't screw up and send them all over the state of Tennessee which they have done. UPS even lost a few packages doing this.

If you got a tracking number then used it to where the package is. No tracking info usually means the vendor hasn't shipped the package. I recently had this problem with an eBay vendor that gave an estimated arrival time and didn't even bother to ship until a week and half later. After a week I requested a cancel and he within two hours gave me a tracking number but still didn't brother to ship the parts until four days later. By the time the package I had already got the air filters in from my regular distributor so refused the package and demanded a refund. I would have kept the parts if the vendor haven't intentionally try to pull one over on me. When I order parts and is given a delivery window I expect the parts to be here by the end of that window.

I think worst delivery time so far this was a HFT order that took a month to get. Even they subbed a screw set as it was to have left hand drill bits but the one I got had right hand drill bits. Not going to fight when them as I requested a cancellation and they shipped two weeks later anyway so there goes the Insider's Club membership. It up for renewal this month and I am not renewing it. I just going to order a set from McMasters instead, most likely they are going to be better quality anyways.

Just hang in there things will improve over time. The current shipping problems are just a speed bump (I hope) in doing business.

You know my ordeal with PartsTree. Not going to go into that. Ereplacement, for some reason has taken an exceptionally long time to send me this Craftsman back pack blower air filter housing. IIRC, it was ordered on the 29th. The Shipping label wasn't created until the following monday. And it wasn't shipped til like thursday of last week.


Getting my Tax ID and tax exemption is going to open a few doors as far as suppliers go. That's a fact. I'm just not one for jumping through hoops for the tax collectors. I'm a free market kind of guy. No quite anarchist. But close. The more info you give the gov. the more they can get you for. And the more they can collect. And after having the IRS chew on my arse for about 4 years straight, it's just a lesson learned. But that's for a different forum.

Oreillys autoparts, just down the street can get me anything that Primeline carries, within reason. I have a good friend who works down there, and she's gonna get me a primeline catalog. Of course there will be some mark up. But it won't be enough to worry about. Since 80% of what I need I can get with stens.
Oregon, having to go through PD, seems to be more of a hassle than it's worth. The Silver Streak blades from Stens are almost an exact match and a good price.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Silver streak blades are not an option and will cause you grief
Gator blades have a longer end flute almost double length of the others.
All of the Gator copies have varying length final flutes but all of them are shorter than the rest .
Thus they wear thin & break off early leaving the blade unbalanced and making the self mulching redundant .
I have tried the Preditor & the Silver Streaks ( seem to be made with the same dies ) and neither of them are a patch on genuine Gators.

Taxes are good.
They pay for the roads that your parts travel on, the police that come when some one is giving you grief or had broken into your shop
They pay for the courts that you use to sue the non paying customers etc etc .
It just takes some self disipline to put the tax mans bit aside so it is there at tax time ,
A friend writes a cheque every week for his tax
That way when he reconsiles his bank balance the tax will always be accounted for as unpresented cheques.
Apparently the tax office was not impressed when they got 13 cheques with the quarterly returns but they had to accept it.
While none of us enjoy paying taxes the fact that the tax number gets you parts between 50% & 25% cheaper than retail more than pays for itself very quickly.
Add to that when you are buying from wholesalers everything you buy comes with a warranty so if somehing goes wrong you have a fall back position and some one to go to bat for you.
lawyers see small self employed tradespeople as easy meat

 

[ILENGINE]

You know my ordeal with PartsTree. Not going to go into that. Ereplacement, for some reason has taken an exceptionally long time to send me this Craftsman back pack blower air filter housing. IIRC, it was ordered on the 29th. The Shipping label wasn't created until the following monday. And it wasn't shipped til like thursday of last week.


Getting my Tax ID and tax exemption is going to open a few doors as far as suppliers go. That's a fact. I'm just not one for jumping through hoops for the tax collectors. I'm a free market kind of guy. No quite anarchist. But close. The more info you give the gov. the more they can get you for. And the more they can collect. And after having the IRS chew on my arse for about 4 years straight, it's just a lesson learned. But that's for a different forum.

Oreillys autoparts, just down the street can get me anything that Primeline carries, within reason. I have a good friend who works down there, and she's gonna get me a primeline catalog. Of course there will be some mark up. But it won't be enough to worry about. Since 80% of what I need I can get with stens.
Oregon, having to go through PD, seems to be more of a hassle than it's worth. The Silver Streak blades from Stens are almost an exact match and a good price.

Kind of a side note. Silver streak was the name of the aftermarket parts owned by Oregon and now Stens uses the name