Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Mueller Jan 19 2004, 09:53 PM

It has been brought to my attention that a few people (Direct customers as well as shops-[still a customer]) have taken notice of the group buy that Aaron has put together in order to purchase items directly from Tarett Engineering.

Originally the group buy was for swaybars, then monoballs and next thing we know, NBK's (Needle Bearing Kit's).
From what I read, Ira (owner of Tarett) agreed to offer a pretty good discount on his parts that he himself designed and has manufactured (swaybars and monoballs), this is fine, the problem that has now been created is that pricing for the NBK's has been reduced by 10% per set.

The retail price of the bearings is set at $400.00, there is room in order for the reseller to make a few dollars from selling to the following:
A)a shop that will resell and possibly do the install
B)to a customer directly

Obviously for "A", Ira would have to offer a discount to the shop in order for the shop to make a few dollars off of the sale to his customer. From how I read the group buy thread, Ira has been misinformed on who his "customer" is. If I am correct, a shop is buying all of these parts under the false pretense that they will markup and resell at "retail" pricing.

Now I could be wrong and all that is happening is that Ira has decided to sell the NBK's at a very deep discount since he is making up the difference by selling his "own products" which should yield a much higher profit margin. This is beyond my control.

I know everyone wants a discount, but it's just not going to happen all the time.

So why the pissed off people?

It's due to customers asking why did they have to purchase the NBK's for $400???

Why? In order to justify my time and expense, this "has" to be the price. In order for Ira or Brad to recommend and sell this product, this "has" to be the price, Ira and Brad (and others) have to make some money selling these or it would be a waste of their time and effort. I can raise my price, but I’d rather not. (I am currently $95 per set lower than the competition)

Now I've got to do some serious thinking, it just might be easier to:
1) Sell my remaining stock of parts and give up
2) Sell my prints and supplier list and let someone else deal with it

"1)" would be too easy
"2)" would piss me off if the product caught on fire and was being sold by Performance or some other catalog

Posted by: Qarl Jan 19 2004, 10:06 PM

First of all... Mueller, Thank you.

To the whiners out there.... shut the F up. Be thankful for what you have.

Did you ever buy something at an electronics store when it just came out (X-box, PC, DVD player) to find it significantly cheaper 1 month, 3 months or a year later? Or bought something at a store to find it for sale somewhere else cheaper? Similar sort of deal.

Mike isn't making a killing on these kits, so be happy we have people like Mike, James Adams, Bowlsby, etc. who enjoy offering a service or a product that no one else will.

Mike has provided great service and is willing to answer questions and support his products.

I try and support my fellow 914 manufacturing friends whenever I can... you should too!

Posted by: ChrisReale Jan 19 2004, 10:07 PM

I don't understand.....who is mad? A shop that has to install bearings that somebody bought at a discount?

Posted by: Gint Jan 19 2004, 10:09 PM

I don't know anything about anyone misrepresenting themselves as a shop. In fact, I'm not clear on what the situation is you're referring to. I asked you about buying your roller bearings before I ever asked Aaron to persue it with Tarett as a part of this group buy. You said go ahead and ask (or somethin to that effect) so I did. And in turn, Aaron asked.

(Editor's note - the original sentence here deleted) Brad's going to install them for me anyway, so I'll buy them through him if I have to. I was willing to except a discount if it was available, and I thought it might help the group buy if we were buying more parts.

Posted by: ! Jan 19 2004, 10:11 PM

I ain't mad.....irked. peaved or perturbed....maybe a little strange though.....

Posted by: Gint Jan 19 2004, 10:13 PM

Do you know how many times I've bought parts that later came up as a part of a group buy and substantially cheaper?

Get over it.

Posted by: ChrisReale Jan 19 2004, 10:17 PM

What the hell are you all talking about. I just bought a set of bearings for full pop a few weeks ago. Should I be mad?
F u*k it, I aint mad

Posted by: Mueller Jan 19 2004, 10:25 PM

Hey Gint,

I guess it could happen with any group buy.

I did a group buy once and bought 5 swaybars with my own money. Of course I got a discount which I passed on.
(I could have added a few dollars to the selling price, but decided not to) I sold them privatly since I did not want to publicly mention the price.

I'm with you Gint, if given the chance for a discount, go for it, no reason to throw your money away, but then again, it might be better to pay "retail" to the person doing the install...I don't think a Porsche dealership would be happy with someone bringing in sparkplugs or oil bougth at Kragens for a tune-up done at thier shop

It's better to be pissed off, than pissed on ; )

Posted by: Gint Jan 19 2004, 10:29 PM

I looked at it as an "everybody wins" type of deal. I'll go retract my request.

Oh well. This is just like work. One or two people ruining a good thing for everyone.

Posted by: redshift Jan 19 2004, 10:34 PM

WELL I FOR ONE AM PISSED OFF AS FUCKING HELLL BECAUSE OF ALL THE TIME I KEEP WISHING I HAD THOSE FUCKING BEARINGS INSTEAD OF THESE USELESS PIECES OF SHIT I HAVE IN MY CAR AND IT JUST REALLY MAKES ME ANGRY WHEN I THINK ABOUT THAT AND GET MAD


M

Posted by: Mueller Jan 19 2004, 10:40 PM

Gint,

no reason to bow out of the group buy, Brad isn't really going to care, nor do I........the $80 you'll save can be applied to an hour (??) of labor

Posted by: Gint Jan 19 2004, 10:43 PM

S'ok. I don't want you to have to raise prices and I sure don't want shops to have to lose their shorts on parts. Especially since it's probably the small shops that aren't making a fortune to begin with.

I re-read your original post.

So someone else can sell them and raise the retail price anyway? Don't do it Mike. I assume you sell them to Tarett for a price. Then they mark them up, right? Why would this cause you to bail on the whole thing? I'm extremely happy to see guys like you 'building a better mousetrap' for 914s. I want to support you in any way I can. If that means not accepting a discount for something that is already at a great price, then so be it. I'll let Brad make some money on the deal.

Posted by: Korijo Jan 20 2004, 12:17 AM

Mueller,

I still want a full set, remember ? Send me a PM...

Posted by: airsix Jan 20 2004, 12:36 PM

Mueller,
Life is too short to let a few whiners spoil your mood. You put a lot of time and effort into designing a product. You spent a lot of time and effort sourcing matterials. You spent a lot of time tooling up and building prototypes. You spent a lot of time and effort establishing a supply chain, partnering with a retailer, promoting your product, and doing PR. It is reasonable to expect that early addopters will absorb more of the development costs than those who come later. It is also very reasonable to accept that you may choose to charge less per-unit for large orders due to ecomomies of scale.

Life is too short for you to waste time feeling bad because you catch some flak from "people who don't get it". Ignore them. They don't get it and you don't have time to educate them. For anyone out there who's peeved because they paid $40 more than the group-buy crowd: Think about how many hundreds of hours Mike has put into this project, the cost of matterials, and the cost of machinery. If he sells 5,000 sets of bearings he'll probably only have made $7/hr for all his time. What do you charge for your time? My biggest peeve is people with no respect for other people's time. They want you to put in the time and effort and get pissy when you set the price. If they don't like the price let them put in the time and effort themselves!

Rant over.

-Ben M.

Posted by: Targa Jan 20 2004, 03:07 PM

Hey Mike,

I would like to get the needle bearing kit for my car eventually. I am wondering if you plan on coming up with a solution to annual maintenence/lubrication other than having to remove them which is what I understand should be done once a year? Thanks,

Varik

Posted by: ChrisReale Jan 20 2004, 04:14 PM

I have been told that boat trailer grease keeps it lubed for a long time. As in no maintenence necessary

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jan 20 2004, 04:22 PM

Hey guys,
I was approached with discounts on tarret bars. it was mentioned that i could get products from tarret and sanders for discount prices. Gint asked me to look into rollerbearings, 360 for a set was the price i was quoted. I'm not buying any, im just passing along the price quote that was given to me. I understand mike's hard work designing this, and im sorry that the group buy undercut somepeoples prices.

lemme know what you want me to do mike, theyre youre design.

Aaron

Posted by: Mueller Jan 20 2004, 04:35 PM

[QUOTE] im sorry that the group buy undercut somepeoples prices. /QUOTE]

don't be, that is the purpose of doing the group buy....I think what has happened is that some people just read into it wrong........Like I said earlier, I too did a group buy to save money, but I bought all of the same parts, with your group buy, it seems to have become somewhat cloudy due to the different items being purchased.

I plan on talking to Ira personally to sort this out so that in the future, we don't end up pissing off each other (that'll be darn near impossible, LOL)

Posted by: ss6 Jan 20 2004, 04:38 PM

Hey Mike, ditto on "f--- the whiners". Entrepreneurs like you make our economy the envy of the planet. There will always be whiners, sometimes they'll even provide useful feedback, but "don't let the bastards get you down". Just one of the pains of doing business, kinda like taxes.

Posted by: Aaron Cox Jan 20 2004, 04:42 PM

mike, i guess i should have called the thread "tarret products group buy". one of Ira's underlings set up this deal with me, and is selling these bearings at what he gets them for (my understanding). I believe this is the problem. I have talked with Ira, he said this will be the only group buy, and he will speak with his underling.

hope that made sense

Posted by: Brad Roberts Jan 20 2004, 04:48 PM

I'm the whiner. LOL

Up until now ..NOBODY new the wholesale price. This guy selling to Aaron is pretty f-ing crazy to sell the parts at wholesale pricing (fucking stupid actually...)


I make 80$ on the bearings.. and if it wasnt for me... you would be paying a hell of lot more. The people whining are the ones who PAID for the original sets to be duplicated. They paid full price so we could DUPE them and sell them for a better price.. whine.. yep.

It is opbvious that the person selling to Aaron (not Ira) is not a business person in any sense. I honestly only sell them because I like Mike. It is plain NUTS to not make a 50% markup on something when we have to hand hold all the installs.

Protect the pricing or I wont say another word about them to anyone. I can easily sell the others.


B

Posted by: Jeroen Jan 22 2004, 06:10 PM

Glad to see Ira cleared things up (original group buy thread)

cheers,

Jeroen

Posted by: fiid Jan 27 2004, 12:48 PM

I have a full set of bearings. I f**king love them. I'm not worried that some people might get them cheaper, that extra cash goes to keeping them on the market, which is a good thing - since I may want another set later on. If anything - the price ought to be increased a little to make it worthwhile for them to continue being produced.

Stop your whining, and thank Mike for doing the work to get these things together. When you are done, go and drive around some corners and over some bumps and let your ass thank Mike too. (Although he may not want to see that LOL).

Posted by: Jeroen Jan 27 2004, 08:05 PM

Amen!

cheers,

Jeroen

Posted by: TimT Jan 27 2004, 08:12 PM

Ira hardly cleared things up..............

lets open this discussion again after the sway bar buy is done ( if and when)

Posted by: Rich Bontempi Jan 27 2004, 10:52 PM

I put a set of Mueller's bearings in my SCCA 914, and can't wait to get out on the track and kick many other cars butts!!!