I joined 914world almost a year ago and have ordered tons of parts for the 2.0 I picked up in Feb. This is the first I've heard of your site, so... there's that.

I just browsed a bit, and I'm very glad to know you are there! I will likely be picking parts up from you in the future.

actually this is a question and a suggestion first I've been needing pistons and jugs and when I found your site you offer a set of 1976 914 p and cs for 250$ that are euro spec Mahles a great price but you don't say if they are forged or cast a particularly huge description mistake and I thought well a set for 250 must be cast but then I went to look at vw transporters (some parts are interchangeable)and found them with a set of mahle for 330 plus or minus except they do say forged and they say for a full set but they are dished pistons no interest for most Porsche engine builders so suggestion make certain description is complete and is this a full set or just one piston and one cylinder??I was uncertain when clicking on that parts section of exactly what I was clicking on. maybe update your products a bit to boot really most people who are rebuilding their motors from home at least are going with 96 mm pistons and cylinders just because you can still use stock fi ect... that that would be a trending issue.you have some great stock parts and good buys but not necessarily up to date on some of the latest mods although I do see the front sway bar set up some 914-4 headers would be nice to see at your prices hell if I was just saving 20 bucks. most of us guys are doing 914 because of course its the poor mans Porsche or so some people say and to save a few bucks hear and there on the solid updating mods is key at least imho,Jo P.S.I know my picture is abit jaded for you have to goto whole new sources ect.. ect..

I don't think it's you, it's 914s in general. They don't get driven enough for the wear items to wear out. Plus, if my ac unit poll is a good sample, half of the drivers are water pumpers now with the local parts place likely having FI parts for the newer engines on shelf. So what's left? 914 specific hard parts like door handles or ignition switches or rubber or sheet metal.
Then there is the restoration angle if you could provide rebuilt NLA parts, aftermarket NLA parts like 914rubber does, OEM parts at discount.
Performance parts is a tough sell if you don't have a fan base to sell for you.

Package deals might be a bonus. Say the bronze pedal bushing kit with the 2 pads and a gas pedal shipped for $$.

And since you asked, the rockauto catalog works really well for me. Thou I found a hydraulic clutch setup searching for clutch master n slave on amazon and looking at the pics.

Buy my business!

Seriously though, I've been thinking about how to query the 914 community with the same question you just asked.

This applies to both Chris and GPR-

I try to buy things late at night when I am playing on my iphone however I cannot get the Tangerine or GPR websites to work properly on the iphone. I would much rather but from either of you because of your support of 914world however I usually simply go for the easiest and quickest purchase (not necessarily the cheapest). For example- last night I made a purchase from Chris' website. I had been trying for a few days however I was never in front of a computer when I had the urge to buy. I had to make a specific trip to the computer to make the purchase.

Somewhere in here, I 'think' you have something to say, but the lack of punctuation and sentence structure makes it virtually incomprehensible.

I have a nice gray GPR T-shirt that I got at Okteenerfest last year (good sponsorship there - I don't even see banner ads anymore), so was aware of your company and checked out the website a few times when looking for parts. I buy lots of stuff online and have four German cars, so it would follow that your site would be a good fit, but my experience with the site functionality is similar to what others have expressed.

For example, I need a set of 911 valve adjusters ("elephant feet") for my current Teener rebuild. I go to your site and navigate through "Porsche - 1969 - 911" and click on "V" in the parts section... and there is nothing about valves. There is also no word search for parts, only part number and VIN searches. It does not take too long to figure out that I need to be in the "E" section ("Engine valve adjustment screw"), but it is longer than I would spend looking on Pelican or other sites... and your price is 25% higher.

As others have said, the best way to overcome an inferior E-tail presence is by becoming an active member of the 914 community - innovating, answering forum questions, sponsoring Teener events, running 914World specials, etc. like Mark (914 Rubber), Chris (Tangerine) and Bruce regularly do. You may have great customer service, but I will never find that out if I don't have a good reason to call you in the first place.

This thread is a really good start.

I have a mostly non stock 914, let's call it modified. In my case, inputting my car as a 1973 Porsche 914 on your site gets me to parts I cannot use. Not completely true but since I have parts from various vehicles grafted into a 914 chassis, only your suspension stuff will be relevant to me.

I have bought from GPR, years ago and the parts shipped from Santa Maria (maybe). It does not bother me you are in Dallas but GPR is not my "go to" site for parts. Honestly, Summit Racing is my go to website since they ship from Reno, I get my parts in 2 days using UPS ground.

I do want to support the 914 community vendors and I will make an effort to look at GPR first. I do agree with the crowd that your site is not "fun" to navigate. Last time I ordered from GPR I called on the phone because I couldn't find what I needed.

Since there is a mass society trend toward anti-socializing and non personal contact, I think you need to invest in better website infrastructure to survive.

I would have to agree on the website construction. While mine is pretty ghetto and I know can use improvement. The navigation is an issue, I know I don't want to enter a bunch of info in to shop, before I'm ready to buy. That may be the biggest hurdle that I can see.

Ok wow. Just found out you're in Dallas. Where? Do u have a warehouse with normal stocked parts we can pick up? All along I thought u were another California supplier. Moving up on my list

U should look at Al Zims site. It covers the basic daily need stuff just enough to keep use up and a really good phone sales guy for everything else.

Andy, is there still a link to all the vendor banner ad's on the same page? You've posted it before but I can't find it.

Let me clear up the location thing. I'm in Dallas, Jonathan is in Santa Maria, CA. Our office/warehouse is currently in CA but moving to Dallas.

However, almost all the basic OEM stuff (brake rotors, ball joints, etc) is drop shipped from our distributors. We keep some things in inventory. These are typically from suppliers who don't drop ship (or are slow/unreliable), small items that people order alone (hood buffers, FI seals, etc), and things we actually make.

We have distributor warehouses on both coasts and in TX. A lot of people get there free UPS ground orders in one or two days.

Some companies will give you some BS about "our" massive inventory, but if you order a brake rotor from us (or Pelican, RockAuto or wherever) it is going to drop ship from a distributor. I just never saw any reason not to be upfront about it.

Advertising here and on the web is good, but what about in magazines? Being a member of PCA and SCCA I get a ton of different magazines. Most Porsche ones have Pelican, Aase Bros, Stoddard, 914LTD and a few more. Pelican has one page ads while the others are usually smaller. I know it cost $$ to do this, but you need to get the word out that you are a player in the biz.

I won't about the website. I have always had great service when I purchased from GPR.

Do you ebay???? There is always the crowed that just buys off ebay also.

I've owned old Saab's & BMW for 20 years and buy 99% of my parts online, pelican, eeuro, bavauto, ecklers, sierra madre, autoatlanta, parts geek, autopartsking, etc etc. I always cross shop to find best price. Am also in the middle of a full restoration on a 76 912E, and have been part searching for ust about everything at one time or another, and often do my first search for parts by name NOT at a bookmarked site. NEVER heard of you. Happy to look though.

I've purchased a couple of small items in the past, via eBay I believe.

So, just for kicks, I went to your site to price out and determine availability of rotors for my 2002 Golf diesel.

I counted 15 options for the front, 9 for the rear. While I figured that they were listed by price, (eventually) that's not how I look for a part. I'm interested in brand (which you do) and OEM listing. I did not see that. It's my daily driver, I just want an option to purchase OEM. I'm not passionate about my Golf, I just want to replace my rotors.

Brembo is a name I recognize, sure. Why do you have two listed that would fit? Ahh, I see, one is solid, the other vented. Let me scroll back up to the solid rotor. Oops, no, thats a front, where was that solid rotor...here it is, no, wait, that's a different brand, ok, now I found it...

IMHO, I'd like them to be separated by front and rear. Then by brand, if it's OEM, then it's particular design (solid/vented) and then price. If I'm gonna buy from you, making the selection process more streamlined would help greatly. Not to mention, I went first to Brakes (not there) then to Rotors (not there) then found it by looking at the pictures ...ahh, here they are, under Disc Brake Rotors...I didn't think there was another option

Now off to the Birdie to find out who made the rotors for the car...they're original, and still work well. I'd like to get another set...



Happy Thanksgiving All

I needed a part that I knew Pelican had, looked on your site and could not find it, or you do not carry it (it is OEM Porsche so I bet you would dell it to me if I could find it). Stopped by Zims while running some errands and picked it up for $2.50 less than Pelican and had a pleasant FTF transaction with a flesh and blood person in a brick and mortar shop. I also had the part in my hand instantly.
I do not imagine that this is particularly useful feedback, but after reading this thread, I gave it a shot and wanted to tell you what happened. The part BTW is a horn plunger for a 71 914. Zims had more than one on hand...
I wish you well and will look again in the future.
Good luck!

WOW. I just never thought about it, just looked at your website, easy to use, I'll have to keep you in mind. I do try and buy from the genders from this site. Happy thanks Giving

I had purchased a few parts from you in the past with no complaints other than the web site that has been covered previously. Most of my recent purchases other than with Bruce stone have been with 914rubbber on group buys. Many of the parts I probably didn't need but because of the group buys I bought them anyways

I'm not suggesting his products are not great but I don't need them at that moment. Kind of get caught up in the moment while following all of the lemmings

Group buys?

I'll back this up. They really are cool-looking shirts! I have a black GPR tee also, which I won as a door prize at one of the Rt66 Classics. Might I suggest making another run of those and sending some to the events as give-away door prizes? But I'm no businessman, so I wouldn't necessarily take my advice without that grain of salt.

I think you've got logo recognition down pat - it's a very catching logo, but it is a little hard to make out the letters GPR. The T-shirt solves that issue by being bigger and being warn by a human being who might know something about the company. I've found with the shirts, people have their eye drawn to it and so they ask me, at which point I point to the website on the shirt.

As a customer, I plan to shop with you for maintenance items and some other tidbits (maybe an O2 sensor for a 3.2 but I'm not the builder and would need to check what is compatible with my PLX wideband sensor and the Megasquirt system). As might be guessed by my saying all that, I also have the issue of a 1973 chassis with an 1987 3.2L engine (mostly) and 2013 engine management. In any event, I'm looking over oil selections now, in fact.

- Jon

I forgot to mention...

If you are relying on 914 owners to sustain your business...

That's what your doing wrong. We're a bunch of CSOB's.

So,

You asked.
If your business is mainly selling other manufacturers products that you do not keep in inventory and you drop ship from distributors, then your core business is sales and marketing, service and support.

The asset value of your business, aside from a discounted inventory you may have, is your customer list.

You must see that you are a sales and marketing firm first and foremost.
Your methods will either work or will not.
Your business will succeed based upon how well you do your marketing.

Fix your site based upon what you have heard.
Figure it out, take a class, learn to build a site, or pay someone to build it.
Then you have another asset....

If you continue to make excuses about your own efforts in marketing your firm, usability of your site, and not being able to expand your main asset of yr customer base, then you may be controlling your destiny, but not in a great way.

LOL. As a 25+ year 914 owner, I hope I can say without offending anyone that I am acutely aware that 914 owners are, to put it kindly, among the most cost conscious of any group out there. I posted this here because this community tends to be willing to give honest feedback.

Thanks for the input.

I am going to do some more shirts soon.

I would agree, 914 owners, myself included are let's say, cost conscious. If I didn't have a day job, my business would not exist.

really its more poetic prose than a statements in essay form thanks though

I think you have handled the question very nicely and have received great answers with logical reasoning. Evaluate and set you busness course by your "new" compass trying things along the way. Adjust and keep it moving until you have reached a point where you are receiving business performance according to your ideas, feedback, and evaluation.

Nothing should remain static so you should be adjusting with new ideas, changes, and other small details which you discover along the small business path. These paths are always changing and you must be on top of them to make the timely changes you see and continually needed to run your small business.

Dependability is a main idea which has been floated here. It was mentioned that Pelican no longer gives practical information and are riding on their laurels. Probably some merit to this view, but they have a large audience of customers.

Drop shipping seems to be very important to your business and this does establish merit to your ideas of an east coast warehouse and west cost warehouse. At some time if you have growth you will probably have do something along these lines.

It has been mentioned that 914 owners are cheap, some are not buying anymore since their cars appear to be done, etc. I am probably one of these types. EXCEPTION: major events come up where suddenly we are back in the market. In my case, I lost all my new car parts which I had purchased over the years but had not put on the car since painting was needed. All these parts went "south" while my recovered car moved "north". I am back in the market to replace these parts. Parts do wear out or maybe for some reason need replacing.

You should handle the car diversity each at the highest level to your client/customer needs. This mean each one has some level of importance and leads to profit return. Each has its own level of importance and is the hedge called "diversification". These must be evaluated each just as you are looking at the 914 people.

What I am I going to do? I like my 914 group members, suppliers, board, and whatever reason I have for these cars. I am a "sicko"!. I believe at this stage I will buy whatever I can from our suppliers. These people have proven themselves time and again. You should be this crowd. The business name certainly meets this criteria. What you are asking certainly a first step in achieving your business needs.

My allegiance is to the 914 members and suppliers. I will buy from you.

These are my thoughts and comments; hopefully, they will help you and do not mean anything negative. All positive thoughts.

Steve Hurt

What is your USP? Unique Selling Position. Why should we buy from you vs. anyone else? Until you get that figured out, and learn how to convey it to your target customer, you are just chasing your tail.

Outside of 914world, I'd never heard of GPR before. Really a shame, because my pm's with you were both extremely helpful & informative. King George you are not Brian, thank god.

Every place I go, they ask make, model and year. Like Ahndy....fuck dat.....this is what I want. Here's the part number.

I knew GPR when Dave was alive and well. Then with Jonathan.....my ride has been doing well the last six years. Kinda parked and a weekend driver now. Honda, Econo box gets me the long distances.

I have nothing but the best service from GPR. Jonathan has jumped through hoops for me in the past, especially getting most of the parts together and to me for my six conversion. Thank you for that.
I know there is a lot of competition out there, but don't forget GPR. They are one of the originals

good discussion



X2 -

b'ot lots from Dave - pre-dated Pelican i think

when GPR began enlisting "sales associates" to sell the GPR stuff on eBay but not under GPR name, it got goofy

b'ot once from hwgunner (maybe via eBay) - a set of Tarett monoballs

went almost exclusively to Pelican after that

- never from "new GPR"

as others above have said, kinda got out of 914s as a primary hobby, & just never tho't of GPR for anything else

these days, when i need old repro stuff or even many "common" parts - neither Pelican, PP nor y'all have it listed, whether for my carerra or my 914

- not fast moving profitable inventory nor worth time to catalog & picture

so i find it elsewhere via the 914world classifieds or the specialty guys as noted above

.

I ordered my parts sunday, got them today.
Fast service and you actually had parts pelican did not.
I got a email from them this morning that they still did not have my parts even though i ordered them 11/15
Thanks guys, ill be looking to you more often in the future for parts.

Hi. I would also suggest to have apparels listed on your website. i like wearing t-shirts and would love to get some GPR shirts with different design?

You should also have suggestions when a customer selects a part. For example, if I am viewing brake pads, maybe suggest for a replacement brake host or brake fluid?

I really try to buy from 914 vendor first, but sadly, I am having a hard time remembering yours.
I do promise to try very hard to check your site before ordering from pelican.

BTW, do you also have license frames? I would love to put GPRparts.com license frames rather than-----

I've seen the banner ads but to be honest I thought it said GR, didn't know who that was, just yesterday I really looked at it and realized its a GPR ad, people that have been around may know your logo, but to look at it not knowing who you are to me looks like GR. So I had heard of your company, not a lot though, but didn't relate the ad to you, been here three years.

So I would say, put your full name in your ads along with your logo, PUT your name out there on a regular bases, like posting specials every now and then. Up your presence on searches, google, bing etc. Post more in threads, and have your business link in your signature so people know who you are. Be helpful, get involved, the more people know you and like you the more they will want to use you. Bottom line is you need to be the first place people think of.....the only way to do that is to up your presence and provide great service.

People will talk about bad experiences for years, only really exceptional service gets as much attention and talk, do what others don't to be the best.

Now that I know who you are, I'll give you a try....it will be up to you if you keep my business.
I looked at your website, not any harder to use than most, while it could use some improvement I don't think it would make a difference in ordering from you, at least not for me. A good selection, fair pricing, and good service are more important.

Hope this helps,
Jeff

My $.02 echos the previous. I have met Jonathan and been to GPR. I like both very much and sported my GPR shirt everywhere until it wore out and always tell my students to go to GPR for all of their parts and seal kits. I have had many complain that the site was so frustrating that they just went to Pelican. Pelicans site is starting to be more of a PITA, too. Harder to find, if they even still have, the PET parts look up. I can not find the odd pieces that I know they will sell me. Pelican fails in that shipping is often exorbitant and I have often found things listed as in stock that took a month to arrive.

So many people reporting that the site sucks and is hard to navigate, and that you dont show up on searches. Losing money due to both, so you see where to address change.


PS: I just searched you in Google and you are the third on the list after the advertised ones. However, in the past I would get very similar sites that had nothing to do with you. Searching "914 parts" yields all the major folks we use, a few obscure ones, and then a bunch of unrelated garbage with no listing of your site.

Just went to GPR to order/search 99903800100. Not found. Pelican has them for $3.90. Not sure if this helps, this is a little obscure part.

Couple things that have turned me off to GPR in the past.
1) search feature does not always find what you are looking for. See Mikes example above.

2) (and this goes to Chris as well) the site is hard to use from my phone. I buy a lot of stuff from my phone.

3) I forget about you. When I was buying a lot of stuff, I bought from faces I knew from the forum. Dave darling worked for Pelican. Jake had T4 store. Etc. They posted often and I trusted them. So I bought from them. Post more. Offer stuff to forum folks to get them in the door. Group buys, etc.

4) pelican puts a magnet of sticker in each order. I have them stuck all over the place. I see them all the time and it stuck in my mind.

Make basic essentials really easy to find. It should not be hard to find spark plugs. And yet, it is.

If you are not in the top 5 Google hits (or at least on the first page) you NEED to tidy that up.

Good luck!!
Zach

I've never been to the GPR site that I can think of I've dealt directly with Jonathan via phone, or via PMs here though.

I recently bought a powder-coated front cross member - but that may have just been something Jonathan had laying around (?) I've been buying a lot of refurbished hard parts from the classifieds here, but not many replacement consumables.

On another note, I've also been buying parts for my Vanagon recently ... and a nice thing that one vendor (Van Cafe) does, they put a free tasty chocolate-chip, or oatmeal-raisin cookie in with the shipment - just sayin'

I have only had one transaction with GPR. I bought what was advertised as ssi 2L heat exchangers. I knew from the pic that it was for a 1.7 but bought it anyway. When I received it, it was indeed for a 1.7. The mount flanges had been replaced with ss, but the holes were drilled for a 2.0. wtf? I had the holes welded and redrilled for the 1.7. I also discovered they were not ssi's. Just factory steel. Whoever was in charge of this sale obviously had no clue of what he was selling. I also ordered a 1.7 hanger to go with it. The hanger came in a priority mail envelope. The envelope was empty.

Will I use GPR again? Probably not.

When did this happen? Unless this was over 2 years ago, this was not a GPR transaction. We are pretty much out of the used parts business. I checked our system and you have not purchased anything from GPR since I became involved. Both Jonathan and I sell our personal items from time to time so this may have been something of his. If it was more than two years ago, then that person is no longer around.

That being said, if you pm me more details, I will do what I can to resolve this to your satisfaction.

Brian

This post earned my respect for you (GPR) as a vendor. I have seen your sales sales online on certain items and as I am in the middle of a conversion to a /6 I will eventually need these parts. I also like that you guys are fairly local to me as I am in Santa Barbara and its not too far from my house.

My main gripe (if I really had one) is searching/ordering from your website.

When I go to make a big purchase, I will often PM you right on this board and ask you what your best price on item X is.

More often than not, I do order from you. Sometimes I do find a better deal, and buy someplace else, but I usually send you a PM first.

My latest thing was redoing my suspension. I did buy new torsion bars and a sway bar from you. Ironically, I bought the sway bar from you and I bought poly bronze trailing arm bushing/bearings from a company that I figured sold sway bars. (go figure)




Oops! My bad. I need to start sending YOU my parts requests. I have only been sending them to HWGUNNER (Jonathan), since he is who I have been used to sending parts requests to.