This is not a sales pitch. I'm sincerely asking for feedback on what we could do, or do better, in order to earn your business.

Even if it's not something I can fix, it would still be good to know. For instance, I realize a lot of people have a loyalty to certain vendor as a result of a long standing personal or business relationship.

I go out of my way not to spam this forum with commercial posts so I hope this isn't viewed as objectionable.

Brian

Brian,

I am not sure you are doing anything wrong. I suggest GPR to many 914 owners and they ask "Who is GPR ? I think many owners do not know you exist.

Bruce

It may not be what you're doing wrong, just that other vendors aren't either. Pelican gets me the parts I need, at a competitive price, usually within 2-3 days. Hard to ask for me than that.

I think this is a great question.

I can only speak for myself, but I have not shopped here (even though I had a gift certificate) because I spend all my money on sheet metal. Of the stuff you carry I am not even sure what I need yet. Later in my build I will be in your market and will definitely consider you. Even though my gift cert. expired, you sponsor Octeenerfest, so that moves you to the top of the non specialized vendor list.

timely…called this am to order something (spreading the money around a bit), left a message w/my #, no return call. i'll wait a bit before i shop elsewhere.

I'm not nuts about the online parts catalog on the website....but it doesn't stop me from shopping with GPR and I do recommend GPR to others also. Other than that minor quibble, I'm happy....carry on!

One of the things that puts me off from the website is the flow of the catalog where i have to chose a year for my car first before i can look at parts.

While my car is a '70, it has parts from all years and other makes and models and it is hard to fiddle through the interface to find the right parts.
This is amplified by the fact that the site remembers my choice and then simply assumes that all i'm interested in is for that particular year and model.


Of course, it doesn't help either that i'm currently not in the market for any parts.
But as we all know, that can (and will) change ...

I'd look to GPR more often if you removed the 'minimum order quantity' restrictions.

Here is a simple answer:

I have not heard of you because when searching google for "914 parts" your site did not show up in the first 40 results

Maybe it is time to payoff Google.

I agree that the website as it is is not particually user friendly.

I am doing a six conversion and am buying parts, maybe you could issue build discounts, and and give guys that are restoring cars, or doing builds discounts for the life of the project.

I have been using a lot more Amazon because of the freight policies. I know a lot of us buy parts on budgets and the freight is killing us.

Or, how about an East Coast Warehouse!

John

I have to agree with a couple other posters, that honestly I'd never heard of GPR. I've only been a 914 owner for a year, but when I got my first 914 a google search for '914 parts' turned up AA, Pelican, and a couple others. I opened this thread and thought, "Who is GPR?".

But I have to agree with Andy above. That shit is super annoying. I have the same issue with the Pelican website. My old 914 had parts from several 914 years, and parts from various 911 model years. When the website locks you into one model/one year it's a real pain in the ass to find what you're looking for.

As Andy stated. Also, I prefer NOT to order online...ANYWHERE! If I can avoid it.

I'm not particularly happy with the catalog myself. In case you are interested, here is the "readers digest" explanation of why it is the way it is. If you want to have a web site selling car parts, you have two basic options.
1) You code the whole thing yourself and supply all the part application data yourself. This option is $$$. Just getting the application data is more money than we spend on technology annually. Pelican is in this bucket.
2) You have a website that is tied to a major distributor. The application data (via the YMME lookup) is provided by the distributor's servers in real time, as is pricing. The literally thousands of hastily branded Worldpac sites are the most common example of this. It is also how our site works, just a little more sophisticated. We can do a lot more than the ubiquitous Worldpac shells but we are locked into the YYME lookup model.

Probably more than you wanted to know, but bottom line I don't know how to fix it within my financial means.



You better knock on wood or something. Whenever I say something like that, my oil pressure light comes on 5 minutes later. Sort of of like telling your buddies how reliable your car/bike/computer/phone is - instant jinx.

Free freight if you order $70.

One of our distributors has a warehouse in PA and we drop ship a lot of East coast orders. UPS ground is one day to a lot of PA, NY, MA, etc.

One idea I was kicking around, would you pay a membership fee (ala Amazon Prime) for free ship on everything??

Yes depending on the fee and if your prices were otherwise competitive.

I also thought you were out of CA.


John

I'll put another mark for website user-friendliness. I've looked for parts before on your site and just got frustrated and went to Pelican instead.

I run a website for a multi-million dollar company. Up until last year it looked like a site from the '90s - terrible colors, tabled/blocky look, pure Web 1.0. But the information was up to date, it was relevant, and it was easily the most user-friendly website in our industry. We made tens of millions off of it.

I purchased a few items from you when serious price shopping for big items.

Pelican has been my go to for everyday items. My toolbox is plastered with pelican magnets.

Sorta.. Out of sight out of mind for GPR?

Pelican and the Bird are easy to remember. Is it Grp? Gpn? I've had to search World a time or two to remember your name.

I just did a google search for GPR and quite looking after 5 pages too

Work on branding is a suggestion.

When I get to the point where Speedy is getting all the rust repair done, I will be looking you up.

I buy parts at competitive prices first, people I like second.

I'm a buyer for parts for the ABM if you want to PM me for a list.

Thx

Hi
Never heard of you either but I just checked out your site. I also agree with others. The page is usable but doesn't flow very well. I prefer headings and the parts listed down the page with a picture and associated parts so you don't forget other items that you might have forgotten but you need.
Example. Rocker cover gaskets---screen gaskets----oil filter---oil

Some additional comments, cheap is good, free shipping is good, members specials are good, hard to get is good, wish list is good, customer loyalty is good, price matching is good. Listing things you don't have in stock and back ordering which takes weeks or months is bad. Also having the exorbitant prices and then listing the savings is nonsense when you can buy the same parts from someone else competitively.
Example Transmission gear teeth , List $279.50, your price $112.46---you save 167.04.
I checked several sites and you were competitive but all that bollocks does you no favours.

The bird stuffed their web site up with the stupid pull down menu which you have to list the year and model of your car, too many annoying complications but I still shop there as they are fast and efficient.
I buy from AA because they have things that others seem not to have. PMB because, well they are nice people. 914 rubber because , well who else. SM have been exy and slow but also have a few hard to get pieces not listed elsewhere.

Also helps if you are attached to a web forum which serves certain makes of car,-- maybe you need to sponsor some sites so they allow legitimate advertising which is not considered spam.

I did see you have swepco gear oil so I might put in an order after a bit of cost comparison

Hope the comments are useful.
Cheers

When I use you, I call you and you are super helpful and knowledgable.
pelican lost that edge a few years ago and now it feels like any other part pusher with no knowledge of my car.

I will stick with you for my porsche parts, and anything else really.

Here, try this.
Mini Cooper, 2003
Super clutch kit from PP.....if you can beat it, send me a PM and its your deal....no rush shipping needed.
Please see the list of parts on PP...I need all of them sadly.

Rich

ahhhh…the beauty of ordering from a live body. ordered the item i need and had a nice chat with brian. i'll be cookin' with gas in no time. SUPPORT YOUR VENDORS!!!!

This was tough to read but not unexpected. It's a bug in the site that I reported months ago. It displays the quantity per car as required when it not really required.

I know you should not have to do this but you can add the "required qty" to your cart then adjust it down to whatever you need at checkout.

Sounds like you need to get the word out and do marketing.

I used GPR a ton years ago on my 75. Dave was the man! I finished the car and stopped ordering parts. I knew Dave passed away and never kept up with what was going on with GPR

Brian,

You have to be commended for sticking your neck out in asking for feedback on your company. Good move.

I just did purchase a set of /6 Bursch headers from you. The purchase was easy to do and your pricing offered about a 10% discount over the normal pricing for this part. The parts arrived promptly and were as represented. So, I can truthfully say that I am a satisfied customer.

Having said that, I gave a little thought to your request for feedback. And, I read all of the comments offered in this thread. I think that all the comments offered can be rolled up into two areas: Publicity/advertising and customer service. Of the two areas, I think that the one that is your biggest barrier is the first: publicity/advertising.

Quite frankly, before buying my headers, I did not know who or what you were. I had seen your logo on various posts......but, there was no chatter on the forums about your company. Aggressive advertising might provide the publicity for folks to know who you are.

A vendor who exemplifies positive customer satisfaction is Pelican. I've been a customer of Pelican for over 20 years. When I call them, I get a live body,without delay, who is not only personable, but who usually owns a Porsche and can "talk" about our cars. Secondly, their website is super slick. Very easy to move around on......holds a tremendous amount of product information......has its own forums......etc. And, their email communications always tell me where my parts are and when I'll get them. In short.......they bond with the customer at all levels. At least once a month I get an email prompting me to provide feedback as you have done with your posting today. Occasionally, I get an email offering me a small discount because I am a "loyal" long time customer. I have never taken them up on one of those discount letters......but, it is the thought that counts.

In short, Pelican goes overboard. And, their prices are not discount. But, they are dependable, prompt, and never forget that the customer is "always right". On the several occasions when I returned items, there was never a delay in refunding my money. In summary, they leave the customer feeling that he is always being treated right.

There is no reason you can't be like Pelican. But, it takes constant and frequent communication.

As it happens, I am at this moment wearing my GPR "T" shirt. If I need something, I'll check GPR first just cause I live near by, would rather spend locally and I know Jonathan. Calling and talking to a person who knows something about the car is nice. The GPR website has always been a little hard to follow.

I have been buying a fairly massive amount of parts for my 914 for a while now. I have not used GPR often mainly because the website was a pain. I have always heard great things about GPR but if I can't find it, I'm not gonna buy it. I often shop on eBay. I realize that there is a lot of crap there but the reason I do is because it is easy to browse for things I just have to have. I have been buying more from PP because it is easy to browse through their selection. I would much rather buy from GPR because of their close connection with 914world.

Also- I really respect you for starting this thread and reaching out for feedback.

This made me smile despite the fact we have (hopefully temporarily) lost you.

Dave was "the man". Even though I never met him face to face, despite numerous invites, I considered him a good friend. One of the Troutmans gave me his name when we met at the Pomona Fairgrounds swap meet when I lived in CA. Don't remember the year but it certainly pre-dated "e-commerce" by a decade or more. Anyway when I needed parts, I always called from the office around 6:30 Dallas time when thing were more "relaxed" at GPR and put in Dave's "secret" extension. It was usually 5 minutes of part numbers and then 20 minutes of BSing about cars, work, exes, etc. Very good times.

Brian

P.S. I have on my desk a battered, dog-eared distributor catalog (you know those paper things we had before the internet) with Dave's notes all over it.

Not disagreeing but this, along with others' comments, suggests that my banner here isn't too effective. Is my banner creative just crap, or have people learned to ignore them??

I will be bumping getting a Google Adwords campaign going to the top of my "to-do" list.

Thanks for the feedback.

Hard to use website. To be fair though, I hardly need parts at this point so...

Brian,

I think that you are missing the point. Advertising requires way more than just a banner. There is nothing wrong with the banner......but, what you need to do is begin advertising. Put a group of parts on sale.....tout the sale. Send out fliers. In short.....over communicate to the buyer what you have to offer.

Actually, you have more than two options.

There are plenty of other (free) eCommerce frameworks out there that you can use to built your parts store.

The downside of them is that they won't hook into WorldPac (unless WorldPac has a generic API you can use) and you'll have to fill in the products and prices yourself initially and then maintain that database.

However, the upside to that is that you can customize those system to look and feel and flow exactly as you want them to.

The banners here are less intrusive then on some of the other sites, including Pelican. IMHO that's a good thing but they are easy to miss.

Maybe we should have a vendors showcase page that is more static but allows each vendor to add a bit more info about them.

Also, i really liked the old black GPR T-Shirts and people would always come up and ask about GPR when i was wearing it.

You could be more proactive. Bruce Stone trolls the Classifieds and when someone says I Need - He says I've got. By changing the behavior of some, you create a wave of change. They recommend you and so on...

You're trying to change a culture. We have all kind of grown up 914 wise with the Bird. Other than Dave Darling, they aren't really proactive here. They rest on their laurels.

Be present. Be more vocal. Mark Whitesell doesn't just sell great product, he promotes it. If someone says I need - he says I've got... GPR needs to develop a 'personality' by being a part of the community.

I would suggest you do a few things, in no particular order.

1) participate in more threads and make yourself more widely known to new owners
2) Google adwords for sure
3) consider a paper catalog. While the Internet did impact marketing efforts, the power of the catalog remains, and is back in full swing. It's a bedtime read, and bathroom companion, and a dream wish list.
I have five or six vendors that still send me paper catalogs and when I need something, I immediately go to their site.
It's not cheap, but it's super effective, track able (catalog rebates)

4) direct email marketing. It works, then most of us have learned to ignore it, thus the return of the catalog.

Yep, I used call Dave first as he always could get me parts fast and at a fair price. I hate the online catalog so when I do order from you its a pain but I do it even for my other cars...

So yeah, post more on the board so we get to know you better....

Banner ads have a 'visual life' of a month or so. After that it's just background noise to viewers. Changing the layout/style/colors of banner ads makes them new and visually catching. As a side benefit, changing the banner ad frequently means you can try something daring or different, and if it works you can keep doing more like that, if it doesn't you can try something else.



But I'm an online-only shopper. Most of my parts orders happen after business hours. I realize the technical difficulties of the WorldPac tie-in and most shopping cart systems available. But I regularly go to Pelican just to look up part numbers because it's fast and easy. I realize it's a huge undertaking and a huge cost. But IMHO, in this day and age if you don't have an easy to use web site, you lose. The most innovative and successful sites find a way to do two things:

1. Make a complex system seem simple.
2. Present information clearly.

In regards to the second point, I went to your site just now, and I should be able to see where I want to click in a few seconds. I looked for more than a few seconds, saw ads for things I don't need and lots of buttons. Forget 'ads' for your parts on your own site. Just make the parts quick and easy to get to.

If GPR = hwgunner, then I just purchased a pair of front torsion bars.

I didn't realize at the time that the two are the same. That should be fixed: Name Recognition is needed. It needs to be consistent too.

Agree with the comments about looking for parts and being stuck inputting a year/model. For my 993 conversion, I'm buying all sorts of odds and ends, some not made for Porsche. It is cumbersome trying to navigate the parts "network" to find what I need (including GPR, Pelican, and AA). Parts House AZ has the same problem. But they (and partsgeek) seem to be consistently cheaper than most sites for the common hard parts. The problem with those guys is that you have to know exactly what you are looking for. And this is where Pelican shines... with drawings and descriptions and pictures.

IMO, there is a niche market gap. More and more people are converting the 914's to 911/964/993 sixes. Patrick Motorsport does this fairly well with their specific 914 conversion page, but they are consistently expensive and seem to cater to that higher end. What is missing from the parts stores are all the necessary details of the different flat 6 conversion pieces depending on performance level and engine. For instance, a 964/993 conversion should have stiffer springs, they require different oil systems and adapters, require different flywheels, etc. If you list the likely pieces sorted through a few different desired performance levels, then list the parts for sale, you might get somewhere.

It might be helpful if you set up a network "tree" diagram for the parts searches. The first level might look something like this:

914 chassis early parts

914 chassis late parts

914-4 specific parts (just the parts applicable to only the 4 cylinder versions)

914-6 specific parts (just the parts applicable to only the 6 cylinder version)

911 based conversion parts
Sub-treed to:
- 2.0-2.4 recommended conversion parts
- 2.7S recommended conversion parts
- 3.0-3.2 recommended conversion parts
- 3.6 recommended conversion parts


All aftermarket parts can be located within each main heading (duplicated within the tree if necessary - like sway-away, etc) and sub-heading.

As a final thought, a one-stop shopping website could be made by providing the ability to order parts at the top level, but the parts would come from other vendors (not out of the norm anyway!). For instance, you want to order rubber? Order it through the top level site, but the part comes from either 914 Rubber or AA and you take a cut of the purchase.

It seems I rambled on a bit too much! But my experience in building my conversion would suggest that this sort of thing might work pretty well.

Here's a graphic. You have WAY too much garbage. You're important to irrelevant ratio is skewed way in the wrong direction. The stuff in grey should be smaller, the stuff in white should be bigger.

Frankly I would mine if you replied to questions about replacement parts with a link to where it could be purchased on your site. If it's ok with Andy that is. I like answers and I like supporting the membership vendors.

i must be the only one whos not a pelican fan.
If you have a 914 throttle cable, engine tin grommet for it and the air tubes from the exchangers to the car in stock consider me a customer.

I haven't bought many 914 parts as I am lucky in that I drive mine more than I work on them.(Not lately, haven't worked or driven). However of the few parts I have purchased, I have bought more from you than anyone else. I have never purchased from Pelican. When I have ordered, I have talked to Jonathan and he has always taken great care of me. Also, you guys have always been more than generous when support the events I have hosted or attended and I will always shop GPR first.



Shoe



p.s. Your crappy website doesn't bother me as I am too lazy to use it and just always call when I need parts.

I'm like a good many others here. I bought a ton of stuff from you guys for both of my 914's and haven't needed weekly deliveries (although I do miss the box's ) for a while. I concur that your internet store is a PITA.
So I'm going to step out here and suggest something different. I hear you when you say that the internet set up cost are prohibitive. And your phone sales i.e person to person are stellar and always have been. Why not combine your strength and weakness. Easy to advertise on the internet "Old Time Phone Sales Only" Answered by Experienced Professionals. Just as everyone has computers these days everyone also has a cell phone. So no long distance. Lots of people want to talk to experienced personnel but Big companies can't afford to hire them. You already have that in place. Accentuate what you do and advertise it. Your strength is the service you guys give, not the products you offer.

I was grossly oversimplifying. You are absolutely correct that one could use one of the many turn-key platforms (as opposed to actually coding the site from scratch).

Unfortunately, that doesn't solve the core problem. All the big distributors are super paranoid about their application data. At least with my primary suppliers, there is no API. You have to use one of their approved vendors and, even if you could circumvent this, the catalog and pricing data is an xml request/response that is YMME driven. So, to create the kind of static catalog that lays everything out for you without the YMME lookup would require purchasing a subscription to an application catalog (into five figures per year) or generating that data internally using PET or some other resource. Then there is maintaining pricing on 10,000+ sku's that can change daily. Unfortunately, I just don't have the resources to do all that.

I have considered a staged transition to that sort of catalog (e.g. start with just 914).

I do appreciate your input - I'm sure you've forgotten more about e-com than I'll ever know.

Brian

P.S. We do buy from Worldpac but only as a last resort. They are more oriented toward repair shops and their pricing structure does not lend itself to serious resellers, IMHO.

My first choice is to buy from the people who are part of the 914 community. Their exposure is not based just in advertising. They are not just a parts catalog. They help, they advise, they criticize, they innovate, they inspire, they volunteer. They have solutions for my wants, problems and needs. They are passionate and help me feed my passion. Tall order but it's true. That's who I buy from.

Thanks for the specific input. You would really love some of the templates the vendor offers (entire screen irrelevant).

Thanks so much to everyone who has replied, even if I didn't respond specifically to your post. I really appreciate all the input. I was very nervous about posting this. I half expected to get "because you suck" as response.

Great answer!! Actually, although I had seen some members here mention GPR in some posts, I had no idea who they meant. Those generic three-letter company names are not very rememberable (is that a real word?).

I've bought stuff from 914Rubber because everyone here knows Mark and everyone has great things to say about him. As stated above, he's a "part of the community," not just a vendor.

That being said, I just checked out your web site and you seem to carry a lot of parts. I spot-checked prices for a few parts I recently purchased from other vendors. Some were higher and some were lower.

Is there a mailing list I can get on? I'd probably buy parts from you. I just added your web site to my browser list.

Oh, regarding your comment about the banner ads... never even noticed them!! Guess I've learned to block banner ads from my field of view.

We can do that to if you like abuse, but it is far more functional in the sandbox.