LX570 sliders- gauging interest

[kms254]

Add me to the list of interested... 2009 LX an these side steps are getting annoying...

I'm also CO local who can sacrifice their LX for a period of time if a shop needs one to test fit/prototype.

 

[use2bn83]

dang. That's over $35k of product. How much interest does someone (slee?) need to get on a horse and make this happen?

We're working on it very diligently. As stated above, we have another first article in process. We appreciate the motivation. Trust me when I say, nobody want's to have this product available as much as we do.

A bit of background on the timeline.....
The sliders require special tooling to make, and hence we are kind of married to the vendor that we supply it to. To develop a vendor and a manufacturing process that will meet our quality requirements is very time consuming. Having to completely redo this process mid-cycle adds even more time.

We try really really hard to provide product that is well vetted and fits without issue. I understand the frustration, and all I can say is that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I don't think it's the train this time.

We're looking forward to helping as many of you as we can when we get them in stock.

 

[gentimmy]

We're working on it very diligently. As stated above, we have another first article in process. We appreciate the motivation. Trust me when I say, nobody want's to have this product available as much as we do.

A bit of background on the timeline.....
The sliders require special tooling to make, and hence we are kind of married to the vendor that we supply it to. To develop a vendor and a manufacturing process that will meet our quality requirements is very time consuming. Having to completely redo this process mid-cycle adds even more time.

We try really really hard to provide product that is well vetted and fits without issue. I understand the frustration, and all I can say is that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I don't think it's the train this time.

We're looking forward to helping as many of you as we can when we get them in stock.

Here's the thing: It's up to YOU to communicate both issue and resolve to the consumer. When I placed my order A YEAR AGO I was told that I would have them in a matter of months. It's been a year from that phone call almost to the day, and not once has Slee reached out to update me. I don't give a **** what tooling or material quality you're working on acquiring, all the consumer sees is a delivery date that hasn't been set and more than a calendar year from request. I get that you "try really hard" but why don't you put that same degree of effort towards communication with the end-user? If you guys have been so successful with 80/100 series parts that you don't need 200 market share then so be it! That's totally fine! But communicate that...and don't double up on promise when your customer base looks elsewhere.

On a side note: Know what may free up some time for you to source material or vendors? E-commerce. Something as simple as shopify will make this whole process a lot smoother for you. While I hope that I'm wrong, what's working for you now will not make you sustainable for the future.

Slee has joined the ranks of CBI for me. Poor communication and lack of customer service; Two things I will not tolerate that are so easily overcome.

We're looking forward to helping as many of you as we can when we get them in stock.

Also, wtf does this mean? Three years ago this would have had a different meaning to me coming from slee due to your former reputation...now I wonder if this means you're going to help 10 of us when that's all you can get...

 

[Tex68w]

Here's the thing: It's up to YOU to communicate both issue and resolve to the consumer. When I placed my order A YEAR AGO, I was told that I would have them in a matter of months. It's been a year from that phone call almost to the day, and not once has Slee reached out to update me. I don't give a f*** what tooling or material quality you're working on acquiring, all the consumer sees is a delivery date that hasn't been set and more than a calendar year from request. I get that you "try really hard" but why don't you put that same degree of effort towards communication with the end-user? If you guys have been so successful with 80/100 series parts that you don't need 200 market share then so be it! That's totally fine! But communicate that...and don't double up on promise when your customer base looks elsewhere.

On a side note: Know what may free up some time for you to source material or vendors? E-commerce. Something as simple as shopify will make this whole process a lot smoother for you. While I hope that I'm wrong, what's working for you now will not make you sustainable for the future.

Slee has joined the ranks of CBI for me. Poor communication and lack of customer service; Two things I will not tolerate that are so easily overcome.

Burn!!!!

But sadly he has a point and that's the driving force behind this entire thread.

 

[use2bn83]

First, we never take money for an item we don’t have in stock. If you have paid for product you haven’t received please call us to resolve.

Second, no argument from me on communication. We’re a tiny company and get behind and we could definitely improve here.

Third, I get that you’re frustrated. We’re not doubling up on promises, just simply answering some of the questions that have been asked. There’s no leadtimes in my responses because I can’t tell you at this point when we’ll get product in.

Forth, we have an e-commerce website in the making, definitely not easy to do.

Fifth, we’ll have to agree to disagree on customer service. When someone walks in the door and sits in Ben or Amory’s office for 3 hrs planning a build, when we bend over backwards to answer every email and phone call about tire size, when I watch our tech’s spotlessly clean and inspect a Birfield, when our tech hand deburrs a gear-set before building a diff, when our shipping department hand wraps and fills a box with foam, When Tim or I design a custom bracket for a customer that looks like it came from Toyota, I know that we provide an unparalleled level of customer service in our industry.

Finally, we are fully committed to the 200/LX570 crowd. Tim, Christo, and I have worked tirelessly to get our manufacturing back on track for all products, but have put a level of effort into the 200 series that rivals any other products we manufacture. There is rarely a day we don’t have a 200 on the rack being built. Our 200/201 product line is in it for the long haul.

Happy Trails

 

[gentimmy]

First, we never take money for an item we don’t have in stock. If you have paid for product you haven’t received please call us to resolve.

Okay? If anyone else in this thread got the impression I paid for goods and/or services that weren't received I can assure you that is not the case. Not sure what gave that indication, though.

Second, no argument from me on communication. We’re a tiny company and get behind and we could definitely improve here.

You've been in business since '98, you've had a couple of decades to figure it out. There are more than a few lean companies (even in manufacturing) that place a hyper-focus on CX (consumer experience) to make up for shortcomings in output and everyone walks away happy. Comm's or output - one or the other, not neither.

Third, I get that you’re frustrated. We’re not doubling up on promises, just simply answering some of the questions that have been asked. There’s no leadtimes in my responses because I can’t tell you at this point when we’ll get product in.

Hell yea I'm frustrated but I'm also sad. Seeing Slee's ShortBus bumper on an 80 is what started this journey for me when I was in high school. Since then I've had a 100, FJC, and now a 200 (LX Variant). I'm now finally at an age where I'm blessed enough to have disposable income...literally been dreaming of the day of having Slee product on my LC.

Forth, we have an e-commerce website in the making, definitely not easy to do.

How long have you (Slee) been saying this?

It is a relatively easy thing to do. This isn't 2006, your customer base is now smarter than that. There are entire companies (probably struggling now since it's so late) whose sole practice is bringing small business to e-comm and even the cloud. Invest in yourself.

Fifth, we’ll have to agree to disagree on customer service. When someone walks in the door and sits in Ben or Amory’s office for 3 hrs planning a build, when we bend over backwards to answer every email and phone call about tire size, when I watch our tech’s spotlessly clean and inspect a Birfield, when our tech hand deburrs a gear-set before building a diff, when our shipping department hand wraps and fills a box with foam, When Tim or I design a custom bracket for a customer that looks like it came from Toyota, I know that we provide an unparalleled level of customer service in our industry.

Second, no argument from me on communication. We’re a tiny company and get behind and we could definitely improve here.

These are awfully contradictory; That being said, have we identified a failure point? You're tying up two key players in "a tiny company" for 3 hours to plan a build? Why not create a fillable form online for the customer and sit down with with them for an hour to finalize and polish plans? You'll have gone from spending 6 man hours (3 hrs x 2, almost a whole day's worth of work) to 2 hours. Want a more personalized experience than that? That's fine, hire some talent whose sole purpose is to walk each customer through their build process - less technical individuals who understand Slee workflow and simply communicate that.

Look, I get it, you're "boutique" but not to the point of every piece of the puzzle being a one-off. Create repeatable work and apply as often as possible. Or don't and end up with a thread like this.

...when our shipping department hand wraps and fills a box with foam, When Tim or I design a custom bracket for a customer that looks like it came from Toyota...

Careful shipping and a beautiful product do not qualify as customer service (although both deserve recognition). Separating yourself with an OEM look is a selling point and you'd be wise to limit returns through a careful shipping process.

Look, this is the age of Amazon which sucks for you. Yea, you're not Amazon (trust me, we've figured that out) but no one expects you to be. There will ALWAYS be a level understanding for smaller organizations within reason. You've exhausted my reason and, out of principle, I will be anxiously awaiting another manufacturer's product.

Also, this is my opinion and an honest portrayal as a customer - I understand that I do not know the in's and out's of your organization nor do I sit on site.

 

[sleeoffroad]

Here's the thing: It's up to YOU to communicate both issue and resolve to the consumer. When I placed my order A YEAR AGO I was told that I would have them in a matter of months. It's been a year from that phone call almost to the day, and not once has Slee reached out to update me.

I just want to clarify something here. We do not take orders for products we do not have in stock, or have in development / have delays in production. We offer the customer the choice that we enter a no obligation back order in the system to reserve a spot in line so that when the product becomes available, we will contact them and offer the product as a first come, first serve bases. We normally inform customers we will contact them when products are available. In the case of the LX570 sliders, they are not available yet, hence the lack in any communication. Since we do not have a hard delivery date yet, it would serve no purpose to contact customers since we have no updated information.

I don't give a f*** what tooling or material quality you're working on acquiring, all the consumer sees is a delivery date that hasn't been set and more than a calendar year from request.

When you were given the information about a couple of months, that was indeed the case with promises from manufacturers, however there are reasons the product are not produced yet. Again, had we taken your money, or promised an exact delivery date based on product either being in production or at powder coat, we would have been in contact.

This is the exact reason why we are not even giving projected dates anymore due. Sometimes events happen out of your control. I apologize if you were mislead on the product availability. I just wanted to put this out there for people that are on our lists.

On a side note: Know what may free up some time for you to source material or vendors? E-commerce. Something as simple as shopify will make this whole process a lot smoother for you. While I hope that I'm wrong, what's working for you now will not make you sustainable for the future.

You are welcome to call me if you can provide me with any input on this. All I can say if this was so easy for a shop like us (with all the complexities of a brick and mortar store, shop for installs and large item shipment, I would not have lost $15k with a supposedly reputable e-commerce company that was not able to deliver a site in 24 months.

Slee has joined the ranks of CBI for me. Poor communication and lack of customer service; Two things I will not tolerate that are so easily overcome.

I am sorry to hear this. Has this poor customer service been an issue as well with any order or product delivered by us?

You're tying up two key players in "a tiny company" for 3 hours to plan a build? Why not create a fillable form online for the customer and sit down with with them for an hour to finalize and polish plans?

That would hardly work when someone takes the time to drive to our shop and expect to be able to speak to a knowledgeable person regarding the truck they want to outfit.

Want a more personalized experience than that? That's fine, hire some talent whose sole purpose is to walk each customer through their build process - less technical individuals who understand Slee workflow and simply communicate that.

Not exactly sure what this means? I have to hire people that are not technical to advise people on how to build their trucks?

Careful shipping and a beautiful product do not qualify as customer service (although both deserve recognition).

On this one I would beg to differ. Ensuring the customer receives his product in good order is arguably more important than any pre-sales communications we have since that customer has already spent money and is entitled that we take the time to ensure proper service to them by having product delivered undamaged.

We can clutter this thread with a whole discussion about Slee's business practices. I would gladly communicate via email or PM on this, but I don't think this is the place.

What Jackson was trying to convey that we are working on the sliders, as fast as we can. This is one of the products we are working on for a subset (LX) of a subset (200) of a market. We are investing all the money up front with no ask from any customer. We are sorry it is late and he tried to convey that here. However in all this, we do not believe we have hurt anyone financially or otherwise.

We do take all comment re: customer service to hart and try to improve and create a better company every day. However we are still a small company with limited resources.

I understand that I do not know the in's and out's of your organization nor do I sit on site.

Therein lies the rub. There is always two sides to the story. However we do accept all comments, good or bad and use those to guide us in our day to day operations.

 

[gentimmy]

Thanks for chiming in, Christo! This will be the last comment I make on the subject and I'd like to state once more that I am not involved in the automotive industry specifically, nor do I have insight to Slee as a Corp. That being said, business infrastructure consists of common methodology.

I just want to clarify something here. We do not take orders for products we do not have in stock, or have in development / have delays in production. We offer the customer the choice that we enter a no obligation back order in the system to reserve a spot in line so that when the product becomes available, we will contact them and offer the product as a first come, first serve bases. We normally inform customers we will contact them when products are available. In the case of the LX570 sliders, they are not available yet, hence the lack in any communication. Since we do not have a hard delivery date yet, it would serve no purpose to contact customers since we have no updated information.

See my previous post

When you were given the information about a couple of months, that was indeed the case with promises from manufacturers, however there are reasons the product are not produced yet. Again, had we taken your money, or promised an exact delivery date based on product either being in production or at powder coat, we would have been in contact.

This is the exact reason why we are not even giving projected dates anymore due. Sometimes events happen out of your control. I apologize if you were mislead on the product availability. I just wanted to put this out there for people that are on our lists.

acknowledged

You are welcome to call me if you can provide me with any input on this. All I can say if this was so easy for a shop like us (with all the complexities of a brick and mortar store, shop for installs and large item shipment, I would not have lost $15k with a supposedly reputable e-commerce company that was not able to deliver a site in 24 months.

Christo, I helped a global retailer with over 500 brick and mortars transition between e-commerce platforms (much more difficult than building from scratch). I would need a lot more than what you paid and a quoted timeline. That being said, I am not a good resource for you - you could get it done cheaper than the $x.xx m I billed them in 8 months.

Questions I would ask:
Were your expectations realistic?
Did you run references on your implementation partner?
What software did they attempt to implement?
Were your supply chain channels fixed so that the platform could work?
Do you keep an accurate count of inventory for the database?
What database do you use? Did they offer a migration to something that "played well" with their platform?
and on and on and on and on.....

I am sorry to hear this. Has this poor customer service been an issue as well with any order or product delivered by us?

No! Other product I ordered from you were rather simple in comparison, though. When I'm looking at spending $10k+ in armor, I'm going to want to feel comfortable about it. What if a component suffered damage to the point of requiring replacement? Could I count on you to have inventory to rectify? What if a critical component was missing when I received the order?

That would hardly work when someone takes the time to drive to our shop and expect to be able to speak to a knowledgeable person regarding the truck they want to outfit.

Really? Did Akio Toyoda walk you through which options to select for one of your many cruisers? It's called delegation and it's critical to an organization's success. It's possible (common, even) to be knowledgeable without being technical.

Not exactly sure what this means? I have to hire people that are not technical to advise people on how to build their trucks?

In my world (software) they're called many things...Project Managers, Product Managers, Implementation Analysts, etc. The idea is the same. Yes, less technical individuals who know your product and the market/industry can absolutely act as advisors - it's common practice. Delegate so that more technical individuals can ease pain points or work on next phase of product.

On this one I would beg to differ. Ensuring the customer receives his product in good order is arguably more important than any pre-sales communications we have since that customer has already spent money and is entitled that we take the time to ensure proper service to them by having product delivered undamaged.

We can clutter this thread with a whole discussion about Slee's business practices. I would gladly communicate via email or PM on this, but I don't think this is the place.

What Jackson was trying to convey that we are working on the sliders, as fast as we can. This is one of the products we are working on for a subset (LX) of a subset (200) of a market. We are investing all the money up front with no ask from any customer. We are sorry it is late and he tried to convey that here. However in all this, we do not believe we have hurt anyone financially or otherwise.

We do take all comment re: customer service to hart and try to improve and create a better company every day. However we are still a small company with limited resources.

Ensuring a customer receives his product in good order is expected in today's marketplace and it's beneficial to the organization for retention and quality control amongst other things.

I would agree that I have not experienced any negative financial repercussion but I can not speak for the masses and neither can you. Our opinion does not matter, it's the opinion of your marketplace. How do you evaluate Opportunity Cost? Trips could have been missed out on, or...worse, someone ran with your blanket expectation on delivery and scheduled a trip anyway and, after months of preparation, decided to go regardless. Maybe they suffered damage to their rocker panel? Things you have to consider...

Therein lies the rub. There is always two sides to the story. However we do accept all comments, good or bad and use those to guide us in our day to day operations.

Yep, that's why I communicated it (and again with this message).

 

[Tex68w]

I would hardly call the LX a subset of the 200 series. They sell three times as many LX's as they do LC's and while most of those are on leases to affluent lacrosse mom types (the Land Cruiser is really no different less the lease aspect), there are still just as many LX's out there being modified in the enthusiast world. I'd be willing to bet that nearly half of those on this subform own a LX instead of the LC because they are more commonly found second-hand on the open market and are more nicely appointed and usually for less money than their Toyota counterpart.

Instead of telling us that there is a vague tooling problem with your supplier and continuing to keep those of us who have been waiting for upwards of a year or more in the dark, why aren't you up front and disclose to all of us exactly why there is a delay. I can't understand how there was an initial run and then now here you've sat dormant for over a year with no movement and no explanation of why. If I had a manufacturer/supplier that was holding up my productivity for that long I would move on and form another relationship with someone else so that I could stay in business and appease my customer base. No relationship is worth that kind of delay.

 

[brywhite]

I'm interested, please sign me up - 2016 LX

 

[eatSleepWoof]

I'm hesitant to jump into the heated discussion with no (real) horse in the race, but...

First, we never take money for an item we don’t have in stock.

This is great practice, and something I (as a customer) wish more companies would do. However, from what I've read in this post, it sounds like some vague promises of timelines were made, and that's where the confusion came from.

I'm currently in a similar situation (with a different company) myself. In early July I had reached out to the vendor and inquired about a product. They told me in no uncertain terms that they can have it made within a week, and I told them to go ahead. About two weeks ago (after numerous other "we will have it done in a few days" promises) they were finally ready to take my money, which I promptly sent them.

The product has still not shipped, and they are of the opinion that it "hasn't been that long" between "placing order" (ie. taking money) and now. They are completely neglecting the fact that they promised (in writing, no less) to have this product done 1.5 months ago, even through they didn't take my money at the time. What may sound like a vague estimate to a company, may sound like a solid commitment to a customer. Clear communication of deliverables/expectations is very important.

And too much communication is always much better than not enough. If you have waitlists for certain products, I'd suggest putting a monthly reminder into your calendar to follow up with the people on that list. A simple "Hi folks, we are still waiting for _x_ to happen before we can manufacture the product. We haven't forgotten about you, but still do not have a timeline." goes a long way with customers, and should only take you 5-10 minutes.

You are welcome to call me if you can provide me with any input on this. All I can say if this was so easy for a shop like us (with all the complexities of a brick and mortar store, shop for installs and large item shipment, I would not have lost $15k with a supposedly reputable e-commerce company that was not able to deliver a site in 24 months.

Im in the software/web development industry, and it sounds like you've been taken for a ride. A $15k project should never take 24 months to build. I agree with @gentimmy that getting a single brick & mortar store on an ecommerce platform is a very straightforward thing to do in this day & age. It was already straightforward to do a decade ago (I was already leading such projects back then). I'd suggest bringing in an outside consultant (ideally, one you can meet in person) to review your project, evaluate what has been done by the company you hired, to what level/quality, and what the next steps should be to get you off the ground as quickly and effectively as possible.

 

[sleeoffroad]

I would hardly call the LX a subset of the 200 series.

I did not say it was a small market, just a single model of vehicle in a market where we have products for 80's 100's 200's, Tacoma's, Tundra's and 4Runners. We have products in development in all those spaces. So the LX is like working on a susbet of 100's for example 03-07 model years.

Instead of telling us that there is a vague tooling problem with your supplier and continuing to keep those of us who have been waiting for upwards of a year or more in the dark, why aren't you up front and disclose to all of us exactly why there is a delay. I can't understand how there was an initial run and then now here you've sat dormant for over a year with no movement and no explanation of why.

We normally don't disclose inside issues on forums since it does not help at all. Delays happen, stuff out of control happen. All the sales staff are briefed not to set expectations when we cannot meet them. Even when we are provided with production dates by suppliers, we will always inform the customer that it is not set in stone. We don't keep people in the dark, we just try to not set expectation that we cannot meet. There would be no benefit of me repeatedly posting that we had a delay. People on the list is told we will call you when we have them available. And that we do. Again, as stated before, we took no money up front on this specifically so that we do not have an obligation to delivery at a said date.

However here is what happened, we did a redesign to make the sliders easier to install, easier to manufacture (the radius bends on the end was complex). We received a first article from our supplier and that did not meet specifications (various reasons for that, some ours, some theirs). We then again redesigned again to add features so that assembly of the sheet metal components fit together better and there is no ambiguity in the assembly process. So that means adding slot and tabs etc etc.

Each of these steps require all the 3D models to be updated and also all drawings. That does not happen overnight. A set of production drawings for the LX sliders have upwards of probably 30 pages of drawings. This is what is required by manufacturers to produce the product to specification. In short, you cannot hold their feet to the fire if you don't have it documented.

All these steps are taken so that we are confident when we ship the product that we will not have issues.

Multiply this by about 10 products in production / development and you suddenly have a massive workload to be completed by a small staff.

As for the technical side of the tooling, some might not understand it, but to form the profile of the slider, requires a very specific gooseneck press punch. Also breaking a 6ft piece of 3/16" steel to that profile requires a pretty specific press brake.

The punch is not something that is normally in use by shops. So we purchased (not cheap) the punch to allow this shop to manufacture the sliders. They do all our other sliders as well. So simply moving to another manufacturer is not that easy. In addition, the tool is for American Style press brakes and a lot of shops use Amada which is a different style of tooling so the punch would not be able to be used unless we also invest in an adapter. Not something we were ready to do based on the other products this supplier is also making for us.

 

[use2bn83]

Instead of telling us that there is a vague tooling problem with your supplier and continuing to keep those of us who have been waiting for upwards of a year or more in the dark, why aren't you up front and disclose to all of us exactly why there is a delay.

It is too long of a situation to discuss here. We've already train wrecked this poor thread. I'll try to give you a brief overview of why this product has taken so long.

2 - months
1 - order placed
2 - expectations not met - order canceled - find new supplier *were able to get some interim sets, but not a full order


3-5 - months
1 - The product had to be remodeled and re-drawn for manufacturability. - details are not worth discussing here.
2 - the product had to be shopped around RFQ'd discuss tooling coating ETC
3 - select a vendor willing to take the project on and meet our requirements also required purchasing new custom tooling

6-14 months-ish
1 - order first article (10wks) - thousands of $$ in development
2 - expectations not met, mutually discussed some model changes and added some features (2wks)
3 - order 2nd first article (10wks)
4 - obtain and review 2nd article (TBA)
5 - Hopefully place a large production order (TBA)
6 - receive inspect and package production order (TBA)


I hope that adds some clarity. It's been painful as hell. Not an excuse, but we really just didn't have much info to update and send out.

This is a rough timeline, but pulled from my notebook.

**Edit - sorry Christo didn't see your post while I was posting I can delete if you like, they are basically redundant.

 

[sleeoffroad]

What if a component suffered damage to the point of requiring replacement? Could I count on you to have inventory to rectify? What if a critical component was missing when I received the order?

That illustrates exactly one of the issues that we are faced with. We are putting products to market that we can support and we take the time to ensure that products are being able to be built repeatedly to the same standard. Same with a supply chain that oen can dependent on. We have heavily invested in engineering and development in the last three years to ensure that our branded products can be supported in the future.

Really? Did Akio Toyoda walk you through which options to select for one of your many cruisers? It's called delegation and it's critical to an organization's success. It's possible (common, even) to be knowledgeable without being technical.

You are assuming be we not do that. However we are a small company with limited resources. We simply can't afford a staff of 10 sales people (or whatever you want to call them). Unfortunately the margins in the 4x4 world is not the same as other retail environments so the nett profit margins are way smaller.

In my world (software) they're called many things...Project Managers, Product Managers, Implementation Analysts, etc. The idea is the same. Yes, less technical individuals who know your product and the market/industry can absolutely act as advisors - it's common practice. Delegate so that more technical individuals can ease pain points or work on next phase of product.

The amount of knowledge required to assist customers in a business like ours are huge. We have a nice business and people expect knowledge. If you want less knowledge, walk into a 4WP Wholesaler and speak to them about a LX build and see where you get.

Ensuring a customer receives his product in good order is expected in today's marketplace and it's beneficial to the organization for retention and quality control amongst other things.

You should come spend a week in our warehouse and see how we receive items from other suppliers that produce products and then let me know what and what not is good customer service in terms of shipping.

Trips could have been missed out on, or...worse, someone ran with your blanket expectation on delivery and scheduled a trip anyway and, after months of preparation, decided to go regardless. Maybe they suffered damage to their rocker panel? Things you have to consider...

How would we be required to have any liability for the above unless we have provided a guaranteed delivery date of a product? If Toyota is 2 years late with releasing the 300 series, are you going to hold them liable since you had to drive a Suburban and was in a wreck?

 

[gentimmy]

That illustrates exactly one of the issues that we are faced with. We are putting products to market that we can support and we take the time to ensure that products are being able to be built repeatedly to the same standard. Same with a supply chain that oen can dependent on. We have heavily invested in engineering and development in the last three years to ensure that our branded products can be supported in the future.



You are assuming be we not do that. However we are a small company with limited resources. We simply can't afford a staff of 10 sales people (or whatever you want to call them). Unfortunately the margins in the 4x4 world is not the same as other retail environments so the nett profit margins are way smaller.



The amount of knowledge required to assist customers in a business like ours are huge. We have a nice business and people expect knowledge. If you want less knowledge, walk into a 4WP Wholesaler and speak to them about a LX build and see where you get.



You should come spend a week in our warehouse and see how we receive items from other suppliers that produce products and then let me know what and what not is good customer service in terms of shipping.



How would we be required to have any liability for the above unless we have provided a guaranteed delivery date of a product? If Toyota is 2 years late with releasing the 300 series, are you going to hold them liable since you had to drive a Suburban and was in a wreck?

We have strayed so far from the discussion's original intent. Glad that the communication has hit public forum, sorry it had to happen this way.

You're now comparing yourself to sub-par metrics that the end-user/customer doesn't see nor do they care about. I walk into a grocery store and buy tomatoes on presentation- I'm not asked to consider the data behind damaged produce and what they had to do to get that product on the shelves every day at the quality it's presented in.

No one mentioned liability...it's called "expectation".

I'm detecting not-so-subtle undertones of defensiveness when you've received really great feedback and even ideas from a number of folks. Hope you think about some of them.

@eatSleepWoof - you communicated effectively. I applaud you...also, when did you move to Canada?

 

[sleeoffroad]

I agree with @gentimmy that getting a single brick & mortar store on an ecommerce platform is a very straightforward thing to do in this day & age.

Herein lies the rub. We are not a simple brick and mortar store. Once you introduce a shop with installs you complicate matters a lot on terms of inventory availability etc. What also does not help is that we are vested in Quickbooks and getting that interfaced with e-commerce is a pain. Add to that setting up a e-commerce store that handles truck freight created an even larger pita.

That said, we hope to go live with the new site in a couple of months. It will have limited items available for purchase initially and we will add items as we go while we sort out the teething problems. That said it would not change this situation at all.

As for the emails, we have done that for items that are in the production pipe line. Yes we could probably do more, but as Jackson pointed out we did not have much to share.

 

[sleeoffroad]

No one mentioned liability...it's called "expectation".

The implication that someone would have received damage to their truck since we could not supply a product implies to me that one wants assign liability.

I'm detecting not-so-subtle undertones of defensiveness when you've received really great feedback and even ideas from a number of folks. Hope you think about some of them.

We do take everything to heart and use that for internal discussions and learning. I simply aired some info that we normally would not in an effort to be transparent.

 

[gentimmy]

The implication that someone would have received damage to their truck since we could not supply a product implies to me that one wants assign liability.

In response to this:

What Jackson was trying to convey that we are working on the sliders, as fast as we can. This is one of the products we are working on for a subset (LX) of a subset (200) of a market. We are investing all the money up front with no ask from any customer. We are sorry it is late and he tried to convey that here. However in all this, we do not believe we have hurt anyone financially or otherwise.

We do take everything to heart and use that for internal discussions and learning. I simply aired some info that we normally would not in an effort to be transparent.

Good to hear! It's always hard to assign tone to a text-based conversation but I hope you took everything constructively rather than as an attack. Attacks are not productive.

 

[use2bn83]

Alright, I'm getting back to work so y'all can have some sliders in the future. I'm thankful for the candid feedback, it's the only way we can improve. It's fun to see such a passionate group. We're in a "passion" business and blessed to get to have a lot of fun most days. Looking forward to mixing it up on the trail with you guys. It's always exciting to see what you guys do to torture our products.

Cheers!
over and out

 

[eatSleepWoof]

Herein lies the rub. We are not a simple brick and mortar store. Once you introduce a shop with installs you complicate matters a lot on terms of inventory availability etc. What also does not help is that we are vested in Quickbooks and getting that interfaced with e-commerce is a pain. Add to that setting up a e-commerce store that handles truck freight created an even larger pita.

Every business has something unique to them, and honestly, every single one I've worked with thought they and their processes were amazingly complex. When broken down, they were all trivial problems to address.

Based on what I've seen on your existing site and what you've mentioned here, outside of any delays, (ex. waiting for API documentation for integration w/ a freight shipper, or access to your Quickbooks development account) I'd be very surprised if I could not single-handedly build your entire ecommerce project in four weeks (flat!) of full-time work. That would involve inventory management, your blog aspects, (builds, vehicles for sale, trips, etc.) image galleries, payment gateway integration, freight shipment quotation integration, book-keeping (Quickbooks, in your case) integration, and per-vehicle-bay scheduling for installs or other work. To be clear, I'm not offering to do the work, just sharing some perspective on how long this should take a competent person.

That said, we hope to go live with the new site in a couple of months. It will have limited items available for purchase initially and we will add items as we go while we sort out the teething problems. That said it would not change this situation at all.

Good to hear!