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Due to the daily increase of emails from riceboys about products they really have no intention of buying I wan’t to stray away from customer service and deal directly with distributors.
How do you find your distributors? Do you have lawyers write contracts? Basically what’s all involved. You don’t have to get too detailed just point me in the right direction, I’m lost.
No need for lawyers when it come to distribution. Basically sell to businesses instead of individuals. Set your prices based on quantity and go from there. You can set terms or you can do a cash basis. It all depends on what you want to do. There’s no contracts involved either unless one of your distributors want exclusivetivity on certain product(s). Then you’d want to write up a simple contract requiring them to buy a certain amount per month/week/orwhatever. If they can’t meet that then the deal is off and they lose that priviledge. It’s simple really.
When you do do direct retail, it’s great. Your margin is lower, but you don’t have to deal with the end buyers. Sometimes, well lots of times, it’s a PITA to deal with.
It’s not so much a pain in the a$$ for people who pay but the 20 emails I have to answer a day for those who don’t is ridiculous. They go something like “hey bro, how much for a integra dash? I need it right away for a show I’m doing”. Emails will go back and forth for a couple days and then I guess the 16 year old with his first car and his job at mcdonald’s can’t afford it.
so do you just surf for a vendor and call them up or have they contacted you? Anyone know the person behind gtp? I’m still confused as to how he can have such a vast product line.
Well, that’s all part of doing business. You’ll have the lurkers, and the maybes. And one out of those 20 will actually fork over the dough. I answer a whole lot of emails too, knowing that they’re not going to spend a dime on anything. But I still respond, because they might come back later down the road.
Yes the owner of GTP is Paul. He is a douche bag! Then DJ (George) is the main manager. Ted is the website and R&D Guy. They are part owners in a factory they get their stuff from. They spend so much of the factories time of making new products that they forget about the people that had already bought older stuff. They have a very bad rap for crappy products and bad delivery time. They have contacted me about making some stuff a little while ago because they are coming out with a new line of USA made stuff. I declined the offer because that will shot my name to shit! I remeber when Ted got on FG and was talking his stuff up! hahahahaha he got shut down and he hinted to Evan that he didn’t know what he (Evan) was talking about. Have not seen him on the board since. He pissed off a couple people
ah… Paul. Good times. I see him and his rice mobile every few days or so filing up at the gas station. They’re only down the street from me.
Their products look like crap! Who in the world uses normal poly resin(not clear)? Guess if noone buy’s them then they have all the time in the world to develop a product line. It’s just hard to imagine a company can produce all sorts of carbon parts for over 40 different makes and models.
what is he driving now a days. Do they still run around with those cheesy looking supras?? They are a good idea but so crapply made! anyway, I used to buy a lot of stuff from them a couple years ago and know more stuff about their company then I should.
well a lot of their carbon stuff they make in fiberglass. Half of their products are not made by them but made by some of their biggest competitors. They must be hurting a litte for business I guess because all their carbon stuff is on sale and have been for awhile and now they sell on ebay under the name raceonusa I think.
Still driving the green supra… that poor car.
if you guys have never seen the cars here are the 3 supras 
I remeber when Paul got that supra in on a container of kits. It used to be red and had fire damage I think. Well nevermind I forgot he sold it to DJ which is now the yellow one.
wow, the parts fit together so nicely. 
waaaaaaaaaaaaay overboard!
later guys, my day is over
well they did it for sema to show their capability. which is the only reason i don’t think it is overkill, but if you are making sema cars, they should be perfect. When I was at Sema looking at these cars and then again when I was visiting Evan I went to talk with Carlos because I known him for awhile and he is the warehouse manager, and also the one put to the task to put this kit on the cars and he said that they are all doctored to fit. They took about 15 hours to put the first one on, and they are all finished. They have sold about 30 of these kits, and about half complained so bad and they would not give a refund so they did chargebacks.
anyone know who is making GTP’s american made stuff?
Interesting I’ve always wondered about their stuff. Are you talking about 3 Supra wide bodies that were at SEMA last year. I saw a couple of them on the strip last year and the cars looked pretty cool but then when I walked up to one at the show it was crap. I just walked around the car for like 10 minutes scratching my head. LOL
As to your original question, I would make sure you have a decent amount of production first, it would really suck to get a promise to buy and then fall short. Of course I don’t know if its just you or if you have help. One idea I had was advertising (calling, mailing) to companies that may specialize in an off model (non-honda) and maybe offer to reproduce certain parts for them. I think the margins for the popular stuff is really small. You probably know if you made Honda hoods or something like that would be competing against Chinese factories. In short I would say specialize and sell your parts on quality. This way at least you have some leverage whether you sell to dist or end users. Making good parts is not enough, you have to market and network as much as possible. Those are just my thoughts.
I am really swinging away from all the japanese imported cars and making stuff for the german and italian cars. These are the people that can appreciate what goes into making a quality composites part and willing to pay for quality and function not just to say “hey I got a carbon hood”
good call Dustin. I got away from cars all together. Let it be known that since the start of this thread and the swift conversion from autos to my little secret the business is working three contracts right now and doing pretty well.
congrats!! I have a contract now for a company that has nothing to do with automotive and the payout is 10 fold