I am relatively new to the Early Bronco community. One thing I have been told by several Early Bronco enthusiasts to avoid certain vendors. I tend to vote with my dollars; I have supported all the vendors listed here at this site, and have not had any issues with any one of them. All are great people.
I don’t want to say who told me to avoid who, or what vendor they said this about, or why they ever shared this information with me. I find that those who speak negatively TO you usually end up speaking negatively ABOUT you.
People have their favorites…I get that. Many who have been in the community a long time who build a lot of Broncos day and night can also be vendor-agnostic. Some people prefer vendors who specialize in made in USA only, and others don’t care. Who has the best shocks, the best prices, the best support, etc...I have heard it way more in the early bronco community than in any other classic car groups I belong to (Corvette, Mustang, Belair, hot rod). On thing is for sure: there’s lots of passion here!
For me, I feel that pre-sales calls, tech support, web site search, quality of product, on-time delivery, catalog quality and more are all very important. I am willing to pay extra for a quality experience for a quality product in a heartbeat. But not everyone is like this. No one is right or wrong…we’re all in the community together, and what I believe ultimately doesn’t matter.
To this end, today I set aside 12 hours doing some comparative analysis between early bronco vendors Specifically, I looked at product pricing. I was not paid to do this, but rather was seeking to find out why people feel so passionately about this particular aspect of early bronco parts manufacturers & resellers.
Here’s my methodology:
There are 50 items that I need to buy right now for my bronco, so I put those in a spreadsheet.
Next I searched for the product on multiple different vendors’ web sites, and put in their prices and part numbers. I also made notes, such as whether or not two items were required (like arm rests) and made sure that if a vendor sold them in pairs or individually, I always compared apples-to-apples by increasing the quantities to match. With me so far? I did not go to any special vendor buys or sale prices or log into any of the accounts – just did anonymous searches.
The average price across all 50 parts was $22.94 (all in US Dollars). The highest price part was $799, the lowest was $1.95. All parts come to an average of $968.94 across all vendors, so as you can surmise, there isn’t a custom engine, fiberglass body, pimped-out family cage, or custom rims and tires. Just an average order that an average person working on a bronco might spend in an average order when restoring an early bronco.
On my list, here’s what I found out about the 50 items:
- 14 or 28% of them matched within a few pennies (11.95 vs. 11.99, for example) across all vendors. I didn’t expect that.
- 15 or 30% of them had a 20% different in price. So roughly 60% of all prices are very close to each other.
- 15 or 30% of them were 2 times the price. This was a bit surprising. Guessing quality of product or margin comes into play, but that’s how the retail game works.
- 5 or 10% of them were as 3 times the price. No big surprise to me here.
- 1 or 2% of the items were different by a lot – about 9x the price. The difference that I could tell here was probably a data entry problem on their site; the same part at three vendors listed that far apart, and even if it was made out of gold they shouldn’t have been this much. So, willing to discard that for my analysis.
None of this comparative research takes into account shipping. If you live in Seattle USA and order from Florida USA, or live in San Diego and order from Canada, shipping will obliviously be more.
Note that I could not find everything I needed at just one vendor. I could at three, though. If I was willing to pay a little extra, I could get 98% of all items at one vendor, and I would have to pay just $11 difference to do this. On a $1,000 order, that isn’t much of a savings. If it was a $10,000 order that would have my attention. On a $100 order, that would be about a $1.00 difference. Hmmm.
My analysis also doesn’t take into account where the products are sourced (USA vs. overseas) or the labor costs and other overhead of cost-of-goods-sold on the balance sheet. Frankly, that’s none of my business, and none of this is truly scientific. People often share with me who manufacturers what part that they then wholesale to vendor X/Y/Z, and frankly I don’t care. It is neat to know who is out there making stuff, but that should remain a trade secret.
I also had fun comparing who had what parts. The vendor you choose often depends on what you are looking for. For example, if you take a front coil spring from an early bronco, you can find that at all vendors. But if you are looking for, say, an uncommon replacement part, such as an OEM window handle knob for a 68, you won’t find it at all vendors. This is not to say that one vendor is worse than another at all. Rather, if someone is seeking a restoration quality part, they might not go to vendors who specialize in aftermarket accessories such as soft tops and 19” rims. If they are looking for used parts, they might not go to a vendor who manufactures 4-link conversion kits for rear ends.
Finally, just because a vendor has the best selection, that doesn’t mean they have the best prices.
I’d like to share the following:
- One vendor had 88% of what I needed. The next closest vendor had exactly 10% less items that I needed, but that is still pretty darn close as far as available inventory goes.
- One vendor’s prices were the lowest 61% of the time. This doesn’t take into account that 28% of the items I searched for across all vendors have almost identical prices. This is to say that if almost 1/3 of prices are within a few pennies, of the remaining 2/3 items, one vendor was the lowest about 3/4 of the time. However, given the difference I saved by shopping around was only $11, does it really matter?
- One vendor’s prices were consistently the highest. However, the quality of what I’ve seen in customer care, quality of parts, and quality of packaging in my opinion makes up for this big-time.
- The vendor who had 78% of the products I was looking for was the lowest price for 33% of the time. While that sounds bad compared to 31%, remember that 1/3 of all prices were within a few pennies across all vendors. Therefore, being higher priced than the competition for only items that weren’t the same price really equates down to something like 30% of the time. Maybe a vendor has less items in stock because they are of such quality they are flying off the shelves? Who knows.
- 70% of the vendors I looked at had a customer reviews feature. I like this feature. Are the reviews fake? Who knows, but I like to read them anyway. I like Amazon’s ‘verified buyer’ feature. If you don’t have a review on your site, might I suggest adding some incentive to buyers to ‘be the first to review’ or something? Just a thought.
The bottom line is use whomever you want…I certainly do. While I may now know who claims to have the most in stock and who has the lowest prices, I don’t know anything about:
- Shipping costs. I can assume that whomever is closest to me will be the cheapest to ship;
- Where parts are sourced;
- Quality of the parts I’m buying (this is where the reviews are helpful)
- Tech support
- Ease of returns
- Phone sales
- Web site features (shopping carts, wish lists, reviews, filters, speed, etc.).
In conclusion, I did not set out to find ‘the best’ vendor and crown them king. Nor do I intend to slam on any vendor for having the least number of products or online reviews or the lowest prices. In the end, the best vendor is the one that YOU like to spend your money at!
Please take a moment to fill out the public survey here and tell me what you look for in a vendor, and please oh please keep supporting all the wonderful Early Bronco vendors...I appreciate each of you!
I don’t want to say who told me to avoid who, or what vendor they said this about, or why they ever shared this information with me. I find that those who speak negatively TO you usually end up speaking negatively ABOUT you.
People have their favorites…I get that. Many who have been in the community a long time who build a lot of Broncos day and night can also be vendor-agnostic. Some people prefer vendors who specialize in made in USA only, and others don’t care. Who has the best shocks, the best prices, the best support, etc...I have heard it way more in the early bronco community than in any other classic car groups I belong to (Corvette, Mustang, Belair, hot rod). On thing is for sure: there’s lots of passion here!
For me, I feel that pre-sales calls, tech support, web site search, quality of product, on-time delivery, catalog quality and more are all very important. I am willing to pay extra for a quality experience for a quality product in a heartbeat. But not everyone is like this. No one is right or wrong…we’re all in the community together, and what I believe ultimately doesn’t matter.
To this end, today I set aside 12 hours doing some comparative analysis between early bronco vendors Specifically, I looked at product pricing. I was not paid to do this, but rather was seeking to find out why people feel so passionately about this particular aspect of early bronco parts manufacturers & resellers.
Here’s my methodology:
There are 50 items that I need to buy right now for my bronco, so I put those in a spreadsheet.
Next I searched for the product on multiple different vendors’ web sites, and put in their prices and part numbers. I also made notes, such as whether or not two items were required (like arm rests) and made sure that if a vendor sold them in pairs or individually, I always compared apples-to-apples by increasing the quantities to match. With me so far? I did not go to any special vendor buys or sale prices or log into any of the accounts – just did anonymous searches.
The average price across all 50 parts was $22.94 (all in US Dollars). The highest price part was $799, the lowest was $1.95. All parts come to an average of $968.94 across all vendors, so as you can surmise, there isn’t a custom engine, fiberglass body, pimped-out family cage, or custom rims and tires. Just an average order that an average person working on a bronco might spend in an average order when restoring an early bronco.
On my list, here’s what I found out about the 50 items:
- 14 or 28% of them matched within a few pennies (11.95 vs. 11.99, for example) across all vendors. I didn’t expect that.
- 15 or 30% of them had a 20% different in price. So roughly 60% of all prices are very close to each other.
- 15 or 30% of them were 2 times the price. This was a bit surprising. Guessing quality of product or margin comes into play, but that’s how the retail game works.
- 5 or 10% of them were as 3 times the price. No big surprise to me here.
- 1 or 2% of the items were different by a lot – about 9x the price. The difference that I could tell here was probably a data entry problem on their site; the same part at three vendors listed that far apart, and even if it was made out of gold they shouldn’t have been this much. So, willing to discard that for my analysis.
None of this comparative research takes into account shipping. If you live in Seattle USA and order from Florida USA, or live in San Diego and order from Canada, shipping will obliviously be more.
Note that I could not find everything I needed at just one vendor. I could at three, though. If I was willing to pay a little extra, I could get 98% of all items at one vendor, and I would have to pay just $11 difference to do this. On a $1,000 order, that isn’t much of a savings. If it was a $10,000 order that would have my attention. On a $100 order, that would be about a $1.00 difference. Hmmm.
My analysis also doesn’t take into account where the products are sourced (USA vs. overseas) or the labor costs and other overhead of cost-of-goods-sold on the balance sheet. Frankly, that’s none of my business, and none of this is truly scientific. People often share with me who manufacturers what part that they then wholesale to vendor X/Y/Z, and frankly I don’t care. It is neat to know who is out there making stuff, but that should remain a trade secret.
I also had fun comparing who had what parts. The vendor you choose often depends on what you are looking for. For example, if you take a front coil spring from an early bronco, you can find that at all vendors. But if you are looking for, say, an uncommon replacement part, such as an OEM window handle knob for a 68, you won’t find it at all vendors. This is not to say that one vendor is worse than another at all. Rather, if someone is seeking a restoration quality part, they might not go to vendors who specialize in aftermarket accessories such as soft tops and 19” rims. If they are looking for used parts, they might not go to a vendor who manufactures 4-link conversion kits for rear ends.
Finally, just because a vendor has the best selection, that doesn’t mean they have the best prices.
I’d like to share the following:
- One vendor had 88% of what I needed. The next closest vendor had exactly 10% less items that I needed, but that is still pretty darn close as far as available inventory goes.
- One vendor’s prices were the lowest 61% of the time. This doesn’t take into account that 28% of the items I searched for across all vendors have almost identical prices. This is to say that if almost 1/3 of prices are within a few pennies, of the remaining 2/3 items, one vendor was the lowest about 3/4 of the time. However, given the difference I saved by shopping around was only $11, does it really matter?
- One vendor’s prices were consistently the highest. However, the quality of what I’ve seen in customer care, quality of parts, and quality of packaging in my opinion makes up for this big-time.
- The vendor who had 78% of the products I was looking for was the lowest price for 33% of the time. While that sounds bad compared to 31%, remember that 1/3 of all prices were within a few pennies across all vendors. Therefore, being higher priced than the competition for only items that weren’t the same price really equates down to something like 30% of the time. Maybe a vendor has less items in stock because they are of such quality they are flying off the shelves? Who knows.
- 70% of the vendors I looked at had a customer reviews feature. I like this feature. Are the reviews fake? Who knows, but I like to read them anyway. I like Amazon’s ‘verified buyer’ feature. If you don’t have a review on your site, might I suggest adding some incentive to buyers to ‘be the first to review’ or something? Just a thought.
The bottom line is use whomever you want…I certainly do. While I may now know who claims to have the most in stock and who has the lowest prices, I don’t know anything about:
- Shipping costs. I can assume that whomever is closest to me will be the cheapest to ship;
- Where parts are sourced;
- Quality of the parts I’m buying (this is where the reviews are helpful)
- Tech support
- Ease of returns
- Phone sales
- Web site features (shopping carts, wish lists, reviews, filters, speed, etc.).
In conclusion, I did not set out to find ‘the best’ vendor and crown them king. Nor do I intend to slam on any vendor for having the least number of products or online reviews or the lowest prices. In the end, the best vendor is the one that YOU like to spend your money at!
Please take a moment to fill out the public survey here and tell me what you look for in a vendor, and please oh please keep supporting all the wonderful Early Bronco vendors...I appreciate each of you!
When I'm looking for a part it's because I need it to complete a job. I don't mind spending a few dollars more if I get the part sooner and can move on to the next project.
