[DML] D-1 Again

[Tom Watkins <dmctom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Moderators Note: I said that we have ended this topic, and we have. The following note from Tom touches on this topic but also has some very good additional information which is worth posting, so here it is. Marty, this weeks moderator)


List,


This comes up from time to time and the thread is always the 
same......That Ed/D1 is unprofessional, rude, and elitist.   Ed is Ed 
and that's the way it is.  No amount of complaining is going to change 
his business practices.   I take the viewpoint that the split between Ed 
and Steven created a different order in the DeLorean community for 
information, parts service etc....and of course, James Espey starting 
the DML started a tidal wave of new, faster communication that bucked 
the traditional way things had been done,  not only for Ed but also the 
DeLorean World Magazine and that community.   When you are king of the 
hill and a rival comes along it is in your best interest to protect your 
investment and livelyhood.  Why else would a man who has so publicly 
denounced the DML still monitor a list that he tried to legally crush 
when it first started?  All of this just to find out who each of us are 
and our VIN numbers.

I feel that Ed is simply trying to protect his domain and chooses to 
serve only those customers that are loyal to him.  I guess there's 
nothing wrong with that except for the way in which he seems to do it.   
I feel that he is trying to reserve his parts inventory for those 
customers that use him as their only place for parts and service.   So 
let's put this out there again.....Don't Call D1 Unless You Are Going To 
Be A Permanent Customer!!!   This may not be the way you or I would 
choose to do business but let's all agree to the fact that Ed has the 
right to do whatever he wants.  It's his business and if he doesn't want 
to sell to you there is nothing you can do about it.  Ed has his reasons 
and I think that we must honor that even if we don't agree.   If Ed has 
a hard time coming up with parts for his own customers due to the fact 
that he has to also buy from DMCH why do you think he would let go of 
his inventory to those that are not regular customers?  What if he 
needed a part for one of his regulars and he sold it to someone who 
lives too far away to bring their car to him for service?  It doesn't 
make sense for Ed or any vendor to want to deal with the constant phone 
calls from people trying to "vendor price-hop"  I think all of our 
vendors agree that it is time consuming  to handle all those phone calls 
from people who want to compare every price on every item, get the 
information and then call the other vendor and try to dicker.....It's 
this kind of practice that has probably caused Ed to be blunt with you 
on the phone.    

I take my car to Rob Grady for service and usually drive down once a 
year with my "list"  While at his shop you wouldn't believe the number 
of phone calls Rob gets for advise, parts info etc.....It's clearly a 
large part of his day and he still needs to serve his customers who's 
cars are there as well as getting mail order items ready etc....    I 
wish that we could all stop and try to understand and look at this from 
another point of view.    If you don't like the way Ed does things 
choose to buy from our other vendors but remember to be respectful of 
their time and efforts.

For those of you pissing off our vendors with your constant price 
shopping tactics I hope you take a moment to realize you may screw it up 
for all of us so STOP IT! You may very well contribute to another vendor 
choosing to only serve regular full-time customers and not want to deal 
with "looky-loo's" who want to feel better about themselves for getting 
a bargain at the expense of all of us.  Our community is too small to 
overburden our vendors with this kind of crap.  If you want to pull this 
kind of thing sell your car and buy a major-brand vehicle with lots of 
dealerships and aftermarket vendors for you to call up and brow-beat.

That's my opinion and I'm stickin to it!


Tom
#05732  Loyal customer of all our vendors to help keep them all in 
business!!!




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