FocusCanada Forums

Hey Everyone,

Unfortunately I am removing the new Underground Highway Website, and will no longer be ordering performance goodies through the company. Let me explain the situation:

Through Late December and Early January Underground Highway picked up some great new performance oriented suppliers. The majority of these supplier were located in the United States, which was fine. They offered shipping to Canada via FedEx ground.

However, I was the first Canadian dealer to have an account with this distributor, and they were improperly sending the packages to my customers. The problem is that when shipping with FedEx, any charges not paid by the reveiver (customer), get charged back to the shipper (my supplier). Well my supplier received a LARGE bill for Duties, customs, Brokerage and taxes. That forced my supplier has put a hold on all my pending orders.

I have been working (almost around the clock) with FedEx and UPS to design a solution to these issues, and get everything setup so both the supplier, and I are happy. Basically when shipping across the boarder you must (legally anyways, although some don't) declare the commercial value, certificate of origin for duties exemption, tax forums etc etc. Its is quite a long and tedious process, and if the warehouse you deal with isnt setup for it, its very very difficult.

This has forced me to make a decision on the path of my company. Sadly I have decided that the new website will be taken down, and I will focus once again on selling Rims, and Tires, and running Group Buys through the forums. This was truly the most fun for me. Sure, the money was better with all of the new products, but I dont feel that its the best way for me to continue.

For those with pending orders from that supplier (SweetGI think was the only one here), you will have a FULL refund for any and all products or deposits.

Regards,
John Weatherbie

aaahhh well this is bummer


Mitch, want your job back? lol

Thanks for trying and thanks for the explanation.

Much classier than just disappearing.

Apparently he's sticking around, which is a good thing because this forum could still use some honest and trustworthy sponsors.

Kudos to you for taking the time to explain the situation to everyone. Hopefully you do indeed stick around and folks make use of your offerings!

I have a certain rotary rocket that may need some toys this summer. ;)

PM me if you can get a hold of RX-8 gear :D

Mitch could take a lesson from this guy.

Bummer.

Yaa shipping costs can get pretty expensive did you have any transaction going through with any members I know a dealer that might be able to take over.

thanks for keeping us in the loop.. Too bad things didn't work out on the parts front. Hopefully you'll see fit to resurrect that part of the business in the future.

However, until that happens, I'm sure there'll always be a need for tires and rims.

Ouch, yeah shipping and shopping physical merchandise cross border isn't always the easiest thing in the world to do from what I know :(

Hopefully you can put arrangements in place that make everyone happy and resume normal operations...

NefCanuck

darkpuppet,Feb 21 2008, 11:05 AM Wrote:thanks for keeping us in the loop.. Too bad things didn't work out on the parts front.  Hopefully you'll see fit to resurrect that part of the business in the future.

However, until that happens, I'm sure there'll always be a need for tires and rims.
[right][snapback]258493[/snapback][/right]

Yup.
Tires are like caskets.... Everyone will need one sooner or later.

Thanks guys :)

Shipping over the boarder from a business stand point is very tough (US to Canada). Much tougher than from a personal point of view.

Thanks
John

If this helps; DHL and USPS are the best and cheapest routes in shipping in my opinion.

Best way, if you're busy enough, is to have a brokerage company doing your cross border stuff for you.

Were you direct shipping products straight to your customers for the most part? That's where the problem would begin, that's why a lot of suppliers, both big and small, will not direct ship straight to a customer, at least in my side of the parts industry. Our company policy is to not direct ship anything straight from a supplier because of this.

I find UPS is quite often the best to deal with, DHL tends to D rop, H ide, or L ose things way too much for my liking.

Hope things work out for you in the end. Good Luck.

Also guys, God forbid I'm bringing skeletons out of a closet but let's keep the bashing out of the forums. I don't see a need to beat a dead horse so to speak.

Yeah, not sure what is up with the "Mitch Bashing", but then again I am new, and have no idea what that story is lol...

I was drop shipping which, as you said is a pain. However, its a great thing to be able to offer amazing pricing, and to their door. I can still order to my location, and that is what I will do for GBs in the future.

D-Dub - I appreciate the help, but a lot of Wholesalers have 1 or two companies they deal with and thats all. They dont do USPS (most american companies HATE USPS), or DHL.

-John

Were the suppliers prepaying the freight or were they charging you for the freight? Yeah, dropshipping can be nice for pricing etc because of only one freight bill then but it can lead to huge f'n problems at times. Hence our company policy. We directshipped parts to a guy for his crane, no paperwork etc. He ended up getting paperwork, found out the markup, we charged him list price + X% because he's a jackass and treats people like s***, our discount off list was like less 40%. Yeah, he was pretty pissed. Didn't change his pricing at all though.

They would charge me the freight and then send to the customer. Without the proper paperwork though.... so the customer gets the product and my commercial invoice, which was good.... but all the fees went back to the supplier.

Once they said no more shipping to Canadian Customers direct, I tried to come up with a solution, but its a HUGE headache lol.

open up your own install only shop across the boarder? ship it all there ?

So, what... customers were getting product shipped, and weren't paying the taxes and brokerage fees and those were being charged back to the supplier?

Geez, I guess I should have taken advantage of it while it was there, but it's no surprise it couldn't last.