I'm guessing that the complaints about phone hassles were aimed at the following generation, not the original owner.

I WILL say that due to reports on here about problems some members experienced, I avoided dealing with them.

 

I don’t know who they were aimed at. Problem is there is two sides to every problem and most of the time it’s the buyer who wants something for free. We never had a problem with them in 20 years of dealing with them on four different cars/ restos. We knew what we wanted and what we ordering every time. We didn’t need to make small talk or ask a question. Just call give part numbers and a credit card and done. And once the box got here we always got what we ordered

 

because the the younger generation wanted out.

 

I used LIC pretty much first when buying parts for my last ‘63 since 2013, and I never had a problem. Other cars before that. But I will say I never picked up the phone with them. Id heard they werent exactly people persons, but it didnt matter. I ordered online and never had a problem with a part.

When I order anywhere its very rare that theres any need to call, it seems.

 

I am sad to hear this. I knew Rich Cohen and he was a wonderful guy. His son is also a very nice guy but his kids were not really ever Corvette people. The unfriendly one people refer to is flat out nasty and an unhappy person. That one handled mostly phone stuff and Todd worked at the counter. I live a few miles away and from the day they opened I enjoyed walking up to the parts counter getting what I needed and not waiting for packages in the mail.
Regarding his tanker collection his son told me he enjoyed them but there are other heirs beside him so they were sold off to help settle the estate.
There is a gorgeous assembly line perfect L78 complete rolling frame and engine, trans etc with real with K/O's in their entry lobby. Guess that will sell soon also.

 

I'm a bit disappointed. LIC always had a great inventory of correct parts. I fear that will get diluted. While Zip is efficient in getting parts out the door, their shipping charges are at the top of the heap. I received an order from LIC yesterday that I placed late last week, and the shipping charges seem expensive.

 

I WILL say that when I placed the order I mentioned, the shipping charge assessed was about $1.30 more than what was shown on the on-line parts description. .

 

Indeed.....

 

One more thing about LIC: their catalog was second to none. They put some serious work into that catalog.
It was the perfect reference for any part of any year C2. Their website was equally good, with clear pictures of all the parts.

 

I bought some stuff from Zip a couple days ago. They were pleasant, efficient, honest about lead times and sources, and even suggested a way to save on shipping.

 

So let's break this down a little. Yes the LICS parts will get diluted into ours, but those parts that LICS reproduced will still be the same great parts. We may also decide to bring back some party they discontinued because we also purchased the tooling and GM drawings. So this will be a good thing down the road. As far as shipping, yes it is expensive, matter of fact it is probably our biggest expense period. However we also get a decent discount through UPS that we pass directly through to the customer. We are not UPS though and we do not set the pricing on what they charge to ship something, UPS does. So not trying to sound mean or a SA, if you think our package is too expensive to ship, the next one you get, take the label off of it and go down to a UPS store and have them quote it. You will see that we saved you a good bit of money. I wish it was cheaper and we had better control over UPS but nobody but UPS has that.
Justin

 

I have been involved in Freight for over 40 years. All types of freight on a daily basis. In today's world "freight charges" are a profit center in all types of businesses. It was not always that way but it has evolved to where that is the reality today. Businesses can defend themselves all they want but at the end of the year they have made a significant profit on freight charges. That is just the way that it is. The above reference to "checking with a UPS store and see how much money we have saved you" on shipping is completely misleading. Never do business with a Independently owned storefront of any kind involved in shipping. If you do you get what you deserve. Their prices are astronomical and have no reflection of actual shipping cost.

Jay

 

Justin,

I appreciate your reply. Added to that, I can only suspect what you are charging versus what one of your customers can ship for is decidedly different. Having said that, your benchmark of comparison is your competitors. I find that having used Paragon, Corvette Central, Keen, Wilcox, and previously LIC, Zip has proven to be high. To deejaydu's point, I am only left to conclude the shipping it a profit center.

Rather than speak in vague terms, I'll offer an example........

I purchased the follow headlight harness below.....
https://www.zip-corvette.com/63l-67-...xtensions.html
The shipping for this was $18.91. It came in an envelope, a padded envelope. I could take the thread deeper into the dumpster by posting the response to my complaint, but I'll stop it here. If you'd like to continue the conversation outside of a public forum, PM me and I'll provide you my contact information.

As I had mentioned before, your company is very efficient about getting parts out the door. But also, I believe what you offered for an answer to the complaint is no more than a "canned" answer.

Respectfully,
Tim

 

One difference in all this is that Zip has a far better organized online catalog, whereas LIC's was disorganized to an extreme. Looking up parts online just got easier in my view.
I stopped using LIC long, long ago due to very rude phone service.

 

To me the LIC web site and catalog was the benchmark for other resto parts houses.

 

Totally agree that shipping is a profit center. A better comparison than taking a package to a UPS location and asking what it would cost to ship would be to see what UPS charged you to ship the package and then compare that to what you charged the customer.

 

The rate will always be better at a UPS or Fed ex Terminal as compared to any store front location of any kind. Any retail business out there will never offer your their negotiated rate with any carrier with the only exception being when they offer a free shipping promotion. In that case the business has allowed for the freight in the cost of the item. The USPS uses a totally different formula of outrageous shipping / mailing cost. The consumer is always going to lose when it comes to shipping cost.

Jay

 

Tim,
The benchmark was very accurate because that is what it cost YOU to ship it. You can also go on UPS and create a user account and do the same. The person that has been in the freight business for 40 years, those are the ones we need to look at, and probably not him it would be who runs the freight companies. So for you, the cost also depends on where you live vs who you are buying from. You are further up North than we are and all the companies you listed are also right there by you. So that is an unfair comparison considering we are further south. Compare Ecklers or West Coast or someone like that and see what there freight is apples to apples. There is a bunch that goes into this cost, the UPS freight itself, we have to purchase packaging material which is also at a all time high. We also have to purchase insurance so that if UPS damages the package you are paying them to deliver, that they don't cover we are able to recoup some of the loss of goods. So I know it sounds like maybe we should not use UPS, but they are the only ones who have been able to deliver on time most of the time. We have had not such great luck with FedEx and USPS you can forget it unless it is a small item. I was really hoping when DHL came about that they would be the answer but it was short lived. We do not look at fright as a money maker, there are some packages that we do make some on and there are some that we lose on as well. It is the process we have to have in order to make work for online orders and giving you shipping up front on your order instead of the back end when the order is packaged and shipped. I can't speak for every company but I have no doubt they also spend a huge amount of time on this as well. We are constantly monitoring and auditing to keep shipping as close as possible for the customer while not losing money on our part.
So this thread went left, back on the topic we are working on the LICS details right now as far as discounts and dealers etc. We will be sending out information to the dealers very soon.

 

All my orders were 100% spot on from LIC.
No back order BS or incorrect parts added to the order and the count was always correct.
I hope I can find a similar service to pick up where they left off.
Marshal

 

I had just put together a list of items for my LIC order. Now I have to convert that to ZIP. Did I read above that you will process orders off LIC part numbers or is that possibly just looking for a mistake to happen?