Industry Insider – We Visit Turn 14 Distribution!
By Mike Kojima
You are probably used to our looks inside some of the more technical producers of parts for our industry here at MotoIQ, but we recently had the opportunity to visit the folks at Turn 14 Distribution to tour their facilities. Distribution of parts may seem a bit boring, but it is actually an important customer service item for you – the end consumer.
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| Turn 14 Distribution is strategically situated in Montgomomeryville Pennsylvania, 20 miles north of Philadelphia and less than 100 miles from New York City. This location makes Turn 14 a true East Coast Performance Warehouse Distributor. Regionally, Turn 14 Distribution's locale boasts the highest population density in the United States with a one-day ground shipping perimeter ranging from Boston to Richmond and including Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, Hartford, and Washington DC. Outside the perimeter, Turn 14 has very competitive freight rates reaching the West coast quickly and inexpensively. |
Turn 14 is a Warehouse Distributor and does not sell to the public, but instead sells directly to professional shops. You might wonder why this is so important to you. Most shops are small businesses and if you are in the business of building cars for customers, you have to always be aware of cash flow and project timing. You don't want a project with many thousands of your dollars tied up in parts just sitting taking up shop space because a part is out of stock.
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| Stepping through the front door you are greeted by the clean and sleek lobby with floor to ceiling views of the which is equally clean and well organized. |
Most manufacturers are typically not in the business of keeping huge inventories. If a shop needs a part that is out of stock, they might need to wait quite a while until the manufacturer makes another run. Multiply this by several parts and you start to have a non running project car that the shop is financing for the customer and is also taking up valuable shop space. Many manufacturers also require a large stocking order before a shop can buy parts at a decent discount.
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| The impressive lobby and peak at the 52,000 square foot, state of the art warehouse. |
This is where the Warehouse distributor comes in. Ideally a good Warehouse Distributor keeps a large stock of parts from leading manufacturers that can be shipped quickly and cheaply with little lead time. A good Warehouse Distributor in our industry also handles customer service issues more quickly and efficiently than the manufacturer can. Another sign of a good Warehouse Distributor is the sales people – they must have a good bit of technical knowledge of the parts they sell in order to help shops with their purchase of technical products. After our visit we think Turn 14 is all of these things.
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| Turn 14 is all about customer service! |
