Possibility of starting a group buy forum??

[festivagt]

I know they don't make alot of parts for the Festiva and the Aspire, but if we get together and purchase parts in bulk say 5-10 at a time, some manufacturers would be willing to make hard to find parts and/or cut us a deal on them. I know of a few websites that would produce reverse glow gauges if we had 8-10 people on the buy in. I also know of another company that would produce a custom gauge pillar pod if we had at least 5-6 people to start the ball rolling per vehicle(festiva/aspire). I am sure we can find other companies to cut us some deals on other parts as well. Can we set up another forum for this sort of activity to be planned and executed? It works for other car forums I am part of, there isn't any reason we can't take advantage of it as well.
HENRY

[SimonTuffGuy]

I guess the biggest thing is getting the original 5-10 people out for it... Normally the company will charge a larger amount for those first numbers of people.

I can setup the forum, but maybe I'd suggest to start a thread in the for sale area and I can sticky it to see how the idea works.

[darpien]

i would have to say that reverse glow gauges and the gauge pods would be a great thing to have since i am planning on getting a couple of gauges i want reverse glow guages for the festiva i have them for my other car and they rock i would be down for it just finding other people to buy them would be the hard part.

[festivagt]

RE:

The trick is to get the inital purchase done. If the parts are available, it should start to draw more people out and we might have a better chance to get some more people on the board too. Not to mention if there are more custom parts out there for the cars, we would drum up some more people that would want to mod them. But you are right, the intial buy in's are a bit more expensive, but some people here (like me) would not care if they spent a bit more if it got them a new trick part that couldn't be had any other way. How would you want to do this? I think a forum in the main area would probably draw the most attention. The listing in the for sale part might go unnoticed by some. If this is to work for us, we are going to need all the support we can get from the community. There are ALOT of parts we can get made or produced for the festiva/aspire if we group it together. Once we get an area sanctioned for it, I would like to get people to bring up ideas for parts that we want then.

[nonamekid]

Should throw out some ideas here and see how much interest there is on any one particular item and then throw up a separate forum to try to get the purchase started. As of right now it all depends on what the item is and how much it is going to cost.

[SimonTuffGuy]

Remember tho (and not to be a dick to anyone) but the majority of the people who own a Festiva, and even a great number of people on this board (or even other direct-Festiva related sites) are cheap asses. They don't want to pay $60 for a gauge pod that's designed for a Festiva if you can pickup one for a Miata for half the cost that fits with little-to-no modding...

Same thing for some gauges, the initial price could be $150-200 and there's going to be people who are "interested" but how many will fork out the money to say they actually want a set when we need 10 people before they are made? (or... how many people will fork out $200 and then have to WAIT 8 weeks while a company produces them)

I believe it's been tried before, but if you want to take the bull by it's horns, I've got no problems watching.

[4cylDreadnaught]

Remember tho (and not to be a dick to anyone) but the majority of the people who own a Festiva, and even a great number of people on this board (or even other direct-Festiva related sites) are cheap asses.

I fall into the "perpetually broke as hell" category.

but I don't mind tossing ante on something I need.

[festivagt]

...

Not arguing with the cheap asses thing. But some things you just can't make yourself. The sites I have located to make the reverse glow gauges require 8-10 pieces @ $60-$80 each. I am sure you can probably find them for less, but I have looked for quite some time and couldn't. Last night I even found a company that would produce CAI's or FMIC tubing depending on application that could be produced for roughly $50(FMIC tubes may be slightly more) a piece with a buy in of 6 pieces. They would even make them to our needs(customs) if we wanted them to. I know that Extrude Hone cuts DECENT deals to groups(dealt with them before). So there are possibilities there. I think that alot of people would be willing to fork out $50-100 for some custom parts that they coudn't get elsewhere. APC has shown that. Just look at all of thier stuff running around. As for the tooling time, good things come to those who wait. Some are more than others but the usual turn around is roughly 4-6 weeks. With larger companies like extrude hone we got our stuff back in about 2 weeks. But then again, they were performing a service not producing a product that hadn't been done before. Of course, not everyone is going to jump on the bandwagon. I read elsewhere about trying to get more people on the site. If there were more simple easy grab and go mod parts for our cars, more people would buy them (cars) and we could also see a membership increase (newbies would be more likely to stay). We all decided to "Grab the bull by the horns" when we started to mod Festivas/Aspires. I am just trying to give us an option when it comes to buying parts.

[darpien]

i am up for the reverse glow guages just as long as they are for the guages that have the tach from the older festivas otherwise i wouldn't want them.

[aithanmier]

how about a set of coilovers...since the mk2 rabbit ones are damn close maybe we have a shot at getting them made specifically for us. i'd love to have a set of the teins with the remote adjustible damping system....i think suspension parts are one area that is seriously in need of added selection...the gauges would be nice but what set do you get made? the orange tach, white tach, no tach...we would have to get just about everyone in the group to buy one just to have each cluster available.

[festivagt]

...

The group buy forum would be for ANY sort of group buy we would want to try to create. Not just for one type of item, but for just about any.

[festivagt]

...

I was wondering what was being done to further this. I understand that you needed to talk to DJ about this but I was wondering if we could move this forward at all? The only reason I would ask a admin to hold the money is because they are the cornerstones of this community and should/could be trusted. I would volunteer, but I understand your apprehension to having me handle it, that is why I would ask one of you. If having a forum for a group buy is a big hassle, no big thing. I am sure we can make due in the FS section. I feel as there could be a big following for this if we simply allow it. Of course everything would have to be run by the admin's before we would proceed with any sort of activity.

HENRY

[Guest]

were tossing ideas around at the moment..

[Gforcefd]

group buy

If we could get a aero body company to make a new kit for the festiva, i would be willing to pay maybe. Depends on the kit

[Tim]

Maybe even a kit Festiva???

I know I'd buy one.


Regards,

Tim