Hello all!

Munky Wurks Garage (http://www.munkywurks.com) is a local shop that we just opened up here in Honolulu in September to serve mainly the new drift scene, and specializing in direct from Japan body and performance parts for the JDM enthusiast. We'e been focusing mainly on AE86 and Nissan RWD, but are looking to expand our focus.

We have several friends who are Subaru enthusiasts, some of which are members of this forum, and have pointed us in this direction as a source of info.

We understand (from what our friends tell us) that there's not too much support for the Subaru crowd from performance shops here on the island, and we recognize that the growing following of Subie enthusiasts is too large to ignore. We'd like to be able to accomodate the local Subaru owner with the parts he/she needs, and have the ability to source most anything you need direct from Japan - with very little turnaround time. No waiting for boats... we fly everything in and our monthly shipments take 4 days to arrive.

Right now, we're just trying to do a little market research and see what local Subaru owners want for their vehicles. Aero parts, suspension parts, performance parts -- we're interested in what you'd like.

We are the island distributor for Defi products, so if you're looking for BF or Link meters, let us know... but we'd appreciate your insights on parts we should look into stocking or importing from Japan!

Thanks!!

 

Thanks, that's the kind of answers we're looking for.

Anything specific from these manufacturers (we're already working on Endless)? Links are helpful too.

What we're kinda trying to do right now is find a product line or lines that will sell well, and go from there. We've had several inquiries about Zero Sports, and we're looking into that now as well. We've already got pretty good deals going on Cusco products. We're actually Toyota guys, so we're trying to learn as much about the Subaru market as possible and thought this would be the best place to start! Bear with us newbs.

We're actually in a position to import most anything from Japan... on a special order basis (so feel free to ask), but in setting up, we're also looking at contacting North American distributors for products we plan to retail here in the islands. We'd kinda like to see how big the demand is for certain products (whatever that may be) so we can decide who and what we should deal with.

 

LOL, I know you guys would love that one. We're nowhere close to being able to afford one tho hehe.

 

LOL! $23 goes a long way if a few thousand subie owners chip in!

Whiteline stuff tends to be pretty good, their reputation is solid even with Toyotas. Something for us to look at.

How's the Thermal stuff for Subaru? Back in my Honda days I knew Thermal made some pretty good stuff, but for Toyota their products have been somewhat disappointing.

 

1) We agree. We have some monster Toyotas planned for next summer's Showoff already. Bling is a big part of the industry tho so of course we look for that as well. Part of the issue we're looking at is what performance parts will actually move, and what will sit around until someone can afford them? We'd like to figure that out.

2) Pricing competetively with the internet is sometimes hard to do. Not all the time, but for the small market here in the islands it really can be. The way it works is that when you approach a distributor, say HKS USA for example, with a proposal to retail from your shop, there is many times the issue of a "buy-in" of a certain amount of product at a certain dollar amount, in order to secure a certain level of retailer pricing, such that you can sell the product at a competetive rate. Those smaller shops that cannot afford the large buy in (sometimes as much as $30k initial, and $150k a year), get stuck with crappier pricing, or even worse, have to go through another retailer and get pricing from them (herein comes the dreaded middle man issue). Since hardly anyone from the mainland bothers to contact a shop in Hawaii to order a part they can get in the continental USA with better shipping, our market is very select and relatively small. Simply put, shops here just can't move that much product and therefore many of the larger North American distributors simply don't offer us the pricing that larger retailers who have the ability to move more product get. Then there's the issue of sales tax -- you never have to pay that stuff when you order online, and that can be a plus. Sometimes we'll deal with a distributor who won't impose a high buy in for us, and then we really can compete with internet pricing... and for Defi products we'll match pricing from gruppe-s.com any day of the week. Some stuff good, some stuff bad is kinda the way it works with pricing. But we're always looking to TRY to compete, if we can. We'll be straight up honest if you ask tho.

3) Customer service is #1. It always should be. We hope we'll do well enough to hire more ppl down the line, but for now it's just a couple of us and we're gonna try to do our best to learn and go from there.

 

Kewl. We'll be making a list of the manufacturers you guys post about and seriously look at their products. Give us specific details if you can about why products are good, and what you'd look for if you were to buy from them.

Thanks much for the help!