TRD Parts.

[2jayzgte]

Well as alot of you no my car is just loaded with this product and I'm a huge advocate of it my question is why does Toyota NZ make it so pricey and so damn hard to obtain this stuff versus other aftermarket product.I understand margins and all the rest of it but when I bought this product over a period of 2-3 years we would get the absurd TRD list price's from TNZ and then just circumvent that price by going around the accessories dept. and over there head and there it was a doable price and I must say by doing this in most case's you would see a 40-50% reduction in most case's ie my TRD bonnet which was quoted at $3000 NZD and I got it for 45% off that price just as 1 example.

Now I love it don't get me wrong but they price it so they make the product not accesible to the masses which in my view is just bad business and there not allowing there brand to get out there.For some dumb reason TNZ will not sell at the list price's that are on the TRD/English site and in some case's as above you'll see 100% mark up on those list price's which in most case's they'll never sell there product.

Sorry but this has been a gripe of mine this year and TNZ are doing are really bad job at pushing there so called performance brand and the person responsible for running TRD side of things needs a bullet.

[jakesae101]

i agree on this totally you look up the prices on the trd website and convert them to nzd and then look at what toyota want its rediculious

[Makaveli]

What is accessories department? I thought you just purchase TRD stuff through the parts department?


As for margins, I think I spoke to one of the parts people. They put such a high price in order to stop people buying it, so that means Toyota doesn't have to stock it in NZ. It doesn't really make sense really as the Demand should dictate the price and availability of goods.

Because I was getting a quote for like plastic bumper clips that should probably cost like say 50 cents or a dollar each. But Toyota NZ sells them for like $20 bux each, hence no one is stupid to buy that. It's too much cost to keep them here in NZ (huge parts range) if hardly anyone buys them and also its too much cost and headache for Toyota Japan to get someone to pack and send say $1 worth of parts all the way to New Zealand.

[Mr Revhead]

No they do not price it so high to stop people buying it

They cannot sell it at the retail price listed on the Japanese TRD site as often that is the price they have to pay to buy it! Then it has to be shipped here and duty paid and mark up added here. And TRD will not ship the parts in containers with the rest of Toyota's stuff, it's air freighted out at a much higher cost.

Markup is calculated by some weird formula and is often totally unrealistic for parts that are not stocked here (this goes for all Toyota parts). But apon request that price can be reviewed and adjusted to a more sensible level.
The problem is some dealers will not do that, and some times certain staff at TNZ will not do it for various reasons.

Now with TRD someone decided that it's a premium product so it should be sold at a premium price. Therefore it was decided TRD parts would not ever be discounted. That happened when I was still at Toyota, and was one of the reasons I gave up on TRD. I used to sell a heap of it.
Then that decision was made and I went from selling it virtually everyday, to maybe one or two items a month.

After that occasionally you could get a price reduced if you managed to get the right person, however a few people got into a lot of trouble for doing that so that got harder and harder to arrange. It also led to issues of inconsistent pricing. One dealer could quote xx price as they had managed to find someone who would do a deal, then another dealer would have a price twice as high because either a: they did as they were told and didnt try for a discount or b: they couldn't get anyone to discount it.

I don't know if there has been any changes since I left, but maybe the people involved will comment here as I know there is a few TNZ employees on here, and one of the main TRD guys used to look around here.

[Mr Revhead]

What is accessories department? I thought you just purchase TRD stuff through the parts department?

Conversions and accessories is the TNZ department that handles TRD as well as desing and fitment of accessories. Like floor mats, bull bars towbars etc etc. Also things like the TRD Altezza and the Ist.

[2jayzgte]

Revvy I no we have had this discussion over the years but it just insense's me at how backwards TNZ are for not trying to push this product as it is as I have mentioned very good product.Secondly there is definitely a market out there for it as you mentioned you use to move alot of it.To me this where TNZ are falling down by not trying to make it more affordable and thus moving the product to me this is purely backwards on TNZ's part.

Me personally though I won't mention names just used to circumvent the accessories dept. and go around them as they were'nt co-operative with pricing and thats how I managed to procure all of the TRD product for my car.

Also I tried to organise a GB for TRD Bonnets had 6 people with money ready to go just needed a half pie decent price and the accessories dept. would'nt budge I think they came back with a $2500 per bonnet.I got the feeling then that was probably the last TRD product I'd buy for my car through TNZ which is a shame really.

[Cakky]

is there anyway at all the public can deal directly with TRD Japan, or will they just tell you to bugger off and speak to someone at TNZ? Obvious language barriers too lol.

[Dell'Orto]

I bought my TRD short shifter from Japan, but I had a mate living there at the time who probably just got it from a Toyota dealership there.

[rolla_fxgt]

Personally I think its a problem with TRD fullstop. Its no where near as big as say Ralliart or Mugen.

They just don't seem to want to push TRD that much, even in Aussie where they started that facotry backed TRD vehicles, it failed. I just don't think the support from Toyota senior management is there.

Why wasn't there TRD logos on the the F1 car? I think that answers how Toyota view TRD. I'm sure TNZ are just following that view from Japan

[Mr Revhead]

Yeah the F1 was all done in Europe. No idea why there wasn't any tie in with TRD.

Over here TNZ decided to push TRD to the show crowd. Hence things like sponsoring Mad Bazz. And not the club level motor sport I suggested to them. Now TRD in japan do "mood lighting" for Camry's and other such things....
So... plot seriously lost at many levels

[Makaveli]

Most japanese companies are backwards in a sense that they do things the "japanese" way. Have they adopted the more western/global approach and have someone speaking english in their company to market their product overseas, they would have been far more successful. They tend be be very proud to be japanese and speak their native tongue. All foreigners are considered aliens. Maybe this would have been ok 100 years ago, but times have changed since then.

[2jayzgte]

Revvy you touched on this in an earlier post and so have I its finding the right person in the right position to be able to give you that price at TNZ and fortunately for me I found that guy who now no longer works for TNZ.But for me the problem is not Japan its the people in charge of selling it in Palmy there the problem once you can get around this I believe the pricing can be made available to the masses but unfortunately the monkey that runs TRD in Palmy does not want to seriously sell or push the product hence why the product is'nt out there.

A good example of this is a certain TRD Aristo exhaust that has been siting on the shelf for near on 5 years and a friend of mine tried to ask for a decent price,all he got was a Toyota Recommended Rip off Price.Its almost like they'd rather chuck it in the bin than sell it for something to me this is just backwards thinking.

[GX61 Mark II]

Most japanese companies are backwards in a sense that they do things the "japanese" way. Have they adopted the more western/global approach and have someone speaking english in their company to market their product overseas, they would have been far more successful. They tend be be very proud to be japanese and speak their native tongue. All foreigners are considered aliens. Maybe this would have been ok 100 years ago, but times have changed since then.

wow very insightful!

Yeah, Toyota have been soooo unsuccessful overseas......

日本人の小学生はあなたよりあたまがいいかもしりません。

[frost]

Most japanese companies are backwards in a sense that they do things the "japanese" way. Have they adopted the more western/global approach and have someone speaking english in their company to market their product overseas, they would have been far more successful. They tend be be very proud to be japanese and speak their native tongue. All foreigners are considered aliens. Maybe this would have been ok 100 years ago, but times have changed since then.

wow very insightful!

Yeah, Toyota have been soooo unsuccessful overseas......

日本人の小学生はあなたよりあたまがいいかもしりません。

he could be right! and Toyota just fluked it when they became the second biggest auto maker in the would, those silly Japanese don't know a thing about marketing to the second biggest economy,

[TRD Man]

Nobody moved more TRD product than myself and my company so this is a subject I may know a little about. In fact I could write a book about Toyota Japan, TRD and TNZ, and their protocols, policies and politics.

In short 2jayzgte, blame me. It's all my fault. By selling out to TNZ 4 years ago I rid them of any opposition and you know what happens when a company has a monopoly.

In reality the truth is a bit more complicated.

For Toyota, whether it be the organisation, the local franchise or the dealerships, their core business is the sale and support of family and commercial vehicles which are the hallmark of the brand.
The resources required to service a specialist product like TRD and it's market are significantly disproportionate to the returns from doing so and this must ultimately be reflected in the price. There are also a number of significant fish hooks acting as deterents.

This is why most franchise networks and most dealerships throughout the world won't have a bar of of the product. A contributing factor to our being able to sell into over 80 countries worldwide and become the busiest onseller of the product.

I don't buy into Warwick's comment about them paying retail. Certainly due to our volume we were able to secure a significant across the board discount off the JDM catalogue price and by virtue of them being 'within the family' TNZ enjoyed a larger discount than ours.

Nevertheless, it must be remembered that the JDM catalogue price is a price for their local market and has no relevance anywhere else.

Whilst we could, and did, survive and grow offering product on or about this price it was tight and we were only able to do so due to the volume we were moving and by a carefully thoughtout pricing structure which saw discounts on some products traded off against others.

There is simply no way that a large corporate with the infrastructure like TNZ could do likewise profitably. That's not a criticism.
Each brand must be a stand alone profit centre and when you consider that some 90% of our sales went offshore you might grasp how small the NZ market is and how difficult it is for TNZ to maintain low prices.

As Warwick has said, freight, GST, Duty, currency fluctuations, amongst other things all work against the price coming downward.
And whilst I can understand you believing that buying in groups should invoke discounts, in reality it doesn't lessen cost at all, particularly for larger items which cannot be packed together.

So leaving any comment about their 'inconsistent' pricing methods, I am completely unsurprised at the high price charged for the product. The surprising thing for me was that they wanted to get into it at all.

Warwick, the club motorsport scene was already well covered. TNZ's move into the drift & show scenes probably reflected that fact that we weren't in there and that was the growth area throughout the world, including Japan. You may have noticed that many brands have moved their product lines along this way.

F1 was run by TTE out of Germany. Like TRD they are a Toyota owned subsidiary and, in that sense, a competitor.
We were their Australasian agents from 97 through to about 2005 and supported them well throughout their rally years and the years leading up to F1.
However when they entered F1 the decree came down from Toyota (not TTE) that their merchandise would only be sold through dealerships and not by independants. So we whilst we remained agents, as far as F1 gear was concerned we were out in the cold. As a consequence TRD were lumbered with a several thousand square foot warehouse full of TTE stuff that they couldn't do a thing with (which is probably still there today) and we sourced the product through a dealership in Melbourne.

[2jayzgte]

Thanks for that explanation.

BUT..

How is it I can speak to 3 different people at TNZ with regards to TRD product and get 3 different prices????

We got one from Accessories one from the parts help desk and another through a person I won't mention who gave us a better deal than the other 2 so we just continually went around all the BS and got the good pricing.For me this is where TNZ are dropping the ball.It actually got quite comical at times and when they found out what we were doing I basically had all the Supra product in the catalogue everything bar the TRD Diff anyway.But again as mentioned they have to want to do a deal and I think as mentioned having the right contact is the key.

[TRD Man]

I can't answer that as I'm not, nor have I ever been, part of their organisation. But I can say that it's not only with TRD products and that it is frustrating as a customer.

[®usty]

not too worried on the price, since its always great quality. Its the range of products and and all the discountinues that makes me sad.

[MR2BOY23]

While everyones bishing

I bought a trd gear knob I wasn't very happy with

[TRD Man]

Its the range of products and and all the discountinues that makes me sad.

The problem is that the Japs move on so quickly and, make no mistake, these products are made for the domestic market. Export is a secondary consideration.
Most of the hardware was developed for a specific purpose i.e. a race or rally cup or some other such thing.
When the model changes and the local demand dries up they discontinue the product. Which is really an accurate assessment of the importance of the export market.
Hence, we'd be just hitting our stride selling products for a particualr model that the rest of the world are playing with and they'd discontinue the line.
TRD at least signalled their intentions and usually carried some run out stock but TOM'S would pull strong selling products without warning.