Thread: Mitchell Bros. Hitch

Originally Posted by MitchellBros4x4

Thanks for posting Brett.

People are entitled to their opinions but suggesting that we are fleecing or gouging we take offence to.

You clearly have no idea about how much effort went into R&D on this product and just to give you some idea about how much, we didn't break even until we had sold several hundred units. You know the retail price, figure it out.

Just to try to help you understand, we have engineering certification on this item, this alone cost us an amount plus 4 zero's at the end. We also have annual insurance premiums which cover our product. We have to build this into our pricing which you are quick to make comment about but it's our pricing which keeps our doors open which also supports the products we manufacture which keeps 5 Australian families food on their table, plus our distribution channels which has countless more families to support.

We suspect that you purchased your Rapid hitch from online and probably overseas, you sir are part of the problem. Australian business is under extreme amounts of financial pressure to keep their doors open and part of this pressure comes from online sellers with low overheads and low prices. When you have a problem with your product, who will you turn to?? Your local 4wd store, no, he has had to shut his doors, the online seller?? maybe but it's hard to get hold of them because they don't supply a phone number or someone to help you when you need it. What are you going to do sir when you have a warranty problem?? send the part back overseas and wait for a resolution??

Have you seen what happens to the original Land Rover supplied hitch when they fail?? You just keep using your stock towing device and imported Rapid unit that puts excessive load on the already design inadequate original unit, it may just fail at sometime.

People can try and copy it, we knew it would eventually occur. We take this as a compliment, no one else has been able to manufacture or rival our simple and elegant design.

We welcome your feedback and thoughts on the matter, we also entertain any ideas people have about how we can make our product better moving forward.

If you wish to voice your opinions in person or by phone, our contact details are in our signature line ask for Aaron Mitchell.

Thanks for your comments.

I am a big supporter of Australian products to a point.

I have purchased your Mitch Hitch for my D4. It was cheap insurance for a quality part, and the development to make this would have been extensive. I am very happy with what you have built for me and other D3 and D4 owners. I never trusted the factory hitch!

I would object to having to pay $100 for a bolt and bush, for someone that has purchased your product i would expect a reasonable price for this. I don't expect my larger bolt and newer bush to fail though. The small bolt obviously has been an issue. I would expect that you would have contacted those with the smaller bolt and offered them the part (it would certainly have got a great post from those purchasers about your after sales service)....I think you have previously advised that you kept a record of who purchased each Mitch Hitch. You may have already done this.....

I support Australian businesses. I am in business, and as you will see below, have also been in a 4WD business.

I have purchased GOE rims from Gordon, I have also purchased rods from Gordon, emergency airup kit from Gordon, LLAMS from Graeme and will also purchase a compressor plate from Gordon. Most of these have options overseas.....but as they are not generic, you can't beat buying them from a local, trusted Australians.

I would much rather purchase these from a trusted supplier in Australia, because if anything goes wrong then I can count on them to help me out....this will always be the case for me.

However, i do draw the line for a generic part when it is 3 times the price in Australia....that my friend is fleecing and gouging. There is absolutely no reason for this (the Australians store has no development costs for this)...there are two many middle people in the chain in Australia. I have been in the 4wd business game with my fathers accessory business (he was a pioneer in the after market accessory business well before the likes of arb....if you have been in the game long enough you will know about my dad) for more than 30 years, so I know the price and markup that is acceptable and what is not acceptable. My sister has a tyre store in nsw and they do extremely well....but they charge an exorbitant cost for tyres, but that appears to be the case with many tyre places. I know what she gets them in for, and the net profit that she makes.....I know her financial situation. I would not buy tyres from the US, for reasons that I mentioned above.

I buy my tyres from a man that his happy to make a fair days wages for a fair days work....and will support him, and tell everyone about him. He works on high turnover (no development costs), with a lower market....economics 101. But your item has a smaller market (and development costs), so the price for the hitch is fair to me.

It is excellent though for you to have come on this forum....that does show that you care about your purchasers, and gives confidence in after sales service, which is offered only by a small percentage of businesses in Australia (my uncle is a marketing guru, well renowned in Australia, so I have figures on good authority). Outstanding customer service will outway price....ordinary customer service will not.

Your Mitch Hitch is a must have accessory for anyone towing with a D3 or D4.....IMHO.

I also love your Facebook page!

Brett....

Originally Posted by discotwinturbo

Thanks for your comments.

I am a big supporter of Australian products to a point.

I have purchased your Mitch Hitch for my D4. It was cheap insurance for a quality part, and the development to make this would have been extensive. I am very happy with what you have built for me and other D3 and D4 owners. I never trusted the factory hitch!

I would object to having to pay $100 for a bolt and bush, for someone that has purchased your product i would expect a reasonable price for this. I don't expect my larger bolt and newer bush to fail though. The small bolt obviously has been an issue. I would expect that you would have contacted those with the smaller bolt and offered them the part (it would certainly have got a great post from those purchasers about your after sales service)....I think you have previously advised that you kept a record of who purchased each Mitch Hitch. You may have already done this.....

I support Australian businesses. I am in business, and as you will see below, have also been in a 4WD business.

I have purchased GOE rims from Gordon, I have also purchased rods from Gordon, emergency airup kit from Gordon, LLAMS from Graeme and will also purchase a compressor plate from Gordon. Most of these have options overseas.....but as they are not generic, you can't beat buying them from a local, trusted Australians.

I would much rather purchase these from a trusted supplier in Australia, because if anything goes wrong then I can count on them to help me out....this will always be the case for me.

However, i do draw the line for a generic part when it is 3 times the price in Australia....that my friend is fleecing and gouging. There is absolutely no reason for this (the Australians store has no development costs for this)...there are two many middle people in the chain in Australia. I have been in the 4wd business game with my fathers accessory business (he was a pioneer in the after market accessory business well before the likes of arb....if you have been in the game long enough you will know about my dad) for more than 30 years, so I know the price and markup that is acceptable and what is not acceptable. My sister has a tyre store in nsw and they do extremely well....but they charge an exorbitant cost for tyres, but that appears to be the case with many tyre places. I know what she gets them in for, and the net profit that she makes.....I know her financial situation. I would not buy tyres from the US, for reasons that I mentioned above.

I buy my tyres from a man that his happy to make a fair days wages for a fair days work....and will support him, and tell everyone about him. He works on high turnover (no development costs), with a lower market....economics 101. But your item has a smaller market (and development costs), so the price for the hitch is fair to me.

It is excellent though for you to have come on this forum....that does show that you care about your purchasers, and gives confidence in after sales service, which is offered only by a small percentage of businesses in Australia (my uncle is a marketing guru, well renowned in Australia, so I have figures on good authority). Outstanding customer service will outway price....ordinary customer service will not.

Your Mitch Hitch is a must have accessory for anyone towing with a D3 or D4.....IMHO.

I also love your Facebook page!

Brett....

Thanks for your reply, it was well constructed and concise, I appreciate it and value your feedback.

Also, thanks for not reacting to my rant, it's frustrating to see the problems that people subject themselves to when buying parts from overseas, especially vehicle specific parts. It costs everyone time and money when things go wrong and this can be avoided.

I had a client once who wanted to build his H3 Hummer and he was adamant that he would purchase the suspension kit direct from the USA because the kit was 30% dearer here in Australia. We tried really hard to sell him off the idea and even dropped our pricing to within 10% gross profit on the kit but we just couldn't get him across the line. Knowing we would get the labour installation component we just let him go and sort it out himself. 3 weeks later we received the kit and set about installing it. Very quickly we realised that the kit was not complete and some of the parts weren't going to work so we set about correcting the issue with the supplier. While it wasn't my issue to rectify in the first place, we had to get things sorted for our client. TO cut a long story short, it took the supplier (Rancho Suspension) 6 months to acknowledge the problem (after we educated them and made them realise that it wasn't our fault) and ship the parts to our door. Should we have subjected ourselves to this kind of problem?? Maybe, maybe not!! Being a friend of our we felt obliged to help him out. Should we have charged storage fees @ $55 per day whilst the vehicle sat in my shop taking up room?? Maybe, maybe not!!!

At the end of the day we make around 10% net profit on everything we do, this is nothing in the scheme of things and quite honestly, this tow hitch assembly is the single best thing we have done in our business, it has put us on the map.

We would like to thank all those who have purchased our hitch, you have helped keep us on the map.

Thanks sincerely from all of us at Mitchell Bros TJM Brookvale.

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