Thread: Mitch Hitch

Originally Posted by gghaggis

I've stayed quiet on this for a while, but ........

You have no idea what costs a particular business faces, or problems, or market solutions. Yet you continue to school us poor businesses from the back of your envelope on what we're doing wrong, how we should expand into national/global/universal entities etc etc

I'm still a little shocked that you saw fit to keep me on the phone for 10 minutes to explain to me what I'm doing wrong with my business (and misquoting me here on the forum about cost structures for the rims).

Some of us do not WANT to be overlords of the after-market industry. We make bespoke products (and only a few of them) for a brand we love, and to help out fellow owners. We typify the "cottage industry" approach. We deal with the fact (and most of my clients seem to understand) that Toyota outsells Land Rover in Australia by MORE than 20 to 1. No small business that caters for a unique Land Rover requirement can ever hope to compete on turn-over or price.

Continually braying about what Toyota does, what Toyota adds, what Toyota charges, is immaterial and bordering on insulting. You cross that border when you start to tell me and other small manufacturers how to run our own businesses.

Gordon

Gordon ... phew ... I just wanted to buy your wheels straight away. I was prepared to pay more, too. As it turned out, I collected my D4, drove it to Caloundra the next day, and four days after buying the D4, I met someone in the Caloundra Caravan park who showed me his D4, equipped with a Mitch Hitch (which he praised too), the SE motor which was flashed and in Melbourne Ritter do the same job, and his wife and young child were there and his wife was expecting number two ... he wanted to sell his GOE wheels (which were not on his vehicle), but I bought them then and there at the caravan park. 6 of them. I got them a fortnight later. You had used wheels on your site too, but they were sold.

It was much the same story with the Mitch Hitch. I wanted one before I bought my D4, but I could not buy it.

So there is an opportunity cost in not having stock. Sorry - but I doubt I am the only one whose purchasing behaviour is affected by delays.

And I have run a business, and employed a lot of people. And I then ran a different business, employing hardly any, but I serviced local manufacturing, designing and placing in modern production lines. But I am very familiar with Australian manufacturing. My first Government R&D grant was in 1976, and it was very successful. And I have seen the plastics industry mostly depart our shores. So I very much sympathise with the issues of local manufacturing - I have been there. My earlier own business is now all conducted off shore too. It makes me sick.

But the reality is that there are different segments of any market, and for many, people want to be able to look at something, assess in person, speak to someone in person, and being able to buy it quickly. That's a reality.

I don't know what percentage of that market affects you, or for that matter, Mitch Bros. But in my case, with both your wheels, and with the Mitch Hitch, if they had of been available, I'd have paid for them, and with your wheels, I'd have paid a premium - as you may recall.

If I have said the wrong thing, please contact me and I'll edit my posts. I felt I was speaking the truth, and with sympathy for costs that I thought I understood. And I normally have a good memory for business figures ... and for professional reasons.

As far as Toyota goes ... I don't know what to say. Are we banned from discussing other platforms? And I do not go on about Toyota - they are an example though of the way some things are done. I do own some, but if I am to be criticised for that, well, that would be ridiculous IMO. I am attending the Australian Off Road venue in the Vic Highlands, and I'll be one of the few Land Rovers there. There's 45 altogether, with a couple of Pajeros, a couple of Lnad Rovers, and the majority 200 series, with a couple of Prados and 76s. I'll be representing the LR argument, and their web site has followed my decision in buying LR. And now, you, as a supplier, have a run at my views about wanting service and what I regard as a fair price. And recall, I was happy to pay more for your wheels - I just wanted supply.

And IMO your stats for 20:1 are not correct, because few Toyotas compete with the D4. For a towing application, only the 200 series directly does, and the sales volume of the 200 to the D4 to private people are probably less than two to one.

Goodbuy

Doug,

Should I assume "Goodbuy" was a Freudian slip?

Does running multiple businesses give you the right to tell people how to run their business based on made-up figures and "guestimates"? Unless you're their accountant, how can you speculate so wildly?

You have every right to shop elsewhere if my (or others') products don't suit you or are unavailable, and that's my loss if it was my product that was affected. But making profit is not the single driving factor in cottage industry production, something you fail to recognise.

I run my business to suit my life - balanced between my full-time career, my home life and my musical career. I'm sorry it doesn't suit you. I'm sure most others on here who provide low-volume products are the same.

There is no problem comparing other brands to LR. But if the comparison is not valid, it's just another red herring in the conversation. Toyota as a brand outsell LR 20 to 1. That gives them a huge infrastructure and a lot of clout with the large after-market companies. That's regardless of what anyone thinks about how any individual models compare.

Gordon

Very interesting read, great to see everyones points of view and I respect opinions, correct or not.

I found it a little short sighted to make reference to what the cost of my business is or might be but I can tell you that the development costs of manufacturing the hitch exceeded $75,000 over the 9 months it took to launch the Mitch Hitch off the ground and if I told you my my actual costs of the manufacturing process you'd see how it wasn't until we sold several hundred units and a couple of years to recoup the money we spent. It was a massive risk for us to take, we were only in business for 2 years before we took this on, it could have ended us.
Thanks to the people who pre-purchased the Mitch Hitch to help fund the project, I guess it may have been a form of crowd funding, people who believed in me and us that we'd make this happen.

We have had issues with manufacturing process. We are onto our third manufacturer because we couldn't get a product delivered to you that we're happy with, the second manufacturer screwed us around for 18 months, took our money and refused to re manufacture the hitch to rectify the issues they created. This took us 12 months to recover from, we're now back on our feet, we actually have stock on the shelf and will continue to have for the foreseeable future.

The Mitch Hitch has been copied, by the very people that we trusted with our intellectual property to distribute the product nationally, we trusted them implicitly and they took advantage of us and our trusting nature. I'm yet to see the engineering certification on the copied hitch but I dare say it'll be the same document that we supplied them to substantiate our claims that our hitch is compliant with the relevant ADRs.
This company is even selling their product using our name, customers that ring up asking for a Mitch Hitch are being sold the alternate product, unknowingly. We have sent legal letters to companies who are selling the hitch knock off using our name, the name you guys have called it, "the Mitch Hitch".
It costs $550 for us to send a cease and desist letter, we've send out 10 of them in the last 9 months, an easy calculation, even for a Toyota driver.

We will continue to manufacture the hitch, it has it's own website now and it's the most advertising we've ever done and to say that we've sold nearly 1300 hitches since 2007 is testament to the good name we have and effort we put into the design and you guys for talking about it. We've sold it around the globe through word of mouth. Thanks to everyone who helped by lending vehicles and spending time with us to make this happen.

Thanks to Andrew Trafford (CaverD3), the seemingly crazy guy who came into my shop and told me to make hundreds of them because we'd sell them, he loaned us his car for weeks (over the time) and only wanted a hitch as payment for his time. We could not have done this without you.

If anyone has any questions about the hitch, feel free to PM me or contact me directly 02 9905 4764.

Take care,

Aaron Mitchell

I must be a simpleton - either own a Landrover or not, buy GOE sourced rims and/or a Mitch Hitch or not. But dont bleat about stuff. Either you can take it or you can not - if not, then dont own a Landrover.

Oh, and why insult people, their business acumen and lifestyle choices in ignorance of the full facts?? By all means participate in a constructive discussion, but with respect eh.

Originally Posted by Melbourne Park

Gordon ... phew ... I just wanted to buy your wheels straight away. I was prepared to pay more, too. As it turned out, I collected my D4, drove it to Caloundra the next day, and four days after buying the D4, I met someone in the Caloundra Caravan park who showed me his D4, equipped with a Mitch Hitch (which he praised too), the SE motor which was flashed and in Melbourne Ritter do the same job, and his wife and young child were there and his wife was expecting number two ... he wanted to sell his GOE wheels (which were not on his vehicle), but I bought them then and there at the caravan park. 6 of them. I got them a fortnight later. You had used wheels on your site too, but they were sold.

It was much the same story with the Mitch Hitch. I wanted one before I bought my D4, but I could not buy it.

So there is an opportunity cost in not having stock. Sorry - but I doubt I am the only one whose purchasing behaviour is affected by delays.

And I have run a business, and employed a lot of people. And I then ran a different business, employing hardly any, but I serviced local manufacturing, designing and placing in modern production lines. But I am very familiar with Australian manufacturing. My first Government R&D grant was in 1976, and it was very successful. And I have seen the plastics industry mostly depart our shores. So I very much sympathise with the issues of local manufacturing - I have been there. My earlier own business is now all conducted off shore too. It makes me sick.

But the reality is that there are different segments of any market, and for many, people want to be able to look at something, assess in person, speak to someone in person, and being able to buy it quickly. That's a reality.

I don't know what percentage of that market affects you, or for that matter, Mitch Bros. But in my case, with both your wheels, and with the Mitch Hitch, if they had of been available, I'd have paid for them, and with your wheels, I'd have paid a premium - as you may recall.

If I have said the wrong thing, please contact me and I'll edit my posts. I felt I was speaking the truth, and with sympathy for costs that I thought I understood. And I normally have a good memory for business figures ... and for professional reasons.

As far as Toyota goes ... I don't know what to say. Are we banned from discussing other platforms? And I do not go on about Toyota - they are an example though of the way some things are done. I do own some, but if I am to be criticised for that, well, that would be ridiculous IMO. I am attending the Australian Off Road venue in the Vic Highlands, and I'll be one of the few Land Rovers there. There's 45 altogether, with a couple of Pajeros, a couple of Lnad Rovers, and the majority 200 series, with a couple of Prados and 76s. I'll be representing the LR argument, and their web site has followed my decision in buying LR. And now, you, as a supplier, have a run at my views about wanting service and what I regard as a fair price. And recall, I was happy to pay more for your wheels - I just wanted supply.

And IMO your stats for 20:1 are not correct, because few Toyotas compete with the D4. For a towing application, only the 200 series directly does, and the sales volume of the 200 to the D4 to private people are probably less than two to one.

Goodbuy

Come to the Territory, L/C 200 would sell 500;1 to the D4 ,


I wouldn't want to be relying on sell L/R products up here as my core income, you would be broke in less than 6 months.


Cheers Ean

It can be false economy to buy a secondhand Mitch Hitch depending on what you pay, if you buy a early model then Mitchell Bros no longer sell the bolt and spacer to fit. You have to send it back to get it modified so the later model larger bolt and spacer fit, this costs quite a lot, can't remember exactly how much it cost us to get our one modified though plus add in the new bolt and spacer kit and your newly purchased secondhand one can cost as much as a new one.

Same goes for any secondhand Mitch Hitch, they recommend that you do not use a second hand spacer and bolt, can't remember now how much the kit was but it was not cheap and once added to the second hand price you may well be very close to being better off to just buy a brand new one.

In my humble opinion after a Llams kit a Mitch Hitch is just about the most useful mod one can buy for a Disco. I really don't like towing with the original hitch even the D4's.

Originally Posted by LRD414

Speaking of which, how's the new & improved lower door seal coming along?

Scott

PS ... I'm another happy customer of the cottage industry approach described by Gordon. Include Tim and Graeme in that list too.

Its going well.... I got the first extrusion fitted and measured up for the second mating component yesterday - long days means working in the dark a lot...

I had contemplated a solid sealing face fitted / welded to the slider and have now decided to go the twin seal method - 2 mating seals..

So I have the second extrusion on its way.

What will happen is the 2 will meet when the door is closed and form the seal.

Has the added bonus that the original "flat blade" which just rubbed over the slider is now much higher and will no longer catch on mud etc on the slider..

Originally Posted by Tombie

Its going well.... I got the first extrusion fitted and measured up for the second mating component yesterday

Sounds good. I'll await the details with interest, particularly how the extrusions attach to slider & door.

Scott
PS ... apologies for off-topic