VANCOUVER, Wash. (BRAIN) — SR Suntour North America has begun dealer direct and consumer direct sales of some of its products through its new e-commerce website, emarket.srsuntourna.com. The site offers SR Suntour aftermarket forks, seatposts and parts that are not currently offered by the Taiwanese company's North American distributors. The company also operates a separate site, srsuntourna.com, for warranty service.
SR Suntour first launched a service and warranty website more than two years ago, said SR Suntour North America's Nick Hannah-Moore. "The warranty and service site has cut down errors due to such things as data entry or misinterpreting of data. This has allowed us a processing time of 36 hours from the time it has been uploaded to our server," Hannah-Moore said.
This year, the company has added sales to the site. Hannah-Moore said it's part of strategy to build the brand in North America, where it currently has significant low- and mid-price OEM spec but has little presence in the aftermarket or with higher end OE spec.
"The sales website has long been discussed here at our North American headquarters. We wanted to be focused on the needs of IBD's and consumers to have easy access to parts, accessories and forks that our current distribution network is not carrying. SR Suntour has several top-level forks that no one was sure how to obtain, even after reviews by both print and web media," he said.
The sales site had a soft launch on October 1 with consumer sales to test the site's function.
"The website has been proven to be stable and we had great success in terms of order fulfillment so it was decided that the time had come to make the website available to dealers as well. IBD's receive 40 percent off retail pricing for parts and forks. No other manufacturer has such high margins for dealers on their forks and we are confident this will help bridge the gap of more interest in selling our forks."
The site offers the brand's higher end forks, from the Raidon model up to the Axon Werx carbon series. The website also offers all the main core service parts up with more products being added each day. The company expects to have all its parts listed by the end of this month.
The site currently has more than 1,700 active users, most of them IBDs.
"(SR Suntour North America) has a goal that this aftermarket sales website will not only increase sales but continue to strengthen our OEM relationships even further by giving their customers more support and aftercare to the products that they are purchasing years down the road. Dealers and consumers can still call and place orders the old fashioned way but with the website they get more transparency in the ordering process and fulfillment of their shipment."
SR Suntour's North American distributors include J&B, KHS, QBP, LEXCO, and SBS/Accell.
