It seems to me the biggest hurdle to the hobby, us 'Buyers' and the people at Ames and other Sellers, HAS to be Shipping Costs!....I had been a faithful fan of PY doing my 64 Lemans over 20 yrs ago...and after the merger, I became a fan and user of Ames for keeping up with my resto and getting to items missed on the original body-on resto....but I think the biggest hurdle is for Ames to be able to be competitive, not just in pricing, which has been a challenge lately, but in shipping costs to the customers....many of the parts are obviously dropped shipped from the mfrs. plant, so many of the catalogs are on equal footing....but recently, I had an order for a molded firewall pad for the 64 Lemans (don't waste your money..get flat pad at $170 vs $35) and some new SS tranny oil cooler lines and misc smalls....there was a HUGE difference from NPD to Ames in terms of shipping costs...NPD is offering no ship chrg on orders over $300, which this was...Ames did not offer same, which I think is a major business blunder. All else being equal, all Ames was on this order was an 'order-taker'...it was an in house product...yet it has not decided to compete full on with this NPD free shipping
policy...I think Ames needs to compete by matching competition....I have heard it said many times that Ames ship costs seem to be much higher than other suppliers from others in the hobby..WHY?..this should be investigated by Ames...We love the Co., We love what you do and Why you do it....but please don't give us a reason to go elsewhere because we ALL (except the rich GTO owners..
) have limited funds and are just trying to make ends meet to keep our old cars on the road...I am sure Ames is WELL aware of this problem for the industry and itself, but I, for one, would LOVE to see a free ship over $300 to compete against others as a long term policy to show it will be here for the long term..and to do so, it must preserve Each and Every one of us customers!