My final word on Basic Koncepts......

In my last post regarding Brian's operation, I pointed out how it looked like he was making a concerted effort to turn his business around. Last Friday, Brian CALLED ME giving me an update on my order. This was the second time he called me on his own, without me having to track him down. He has sent out "Gift Packs" to his customers, with a note apologizing for the delayed order. The gift pack is a nice touch, as well as the phone calls. My cover arrived today, and it is definitely of high quality. I must admit, Brian was really pi$$ing me off with all the delays, etc., but his business practices of late have impressed me. I hope he is doing the same with the rest of his customers. By the way....the tonneau cover is VERY cool, and a REAL bargain for the price. Don't be mistaken....I am not being paid or compensated for my comments, I am just impressed how he has tried to turn things around. Nice work Brian.....

Thanks for following up with this final word. So often people do nothing but complain and it can create a skewed image.

We've seen that over again on this forum when the problems of the early build trucks became out of proportion to their actual occurrence. Most of us drive trouble free trucks, but the casual reader of the forum may think the majority are full of defects.

I wish Brian well with his business.

I agree with Truckin'... I've been waiting to hear news like this. Hope it's the start of something good here for both Brian and the ROC members... :D

:) :) :) :)

Deep down, inside, didn't ya just know Brian would turn it around? Too many respected ROC members had confidence in Mr. BK for me to count him out without ample opportunity to correct things. I hope others will continue this thread, as their orders get satisfied.

I ordered a tailgate manual lock from Basickoncepts, just a couple days ago.
He has emailed me four time to keep me up to date on my order.
Has great install info with pictures on his web site.:cool:

That's really good to hear. Thanks for updating everyone.

Brian seems to be turning it around!! I've supported him throughout the whole ordeal. No need for anyone to have their panties in a bunch. Right LR?:) :D

No lost money for this customer.

I too got "extra" treatment on my order of dress bars. He called me to tell me they were shipping. When I got the shipped status email confirmation with a tracking number, it did not work. I emailed him to see what the problem was? The next day he called me to tell me he was on the phone with DHL to see why the tracking did not work. The next day he found out that he had forgotten to put the zip code on the mailing address label and the package was returned to him. Next day I was able to track the DHL package. I went on vacation and knew the package would be on my front door step upon my return. I was surprised when I came home from vacation to have a voice mail message from Brian checking to see that I got the bars. I got busy and did not call him back, but he called me again on Tueday evening to verify receipt.

I've not had time to put them on yet (got them Monday and returned from Vacation on Tuesday afternoon). When I do, I intend to post pictures. Here is the "before" picture:

No need for anyone to have their panties in a bunch. Right LR?:)
:) :) :)

This is good news. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. He promised my cover would be in my grubby little hands by the 30th and I haven't got a tracking number yet. I'm hoping I get one today or Monday.

This is good news. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. He promised my cover would be in my grubby little hands by the 30th and I haven't got a tracking number yet. I'm hoping I get one today or Monday.
Me too! The end of the drama?

I’ve got to concur with my fellow Senior Members on this issue as I have watched how Brian has made a very concerted effort to rectify his situation. Like Pizza Man put it, “Deep down inside”, I too really want Brian to be able to pull himself back into operation and by simply communicating with his customers, regain the loyalty of our club's membership. It is not an easy task to keep them all satisfied, but that is the goal.

Keep on trucking Brian.

Ron (5S Dude)

I will reserve judgement when I actually get the product I ordered in March. I am getting zero communication. It has nothing to do with the money, but rather on how to run a business and common courtesy. As an owner of a small business, if I ran my business this way we wouldn't be around long. Our family is approaching 80 years in our industry and communcation is the key. Telling me that you there have been some delays and you are not sure when my product will ship is far better than not saying anything at all. :mad:

BasicKoncepts/Brian is killing me. I ordered my cover March 10. Although early on Brian was getting back to me explaining the delay I haven't heard from him since mid June.

I've been e-mailing and calling. I'm beginning to think he is going to rip me off.

BasicKoncepts/Brian is killing me. I ordered my cover March 10. Although early on Brian was getting back to me explaining the delay I haven't heard from him since mid June.

I've been e-mailing and calling. I'm beginning to think he is going to rip me off.


No redman I'm still working. I've been kicked and kicked. Someone is doing EVERTHING they can to stomp me out. Like sending things to HONDA (AHM)and there calling me asking if its true that I'm using the honda name. asking for proof. I'm getting emails with pic's of wheel chairs, babies asking me to put them in front of everyone else. The list just goes on. :confused:

If you're using the Honda logo on something without having the rights to it, Honda will come after you. Car companies are getting very aggressive protecting their brand licenses now and are going after everyone they can find. There are even ads in our industry (promotional products) magazines from car companies threatening to take down any distributor (like me) or supplier that uses their logo without authorization. Just did some shirts for a dealer that said 'HEMI' on them and had to have a letter of authorization from Dodge with the dealer's name on it. They are getting big time serious recently - somebody ticked them off.

Ok, since you seem to be responding to people here, but not to my emails, can you please tell me what is going on with my cover?? It was ordered on March 7th, order #157 and I still have not gotten it, even after recieving an email saying that it would be shipping out by June 30th. Please let me know what is going on, either through email or in this thread. We are almost at the 5 MONTH mark!!

Ryan

BK,

Once you are "caught up" drop me a email and i'll place a order. I have plenty of time.....i'm not in the rift......time heals everything. It may be unbelieveable but it's true. By the way, i'm in no need of the Honda logo. I just want one plain. Take care

I have been watching the Basickoncepts saga since the beginning. I don't pretend to have committed every twist and turn to memory. I also have no direct experience with Basickoncepts. My opinions are based on what I have read on the ROC. I suspect that I am as informed about the matter as any other semi-regular participant on the ROC would be after reading the many first-hand experiences that have been posted by BK owners, prospective owners and the responses posted by the Basickoncepts. I have never made any comments or voiced my opinion, one way or the other, about Basickoncepts product(s) or their business practices.

I am responding now because, in my opinion, I do see what appear to be serious problems with Basickoncepts as a business and those problems are affecting ROC members. Unfortunately, those problems appear to be getting worse as time goes on, not better. Just do a search for “Basickoncepts”. The titles of the threads alone are disturbing. There were some early warning signs posted about the failure to meet promised delivery dates and poor communication with customers. Brian has posted explanations, promises to remedy the situation have been made by Brian, but yet we continue to see the same recurring theme of complaints posted by paying customers of Basickoncepts.

Based on what I have read on the ROC and my own business experience, here are my opinions and a few points to consider:

§ There is a considerable quantity of serious complaints posted on the ROC that should be sufficient to cause a reasonable person to hesitate to place an order with Basickoncepts at this time. If one does go ahead and places an order after reading those complaints and they expect things to be different this time, well, frankly, and regardless of good intentions, I don’t think that they warrant your optimism. To say “You have been warned”, as posted in another thread, is an understatement.

§ Having extraordinarily long expected delivery dates are not a problem, if they are communicated honestly at the time of order. Rolex advertises that it takes a year to get one! It wasn’t too long ago that it took six months or more to get a new Harley Davidson Motorcycle. Some still do. When promised delivery dates are not met, refusing to honor a customers request to cancel the order is, at the very least, incredibly bad business practice. When there is a consistent pattern of doing so it is sure to get the attention of various law enforcement agencies. You don't want to put yourself in the position of having to defend yourself in court. Even if you win, you loose. That will put you out of business, and then some.

§ The practice of taking a 100% payment at the time of order and using all of it is a recipe for disaster, especially when there is a consistent pattern of failing to meet promised delivery dates by a significant amount. Words like bad faith, unethical, and illegal immediately come to mind.

So, is there hope? Is there a solution?

Yes, I think so. At least I sincerely hope so. Some things will obviously have to change.

I get a sense that there are a lot of good intentions at Basickoncepts but there is also a demonstrated lack of good business practices. I offer the following suggestions to Brian:

§ Do as you said you would and stop taking new orders until you are caught up on existing orders. Don’t take any new orders until you can do better than your promised delivery dates.


§ Stop taking 100% payments at the time of order. Accept 50% maximum, just enough to cover your materials and labor cost for that product. You don’t deserve the profit until the transaction is complete.


§ Be brutally honest with yourself and your customers about your expected delivery dates.

§ Since I don’t ever recall seeing anyone post a complaint about product quality or that the product was in any way represented to be anything different than it is, the product itself is not the problem. I don’t think that I am making too much of a leap here to guess that cash flow is a problem. A lot of the problems may go away if you simply raise your price. There is obviously more of a demand for it than you can deliver. In my humble opinion, from the pictures that I have seen, it is priced below market. You have to ask yourself, what will happen if I increase prices? New orders may slow down (maybe, but that would be a good thing right now), profit will increase, and everyone will be happier. You will then start to get some good PR and orders will increase. Problem solved.

§ I suspect that you really don’t have a good handle on what your actual costs are. They may surprise you and help you to justify to yourself why you need to charge more for your product. See below.

There are some excellent resources available to you that you probably have no idea about. I didn’t until I started to look. How much can you afford to spend on an expert consultant that focuses on you and your business that has years of experience in exactly what you are doing? Who can afford that as a start-up, right? You can. It’s free. There are people that would just love to get their hands on a promising but struggling business like Basickoncepts. You have heard of them. It’s SCORE http://www.score.org . They are real and an invaluable resource that you just can’t afford not to tap. You can also contact your local and state representatives office. They will have things for you that you never imagined. They really do want you to succeed too. Then there is your local Chamber of Commerce. Lots of people there that at one time or another (some right now) that have been in your shoes.

All of that is worthless if you don’t call them, you don’t try, and you are unwilling to learn and to change. Clearly you can’t keep doing what you are doing and expect the results to be any different tomorrow.

I wish you the best!