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(copy and paste from my review on Facebook)
Question 1: Do you recommend FRSport.com?
Question 2: How could FRSport.com improve?
Full disclosure: I used to work there from Q4 2015 to Q3 2018. I managed several brands and several aspects of the business. I was only an employee.
FRSport's biggest strength is also it's biggest weakness. When you do Google searches (or just know what product is available where), you'd end up at FR at some point in the last 5 years. They have a huge collection of items on their online web store (over 1M SKUs available, compared with sub-50k for most other specialty performance shops), and it seems like they can get the best price from practically any brand out there.
All of that is true, however that is also their biggest problem: when you deal with so many vendors directly, managing order processing/logistics/finances becomes a daily headache. FR grew because it had direct relationships with every single vendor it works with, but this also means that you're dealing with 500+ vendors to send POs to, to follow up on lead time and logistics, to manage payments/bills/credits, to manage customer service.
This isn't even counting all the secondary stuff that you guys tried to take on... (in-house CNC machining, alignment rack, service work, dyno, shock rebuild, tire mounting/balancing, etc...)
So no, I do not recommend FRSport.
Having said all that, I understand the reasoning and justification for every single bad review posted here. Some are singular in nature, others are complicated... but the fix is surprisingly simple.
How can FRSport improve? Here's some honest feedback that I gave you guys (FR management) from 2017-2018 which was completely ignored. I specifically remember being labeled as "someone who complains too much"... and yet here we are.
To FR: do everyone a favor and remove products you 1) no longer have access to, and 2) have no business selling (i.e. vehicle make or brands that you have no experience selling). Reduce the amount of vendors you source from. Streamline your product offering. Remove items you've never historically sold. Trim all the fat from your website... Also, you should stop allowing Google search results to show your product as "in stock" when your website doesn't even show that same information. You're not the only seller to do this shady practice, but you're the worst right now online.
You guys had a good business model and idea, but honestly you failed by trying to do too much at the same time. I can list off all the things you guys tried doing between 2014 and 2017, and it would scare off businesses 10 times larger than you. The easiest fix moving forward is just to stop pushing brands you no longer have direct access to, and move on. Make amends with your customers and refund them money, even if it was partial.
Lastly: for people that are waiting on special order/backorder items coming in from overseas, there's nothing coming. They let the domain name registration for several "exclusive" brands lapse last summer. If that doesn't tell you their intent, nothing else will...
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