Western Power Sports

Headquartered in Boise, Idaho, 43-year-old Western Power Sports, Inc. (WPS) also serves its powersports dealers from warehouse and shipping facilities in Sacramento, Calif., and, as of Nov. 2002, Memphis, Tenn.
Offering products for the motorcycle, ATV, snowmobile and personal watercraft markets, the firm has undergone remarkable growth during the past half-dozen years. According to company owner Craig Shoemaker, WPS is “on the gas and fast and fun.”
“We’ve almost tripled in size during the last five to six years,” Shoemaker told Powersports Business as he prepared for a national sales meeting. “And now, with the addition of the Memphis facility and some additional support staff, we’re really prepped to keep things moving for probably the next three years.”
The three WPS locations, Shoemaker says, can service “about 98% of the U.S. in two days.” Shoemaker says WPS’s increased business forced the addition of staffers – sales reps, sales managers, new accounting staff, support staff and product managers – and says a new computer system, allowing six times the capacity of the previous unit, called for more computer staff.
“We started shipments out of our 108,000 sq. ft. Memphis warehouse in November of 2002,” Shoemaker said. “With that new facility and all of the hirings we’ve recently done, we are so prepared for the future, we can double the size of our company again with the addition of only about three more people.”
WPS cut its teeth in the snowmobile industry, but now does the majority of its business with motorcycle-related parts, garments and accessories. While the past year has been a whirlwind of construction and hirings, the distributor did find time to add some new lines for 2003.
LeoVince Exhaust was a new line for WPS this year, as was Braking, Castrol, Rick’s Electric and Electrax among others. “And, in addition to the new brands that we added this summer, and the semi-exclusive products we have, like Fly, Joe Rocket and Gmax, we have some new brands scheduled for the very near future,” Shoemaker said, shying away from exposing the upcoming product prior to the dealer meeting he was preparing for.
So, why all of the success? “It’s all about the people, our employees,” Shoemaker responded. “A lot of our goals here revolve around servicing the customer. Because we are a customer-orientated service company, we try to find the right quality employees. Plus, we want to give our customers good products, good service and the good pricing to give them an opportunity to make money in their respective businesses.”
Shoemaker reports “strong” fill rates, in the “mid to upper 90s,” and says dealers can order online or via customer service reps who staff the phones for 12.5 hours Monday through Friday. Most orders received by 3 p.m., Mountain Time, M-F, are shipped the same day (with the exception of Holidays), and orders received after 3:00 p.m., M-F, Saturdays, Sundays and holiday, are shipped the next working day.