WiFi-Parts.com's customers get the benefit of Creative Wireless' years of experience as a WISP.

by Jeff Goldman [April 23, 2008]

WiFi-Parts.com was launched in 2003 as the wireless equipment Web store of the California-based WISP Creative Wireless. "We still run the ISP," says company president and self-described "chief geek" Ralph Whitmore.. "The bulk of our work these days is installing MTU facilities, whether it's a hotel or a motel or an apartment building—or a city."

Looking back, Whitmore says that launching WiFi-Parts.com as an offshoot of the WISP just made sense. "We said, 'We're using these parts—why don't we buy 20 at a time and get an economy of scale,' so we started distributing the parts that we were using regularly," he says.

WiFi-Parts.com 2531 W. 237th Street, Suite 102 Torrance, CA 90505 Voice: (310) 856-0555 mailto: CustomerService @wifi-parts.com

And that's still true. Everything for sale on WiFi-Parts.com, Whitmore says, is equipment that Creative Wireless has actually installed and used. "We know what it does and how it works," he says. "And everything that's on there, with very few exceptions, we have running still to this day at some location somewhere."

Equipment expertise
On the other hand, that also means the range of products available on the site is inevitably limited. "It's limited to what we use: we don't just sell anything," Whitmore says. "If we don't have experience with it, we typically don't put it on our site. And that's just because when people call me on the phone, I want to be able to say, 'Yes, I know something about this.'"

Still, Whitmore says, WiFi-Parts.com's line card does include a broad range of products. The company has been working with Trango since its launch, and also carries equipment from Tranzeo, Proxim, Nomadix, EnGenius, Ubiquiti, and many other manufacturers.

And the pricing, Whitmore says, is generally very good. "All of our pricing incorporates our discount for buying in quantity," he says. "When we buy something, we buy a case at a time, so we get a case price on stuff, and we pass that on."

Buying online
The WiFi-Parts.com storefront is extremely straightforward—Whitmore jokingly calls it a "state-of-the-art Yahoo! store"—but he's proud of the feedback it's received. "We understand what people want and how to get it to them," he says.

All equipment orders are placed on the website, not over the phone—with the exception of international orders, which Whitmore says make up about 30 percent of WiFi-Parts.com's business. "We ship all over the world," he says. "We have quite a few people we ship to in the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. I generally trust the military addresses, so I'll ship to them—and a lot of people won't."

Regardless of how the order is ultimately placed, Whitmore says, at least a third of the company's customers call in for advice prior to purchasing. "We have three RF engineers on staff, and all of them have better than 30 years of radio experience," he says. "So we can sit here and pick out of the air what's going to work for your property or your facility."

Sometimes, Whitmore says, that means persuading a customer not to deploy wireless equipment. "We're ZyXEL's biggest reseller of DSL hardware that is not going to a corporate installer like an AT&T or a Lucent or a Sprint," he says. "WiFi-Parts started out with only wireless stuff, but when we got to locations where we couldn't do Wi-Fi for whatever reason—when the building wouldn't suit it—we started selling DSL products as well."

Shipping and returns
Whitmore says most orders are fulfilled within 24 hours of being placed, even if the order comes in late. "Our official cut-off time on shipping is 12 o'clock Pacific Time, but if an order comes in at 4:43 and our UPS guy hasn't picked up yet, we'll still attempt to package it and ship it the same day," he says. "We run our own warehouse. We don't outsource it: it's all here."

Similarly, Whitmore says the company does its best to help with returns. "Our policies are fair, but we're not a 'buy and try' kind of place," he says. "We will charge you a restocking fee, and you have 15 days to decide—after 15 days, our sales are final."

The company's key differentiator, Whitmore says, is service. "We know the products, we understand the products, we know what they do—and we encourage people to call us to make sure that this is a product that they really want," he says. "We'll take their calls and we'll answer their questions—and if we don't know, we'll tell them. But there's not much on our site that we don't know about."

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