Delticom AG is apparently the largest online tire retailer in Europe and they have plans to conquer North America. Having already set up shop in California, they have now launched their Canadian site www.tires-easy.ca

They claim to have prices that are up to 20 percent cheaper than anywhere else, but The Garage would caution consumers to do some honest shopping around. While they may save you some dough on the tires, who is going to install them for you? Most major tire retailers in Canada include the cost of installation in their retail price. While anyone will install tires for you, you can bet that they will charge a premium to install tires that you’ve bought online.

Another strike against the Delticom effort is the lack of understanding of the North American Web shopper. I’ve often noticed that many European web sites are poorly designed visually and funtionally when compared to North American sites. The NA consumer is used to slick looking sites that function well. This site looks like it was designed by a grade 11 student and there are several pages that don’t load properly. Oh yes, don’t forget that part of brand image is having a URL that is easy to remember. Which are you going to remember, tirerack.com or tire-easy.ca?

We in The Garage wish them well, but they need to do some work before they will win over the North American consumer.