merchant prices and internet prices , which are cheaper?

[bspareltd]

Went to buy a gas fire for a customer from the merchants on my trade account , customer can buy the same gas fire £25 cheaper on the internet .
What is the point of having a trade account ,all i need is broadband.

 

[Keefy]

Show them a page print out and ask if they're willing to do a price match. Also, does the cheaper priced one have a delivery charge? Do they accept returns? Will it take a week to arrive when you can just pick the other one up from the merchants?

Pro's and cons may need weighing up in this case.

 

[SimonG]

What's missing tho?

 

[Dannypipe]

Merchants can't compete with a warehouse. They have so many more overheads. I don't like paying more than I have to either but sometimes it makes sense.

Recent example. We bought a mecerator for a basement conversion online. It arrived, it was clearly cheap and nasty, and we tried to get a return. No luck so far. Called in to the marchants and bought a decent Saniflow. If we ever have any issues with it, I can pop back and they'll sort it out. Even if it's in years to come.

 

[Dotty]

Could do with Ray's take on this!

 

[Millsy 82]

You cant beat dealing face to face with people you can check the bit before you leave the shop and if you have to return something over the internet chances are you will have to pay delivery And most importantly most merchants have coffee machines.

 

[Ray Stafford]

What is the point of having a trade account ,all i need is broadband.

Merchants can't compete with a warehouse. They have so many more overheads. I don't like paying more than I have to either but sometimes it makes sense.

Could do with Ray's take on this!

Blimey, I feel an essay coming!

Its a complicated subject, but at heart it boils down to two things.

1) Service and convenience costs money
2) Service and convenience are worth more in some situations than in others

Just to give a couple of examples:

If you are buying an expensive power tool, you will already have researched what you want to get, so the merchant can't add value there. Any problems are going straight back to the manufacturer, so the merchant can't add value in that regard either. It is a robust product of quite high value, so the carriage charge is going to be small compared to the cost, and the carrier is unlikely to break it. If you aren't in a rush, and if you can buy it £50 cheaper from a reputable online dealer, then why not? I would, because the service benefit from the merchant isn't worth the cost difference.

On the other hand, imagine a complicated bathroom job, with furniture, sanitaryware, glass shower screen etc. You may not be familiar with the furniture brand so might miss something if ordering online. One missing door handle is going to stop you getting paid, and result in an unnecessary return journey. Furniture, sanitaryware and glass are not great products to put on carriers - something will be damaged. The online dealer might be someone you have never heard of, hundreds of miles away. Any problems will need sorting with the supplier, not the manufacturer. In this case I wouldn't even contemplate buying online, almost regardless of what the saving was, because the cock-up potential is so high.

Most jobs fall somewhere between the two. Other factors affect it too. Will you be in to take the delivery? Not much point saving £10 if you have to stay in all day to sign for it. Do you drive past your merchant every day, or do you have to make a special trip to go there?

When we are looking at a new line of product, one of the things that we check is the online price. There has to be enough margin in a product so that we can make a living, and so that our customers don't have the kind of embarrassing experience described in the OP. Every now and then, a rep tries to sell me a lorry load of something at a price higher than my auntie could buy a single item online. Such reps find themselves in the car-park fairly quickly.

Trademen and merchants need to make a margin on materials to cover their respective overheads. If you remove that margin, you have to be prepared to do without the service that the margin is paying for.

 

[petercj]

If you want to find the going rate for something these days, what do you do? You look on ebay, or Amazon. Then you weigh up the pros and cons of where to buy.

If the product comes with an on-site warranty, such as a shower, then it usually makes sense to buy on-line.

Most delivery companies will now collect as well. So returning goods doesn't have to be a hassle. Increasingly, there are local collection points nearby (more and more small shops are doing this now-a-days) which does away with needing to wait in.

The size and the weight of something is likely to be a major influence in how it can be purchased, as is the after-sales support.

Most of the independent merchants in my area have gone, no doubt mail order has played a major part in that, and having a massive B&Q with a trade counter, and a Screwfix within a mile of each other can't have helped.

Mail-order is the fastest growing business in the UK. The High Streets saw trade go to shopping centres, now shopping centres are seeing trade go to the Internet stores - savvy retailers are switching their trading accordingly - Argos have recently announced that they intend to put a bigger focus on Internet sales.

Smart phones enable people to view, select, and order on the spot, and next day delivery is usually an option.

The ever-rising cost of fuel means running around fetching bits and pieces is something to avoid, i.e. you go to your local merchant, find that they don't have the item in stock, so do you hunt around, or go back the next day to collect? Or do you use your smart phone to locate the best price, and place an order on-line?

I would think the best hope for any independent merchant is to get into mail order in an attempt to stay afloat.

The captain of the Titanic may have proudly gone down with his ship, but most of the passengers wanted to get off!

 

[bspareltd]

you are spot on Petercj , even the smaller independents are selling on ebay

 

[JCplumb]

When I'm buying anything that costs more than about £50 I will make sure I scan the barcode with the red laser app on my phone (iphone). Within seconds it tells me the online price and retail prices from stores near me, it doesn't know every single barcode but usually gets the result I need.
Thing is though, I have increasingly found that the shop/merchant I am in at the time is amongst the best prices so usually end up still buying it but with a smile on my face - knowing I have a good deal. I must be getting good at knowing which places are cheaper for certain items
It's a great app and I would hate to be without it now I'm a fanboy.
Quick example - about a year ago there used to be an old guy a mile or so from me that ran a plumbing shop, sadly it's closed down now as he has retired, but he had an offer on a Triton shower for £90 this link is the same shower on a google shopping search , I red laser'd it and saw it was a bargain so had 3 off him which is all he had in stock at the time. He was over the moon with this and threw me a bag of about 30 mixed end-feeds in for a fiver.
After reading through what I have just typed it looks like an advert for the app I didn't intend that.
By the way it also makes you more appealing to the opposite sex and helps you win the lottery...

 

[on31ll]

your paying for the service and convenience. if i was on a job and ran out of iso valves with app i could order them for next day but that still leaves me waiting for them instead i can jump in the van and go pay the small price difference but have them there and then. in my local merchants i no the lads and they tell me prices of what they buy the stuff in for. but i am willing to pay that bit more if its reasonable. like i no they make 30P per length of copper but they give me it at a price cheaper than screwfix etc. im happy to pay that.

everybody has overheads and everybody has got to make a living. just the way the worlds going.

 

[petercj]

One of the small independents that has gone out of business near me has generally been the most competitive, and the most helpful, for as long as I can remember - the guys on the counter really knew their stuff, and they would always do their best to help, even if it was only a seal, a clip, or something costing a few pence.

But unfortunately, they were literally just around the corner from a Screwfix, and two minutes drive from a B&Q Depot with a trade counter. They scored 10 out of 10 for service, but I guess there just wasn't enough trade to go round and keep them in the black.

A while back I wanted a pump for a Bosch washing machine, I tried all the washing machine parts dealers and the pump was around £50.

I googled for it, and found one on Amazon for £17 including the postage. It wasn't a Bosch pump, but I wasn't bothered about that. On fitting, it turned out to be exactly the same pump as fitted by Bosch as standard. It was sold by a small-time trader selling through Amazon. At that price I reckon it must have been stock they had bought up as discontinued. Even so, it gave a ten-year old Bosch machine another few years of life.

I recently overhauled our Mira 88 shower valve, full Mira service kit on ebay: £10 + £1 postage, arrived within 2 days.

The range of parts available for just about anything you can think of is vast on ebay and Amazon - if it's not available on one or the other, then it's probably not obtainable.

The idea still seems to be around that Amazon and ebay traders are dodgy people working from their spare room selling knock-off, and Chinese tat, but in reality, they are often established small companies who have diversified into Internet sales.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Peter makes some good points about availability of spares etc.

When I first started in the industry, there were probably only a hundred or so boiler models available, and a handful of tap, shower, control manufacturers. It was possible for a merchant to stock almost everything you were likely to need, or if not, at least to recognise on sight any given product.

Over the last few decades, choice has exploded - which has been good in some ways, but leaves a legacy of products installed in numbers too small for every merchant to carry spares for, or even recognise all those products. Over time, the "back catalogue" is only going to get bigger.

To carry spares locally for a product of which there are perhaps only a few thousand installed across the whole country wouldn't make economic sense, and thats where internet specialists are invaluable.

Purchasing habits are definitely changing. Someone said to me recently "the current generation of plumbers is the last who grew up without having the internet as part of their childhood". When you look at it this way, its only a matter of time.

I agree with PeterCJ that the long term answer is for merchants to get their ecommerce service better, but I think that a mixed model will eventually appear and stabilise - some types of product will be sold mostly on the net, others will still need bricks and mortar outlets.