I wrote up to one grand. Your analysis might also be rather extreme if you had been shafted by BG. I won't bore you with the details, but when I was much younger and much more naive I foolishly got BG to install central heating. Every plumber who has seen it has asked who installed this pile of s**te.
I completely sympathise. I was simply pointing out that the issue is with the company and it's ways of doing business, not with the salesman.
That's probably good news.
Owain
About 18 months ago I had 3 quotes for a completely new CH system. The first quote was from BG and at £6k seemed huge for what I wanted. After I picked myself up off the floor I thought never mind, the other quotes will be a lot better. I turned out they were better but disappointly only by 5% & 10%, I ended up doing the work (+ a lot extra) myself except for the new boiler install. Saved about 40% (only a guess because the end result was radically different) but it took ages!.
Egremont.
The message from Andy Hall contains these words:
Which shows how extrordinarily large their profit margins are then. We've just bought some carpet for our son's bedroom. Nice stuff, 3mx4m, £95. Had we bought it outside the sales it'd have been nearly £240.
Either they're selling it at a loss during the sales and someone somewhere must have subsidised our purchase by paying full whack, or they're still making a profit and making vastly more profit the rest of the time.
I know which I'd believe.
Yes, like Holland & Barrett's "better than half-price sale".
The message from Bob Martin contains these words:
Better for whom?
I like your comparison and that it highlights that it is not the salesman, however much of a weasel he may be, and these guys usually are.
There is one more thing to add to eh comparison, this may in some cases be relevant and in some not, not in the case where work is carried out properly and components of a decent quality is being used.
I must stress that nor do I hold any incendiary lighting devices for BG, or for that matter any megacorps.
But an interesting aspect of it is the "feeling of safety" I may inadvertently be referring to the sense of security derived from "Dealing with the gas board" here but it occurred to me after a recent discussion with my father in law about the subject of who should carry out our forthcoming (as in within the next 20 months or so) boiler replacement that big companies like BG, or indeed in my father in laws own words "The fuel supplier" (I take it from his statement that other gas suppliers offer a similar service?) also offer a combined guarantee.
Now in the private I.T sector one often hears of "one supplier, one guarantee" this equates to in the currently discussed scenario that the device in question (the boiler) along with any other active devices and also the installation of said devices has been, at least at a fiscal viewpoint carried out by the same company, I can see how that can be a good thing were something to go wrong, in which case one would have a central point of reference to go back to and demand satisfaction, where with another solution one might end up with the manufacturer of the boiler blaming the installer and vice versa. However I am completely unaware about weather this would be likely to happen just as well with an installation carried out by BG.
Also I can understand that such an "assurance" may be of a lesser value to some, surely where I always home to deal with anything it would seem less attractive to myself but as my father in law put it "Think about it Jan, you are away on an op in December, no means for your wife to contact you and the boiler breaks, what will happen?" The way he made it out a large supplier would be obligated within the period of guarantee to fix a problem or provide adequate accommodation.
I must admit I have not investigated this much further, I just thought of it reading this post and indeed this may not correspond to reality, but I suppose it's worth a thought.
//J
"Guy King" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk...
Retailers, typically 'mark-up' their _costs_ by 50%. A two pound article , from the wholesaler, will be offered for sale at three pound. The One pound difference goes to pay wages, insurance, floor rental, lighting, heating, marketing etc. etc. ... after all this (know to Accountants as 'Cost of Sales') has been entered into the 'books' the retailer might make eight _pence_ 'profit'. That is the excess of sales minus costs. Most retailers will operate on a ninety day 'free loan' from their wholesalers ... the goods will be delivered against an invoice which should be settled within ninety days. Most retailers will work on the assumption that they'll get the three quid _sale_ into their tills before the two quid bill they're sitting on is due. In this (ideal) circumstance the 'cost' of the goods they're retailing isn't of real concern; it's the 'Cost of Sales' that is a metric of their efficiency. .... But; if they haven't _sold_ the goods for three quid at the ninety day point; things start to go wrong, horribly quickly ... they've got to pay the wholesaler or they'll not get any more stock. They'll borrow from a Bank - now they'll have to pay interest on the overdraft: they haven't got the one quid 'surplus' from the sale but have still to pay rent, fuel, taxes and wages ... ooh, ooh, that eight pence profit is now a loss of 92 pence! Solution, mark the sale price down to two quid! { At least they'll be able to pay the wholesaler.. or the Bank ... or the Taxman ... but they'r still not making any surplus to pay the wages. etc.
Can you educate the readers on your dynamic retailing experience... ? How the Boss of ,say, BHS; tried to lure you to run Marks and Sparks?
Why go all silly when choosing a ch installer? You shop around for everything else, so do the same with this. I guarantee the £400 discount won't go away. As an aside, I was in a cafe the other with a group of BG blokes whose vans were all parked up outside, and a bigger bunch of oiks I have never had the misfortune to sit next to. Not that they do the installing of course. That's left to a sub contractor, who probably has to cut corners to make a profit but, as the face of BG, this lot were seriously lacking.
The message from "Brian Sharrock" contains these words:
I may have mentioned before that I have a nephew who works for a large shipping company. They move, amonst other things, sofas for a big leather sofa barn. When damage occurs they pay the cost price of the item, not the retail price. He reckons that sofas that sell in the £800 area are often under £40 to the supplier.
OP & others, This discussion serves well to warn those folks who look at and subscribe to "DIY" that BG is a very greedy Co. for installation of new boilers and other stuff. Long time appenders/watchers have known this for years.
We've had such warnings many times before and it doesn't seem to get better.
FACT: Nobody has ever come onto this site with a message which said that BG was the best they could get with a combination of price & quality, (i.e. value).
SO: How do we, get the message out?
That is commonsense from a reasonably well informed group of DIY enthusiasts, who, while amateurs, welcome and use good professional input.
I really do worry about the decent old person/pensioner who calls in BG because he/she thinks it's the company that they've known for generations and think that it's something to do with the Public Sector,
(NO, please, don't go into a rant about Public Sector and the rights/wrongs of privtisation , please!)
I live in a part of a somewhat prosperous major UK City with lots of flats around me, mainly occupied by older people.
All these good folks are vulnerable to BG's greed.
They need better. They need good/keen/honest tradesmen, fully registered and insured who can do what these folks need safely and at a fair profit?
Rant over.... sorry, I feel very keenly about this, I really hate fraud!
EP
Or they are overstocked on a line and want to shift the product rather than dumping it....
The message from Andy Hall contains these words:
In the case of the carpet place we went to today that'd be most of their range then. There were some 40% reductions, but mostly 60%.
Thank you so much for your feedback - I have cancelled! Note that despite section 17 of the t&cs stating that you must send a registered form to cancel, sending a fax (ring them first) was sufficient in my case. I was worried I would miss the 7 day cooling off period.
Thanks again.
You'll probably find the best deal overall from a local CORGI. Heating "firms" are often just mini versions of BG, jobbing everything out and skimming the profits. You can get a list of local CORGIs here
Gud on ya. Let us know how much you get it done for.
Steve
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