DIY store prices

[Andy Cap]

..and I can't spell 'an'. I think I'm losing the plot ! :-{

[Tim Streater]

Err no, I disagree. It's like with British Railways. Beeching found that the parcels service was being accounted at its marginal cost, which meant in effect that the passenger service was subsidising the parcels service. Someone has to pay for the infrastructure (track, signals, etc). Otherwise you'd run the passenger service on the margin too and wonder why the thing was making a stinking loss, even though each component appears "profitable". I suspect its that sort of accounting that is being employed when the greenwashers say ooh look, it only costs tuppence-ha'penny to run an extra train from London to Paris.

If your car costs ?15k and goes for scrap after 150k miles, then that component is costing you 10p/mile. At about ?1.20/litre and 45mpg, that's another 12p/mile. Tyres, service, prolly add another couple of p. Even your insurance premium may be distance related - they seem to want to know your annual mileage.

You may have made a "policy decision" to have a car, but it still has to be paid for.

[Andy Wade]

(Proprietor D. Mackay) for tools from the Mackays empire at substantially less than the shop prices.

[BartC]

...

I bought a 40mm plastic 90-degree waste pipe fitting from B&Q Warehouse about 2 or 3 miles away; it cost 51p.

When I needed another one, I went to the non-Warehouse B&Q down the road; it was £1.19!

Since it can't possibly cost them more than 51p (otherwise they would just buy them from their own store!), the mark-up must be at least 68p or 130%, and probably a lot more.

[michael adams]

Go into any DIY shed on quiet day in winter-time.

Count the number of staff you see throughout the store trying to make themselves look busy. Or talking among themselves.

Then hang around the checkouts for an hour, say.

Then add up what you estimate their heating costs are, for heating that volume of air, plus their rates, plus the cost of the building ground rent etc, plus their wage costs for that hour, to say nothing of the cost of financing their stock. And compare that with the amount of money thats gone through their tills in that time. Which total do you think will be bigger, and by how much ?

I made a smilar observation about HMV video stores the other week - £ millions tied up in stock, high rents on prime sites - and in most stores only the one till open and hardly anyone buying anything. Last week it was announced HMV's losses are mounting and their shares are taking a dive.

michael adams

...

[BartC]

That's 24p so far, below the 25p 'minimum' quoted. And that's with a car bought for £15000 that does 45mpg. You can also buy one for £6000 that does

60mpg, that probably takes cheaper tyres and spare parts too.

Anyway whatever it costs, it will almost certainly be cheaper than public transport, assuming it is even practical to take bulky DIY items on a bus, and carry them the rest of the way home from the bus stop, in the pouring rain.

[Ronald Raygun]

That comes as no surprise to me, but I think you're wrong to.

No, this is not true (except in a simplistic arithmetic sense). You can choose to make any given journey in a number of ways, by air, rail, bus, taxi, etc. Not all options are available for every journey, but they all have different costs associated with them, and people choose whichever option suits their budget and their requirements. Typically you pay more for enhanced convenience.

The way I view the overhead costs of having a car (both the long term overheads like depreciation and finance or opportunity cost, and the annual costs of road tax, insurance, MOT, service, parking permits) is that they are the cost of the convenience. They are

*not* in any meaningful way part of the cost per mile. Only the actual running costs are.

Many people kid themselves into believing they "need" a car, when they could not only get by perfectly well with a bus pass for commuting, shopping, and most social activities, and perhaps the occasional taxi, and maybe hiring a car when going on holiday, but it may well also end up costing them less overall per year than having their own car. But even if they don't strictly need it, they choose to have it because that's what the balance of convenience (as they perceive it) tells them to do.

Indeed, but my own figures are a bit more favourable. My 2l Diesel car gets enough mpg on rural trips to scrape through at below 10p/mile. Urban trips not as good, I admit.

Nah. I drive reasonably fast, but with low acceleration and (more to the point) low deceleration. This makes my tyres last quite well, I'd say of the order of 25k miles. I don't buy expensive tyres, so this works out below 1p/mile. It also means I only need to replace brake pads/shoes very rarely.

I exclude services because I don't consider them mileage-related. The next service is due after so-many months or so-many miles, whichever occurs first. With me it's usually the months which come first, so the miles are effectively free. :-)

They want to know your estimated mileage. Your actual mileage is something completely different! :-) Even so, the premium would hardly scale linearly.

Of course it has. But I've made my decision on the basis that the convenience of the car's availability is worth paying for, and having paid for that convenience by committing to the annual and long-term costs, each trip I then choose to make costs me little more than fuel.

[Dave Liquorice]

Do the sums. Fuel alone will be around half that, then factor in depreciation, insurance, road tax, maintenance etc. Mine costs

27p/mile without depreciation, bring that in over 10 years and it goes up to 33p/mile, 5 years 40p/mile, 3 years 47p/mile and thats for a capital of only 11k and doesn't take into account the interest on the loan...

But the money for them still has to come from somewhere.

[chas]

Do f*ck off you booring bastard!!!!!!!!!!!

[Andy Dingley]

It costs much the same to sell a bag of cheap things no matter how little or how very little they cost. Bolts are inherently very cheap. Shops cost much more to run. They're also mostly selling to people who buy bolts very rarely, and only when they need one right that minute.

However years of market research in shops shows that people who have no idea what something costs will pay any price (realistic or unrealistic) so long as it's under a floor level (probably a fiver these days) as they need one anyway and they have no idea what it ought to cost. However if you offer them a box of many more for the same price, they'll see this as _more_ expensive, because all that they really do understand is that they need six, don't mind ten, but see a hundred as a vast and expensive over-supply of them. This is true even when a hundred costs less than ten, because the "hundred shop" is simply far cheaper.

[ARWadsworth]

I hope that I never stand next to you at a party.

[David Paste]

Why, because he'd steal all the girls away from you? I'd love to have him next to me at a party! ;-)

[Ma Matilda Walsing]

If Homebase sold spill chequers, I'm sure the price would extorsionate

[brass monkey]

But does he know how many beans make 5?

[The Medway Handyman]

I don't. I supply them with parts at 10% less than DIY superstores. The knowledge & experience & the money tied up doesn't come free idiot.

[The Medway Handyman]

Go to any Toolstation or TLC depot on a quiet day in winter-time.

Count the number of staff at a Toolstation or TLC depot.

Then add up what you estimate the overheads Toolstation or TLC have. They finance 100% ex stock availability & Toolstation offer free delivery over £10.

And compare that with the much higher amount of money Toolstation or TLC take because of their realistic prices.

Times change. Retailers like Homebase & HMV are stuck firmly in the past.

[The Medway Handyman]

The Engish language is only boring to thick illiterates like you.

[Bob Neumann]

Yes, but do the customers know that you're also marking up the actual cost of standard components by 140% relative to the actual price you pay?

Do you tell them that if they pre-ordered the parts they would get them a damn sight cheaper?

[The Medway Halfwit]

Oh the irony, "Engish" !

[ARWadsworth]

Why the f*ck should he tell them?