gas safe plumbers: greedy and unethical?

[Tim Streater]

You're not listening. What part of "the customer won't know what part to get or where to get it from" is hard for you to understand?

[geoff]

In message , Fred writes

They all want their cut on a new pcb or the easy buck of a replacement - just DIY and have done with it

Stand in front of the boiler with the phone in your hand if you really need to

[geoff]

A massive bit of publicity for then, wasn't it

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Just because they are all crooks doesn't mean everyone has to follow.

However, they'll repair your car - not tell you you must get a new one.

[geoff]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Well, if you include burn in failures and manufacturing faults, and the fact that every pcb that leaves CET is tested, ...

[geoff]

Rather £176

of displays what a rip off merchant he was, doesn't it

[geoff]

In message , Bill writes

Its a mix, but a mix that turned over £33,000 last month (June)

[John Rumm]

Ain't no such thing as free - someone is paying somewhere!

[John Rumm]

Well you could read Fred's post both ways...

One could argue that someone selling parts and labour should mark up the parts only enough to cover the overheads - so that the sale of the parts is a nett zero sum game. That's fine of course until someone says, I don't need you to fit them, but let me buy 20. Then you may not lose money, but you don't make any either and get to do the legwork for nothing.

The reality is it makes much more sense to set a reasonable price that makes profit to the level that you believe your market will stand and is also competitive. That then gives you the flexibility to offer quantity / loyalty discounts etc if you must to win business.

[John Rumm]

Did you make that clear?

The difficulty is that in many cases its a sellers market. If the plumber has the choice of hassle free installation of new kit with no need for deep technical knowledge or the ability to fault find, or take on lots of much shorter, lower values jobs that require higher levels of technical ability, it ought not be surprising that many decline the latter jobs.

(which possibly suggests there is market here for a gas fitting branch of TMH or similar)

Now they could be reading between the lines thinking, someone else has obviously turned down the work... what do they know that we don't?

There are some customers you don't want at any price, but in spotting them you are going to get a false positive rate over zero.

All along they are thinking this days titting about is stopping me get on with a full CH install that will make for less hassle and more income.

You need to look at it from both sides. However look long enough and hard enough and you will probably find someone who will jump through the hoops you desire.

[John Rumm]

You have to realise that in many circumstances you are not in a position to assess the ethics, since you don't have enough visibility of the business model, the costs, the risks or many other aspects. It may well be that they have calculated that on items such as those they need to operate a 150% markup to be sure of not ending up getting screwed.

Obviously there are those out there that will try and gouge on price. If they are selling a recon part but claiming its new, then that would be dishonest. If they are selling at the "new" price - which "new" price are you comparing it to? The one the manufacturer has advertised for sale to trade customers only, at a price point they set to enable their customers to make a reasonable profit, or the suggested retail price?

Different trades work on different markups. If you go into a pub and buy a bottle of wine, you are probably paying a 100 - 130% markup - since that is what the publican need to charge to break even, pay the staff, and earn an income. If you bought the same bottle in a restaurant, it would be at a higher markup. The economics of the business are different and hence so is the price.

[Andy Burns]

I guess different peoples' attitude to mark-up is coloured by whatever applies in their own trade, we for example charge purely for our time, we don't generally supply much hardware, but where we do, we spend time to find good prices but don't add mark up, it's part of the service, though the time taken specing and ordering is charged (delivery direct to customer, so no hanging around waiting).

[dennis]

Cars are fairly simple things and the mechanics are well trained. Plumbers aren't anywhere near as well trained as mechanics and don't really know how to fix boilers.

[Man at B&Q]

If you do the maths on the claimed wage bill (=A38m IIRC with =A31m of that for the boss) and the number of employees, then it simply doesn't stack up.

MBQ

[stuart noble]

At some point it must dawn on gas fitters that the extortionate cost of new pcbs is costing them business. Presumably they can exclude recon items from their guarantee so the gamble is passed to the customer?

[dennis]

Not legally they can't. The part must be fit for purpose and you can't exclude it in any contract with a consumer. If you try the contract is null and void.

Screwing over companies and landlords is a different matter.

[Man at B&Q]

He didn't say that they shouldn't, only that they would not be able to hide it.

Why do you hide such profit from your customers? Why are you so touchy about the subject?

MBQ

[stuart noble]

So the customer would need to get the pcb repaired? How would that affect the contract?

[Andy Dingley]

I think if I had that much copper (five grand?) around these days, I'd be worrying about how to guard it.

[Andy Dingley]

Mid-90s, when this stuff was just starting out, I worked for Manweb (local 'leccy board). As they'd realised that they now sold electricity to everyone possible, they needed to find a new market. They were already doing white goods, but the margins were narrow. So our project was about insurance, "value added" financial services and seeing just how profitable these things were.

Since then, I've never been tempted to buy any such product. I'd buy a lottery ticket before this type of post-sale insurance.