I received their tool hire guide today. Hiring a sack truck for one day costs almost exactly the same as buying one from Screwfix. Why does anyone hire from them? Are there huge trade discounts I don't know about?
are they a similar quality?
There are tax advantages to hiring that you don't get when buying
you also don't have to pay to store it when not using it
tim
Why does anyone get anything from Jewson? I don't even bother going there.
Went there once, around 10 years ago, looking for a specific fire door. Was quoted £240. Sent my friend who is a joiner, and speaks the "special deal just for you" language, and he came back with it after paying £40...
Never been back there since - can't be bothered with this attitude.
Yes. There are quite a few "virtual builder's merchants" on Ebay who offer stuff very cheaply, and they order it from Jewson for delivery to you.
The drawback is my 125kg of plaster arrived on a pallet by hi-ab, whereas I was hoping the little old lady who brings my Hermes parcels was going to carry it up the stairs for me.
Owain
Depending on the job, buy a new one; use it; then eBay it off ...
I'm on their mailing list. The trouble is that I ask them for a discount and either get nothing or very little at all. Then I go elsewhere, which is annoying as Jewson is the local place. Your friend the joiner could make a fortune giving 'special deal' language lessons.
I have spend a large proportion of my working life doing exactly that, negotiating, and I'd like to think that I am pretty good at it too. I just cannot be bothered having to do it every time I want a box of screws, a length of pipe or a few sheets of plasterboard.
I understand the concept of discounting when dealing with large orders, but for everything else a fair and fixed price is the way in my opinion. This is why I prefer to go to Screwfix/Toolstation and/or online whenever possible.
I get heavy discounts on anything I buy through my trade account. I recently bought some PVC welding solvent and got 45% off the list price. This is normal for most trade suppliers. Newey & Eyre used to give me
65% off electrical cable, when I had a trade account with them.
But who (apart from my mother) would pay list price for anything?
Owain
My neighbour operates like this.
He is a car mechanic, ex-MOT tester but sold his business in
2008. Since then he has carried on doing work for many of his older ex-clients on his drive.Everytime I talk to him he has a pile of parts and invoices from the local motor factor that show the trade price and the 'list' price, which is anything from 80% to 150% more than the trade price.
Even though he works for cash and doesn't tell HMRC, he still thinks he can charge the client 'list' price. I pointed out to him that the client never sees his invoice, so there is no need to charge the list price markup. He could simply charge a realistic price for his labour, and a handling fee on top of the part price, but it's like talking to brick wall dealing with these people.
I wouldn't mind, but he makes a point of getting free aspirins on prescription, which being 65+ costs him nothing !.
My brother got it just right. Bought one from somewhere, suitably crap. Used it to fetch a washing machine he bought on ebay. Wheel fell off when machine was almost in place (although it did nearly do a nasty injury to his father-in-law). Took it back for a refund. FREE!!!
I once bought one tin from Dulux, and asked for a trade discount as a joke. To my surprise he offered me 10% off.
NT
Of course, sometimes the "special deal just for you" goes completely the other way on the assumption you won't check up. I've met that on more than one occasion.
You were being robbed as iirc we got 93% from Newey & Eyre back in the 1980's on cable. Sockets, switches, isolators and distribution boards were also something daft like 55%
Spending a few hundred thousand quid a year helped :)
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