This simply isn't true. Anyone with a credit or debit card can establish a 'cash' account and buy from them. So no different from most 'mail' order places.
If you're talking about their trade counters, they don't want 'Maplin' type customers wasting their and their customer's time. Wish more nominally trade places were the same.
The original idea of this was to protect their main customers businesses by not selling direct to their *potential* customers.
Untrue.
That is only if you only use a trade counter. If you buy once on line first, you get a delivery point code and invoice. You can take that along as proof of relationship.
The only issue for the trade counters is that they do not have planning permission to operate as retail outlets. It does not mean that from a business perspective they won't sell to anybody.
That isn't an RS issue. Talk to your planning department about it.
Cheers for that info. I suppose that answers the question I asked at Newey and Eyres last week that the staff could not answer. I asked them why a notice had been put up saying "Trade Customers Only" and their reply was "because head office told us to, mind you we still sell to the public". And yes, non account sales need a name address or they won't serve you.
Adam
So you run off a sheet of headed paper on the inkjet printer......
The simple solution is to open a cash account. OK, so big deal, they have an address. Frankly, they are so inept at marketing it doesn't matter anyway.
The only other aspect is that if you buy as a trade customer you don't get consumer protection. However, I have never had any squeaks from a trade counter about that - they replace and don't even ask.
As for RS, their customer service is always exemplary as far as I have found. Not long ago, they screwed up on a shipment including a £7 relay - sent the wrong one. The right one appeared in a taxi sent from the Heathrow trade counter on a Saturday morning. No charge of course.
The one off public customer will not be interested in the offers anyway. Buy
100 SDS bits and get a free Englad shirt etcI also never have had a problems with returns on trade accounts.
Adam
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