Tradesman - Price markup on parts

[Chris B]

I have just received an estimate from a tradesman (based on photographs to save him the time of a visit) which includes £199  Plus VAT for listed parts.

The very same parts are available from suppliers listed on amazon (not amazon itself) for £96.98 Including VAT and delivery.

I know that part of the tradesman's profit comes from the Sale of parts but I always thought that they bought parts from suppliers at trade prices and then billed for them at retail prices.

Is a markup on parts of well over 100% typical in the building industry or is this a simple indication that he doesn't want the job?

So far I only have one estimate, as I don't like wasting 3 peoples time for jobs of less than half a day, when only one is going to get the job.

I am wondering if its worth getting any more or is this typical.

[GB]

As a professional, I charged for my time. If I bought in services for clients, I passed them on at cost.

However, I got a quote from a gas fitter recently who charged a fairly high rate for his time AND wanted to sell me a lot of parts with a 100% mark-up. This made his hourly rate of charge really high!

[invalid unparseable]

That?s not necessarily the price he pays for the parts he uses tho.

Or he does want it at that price.

[newshound]

Maybe he keeps his hourly rate down that way. He might admit it if you point out "your" prices.

Perhaps he gets his spares from somewhere with a high list price but a big trade discount.

IIRC the Radiospares trade discount was 40% on the public price.

[John Rumm]

Which if you literally do that (i.e. sell at your buy price), means you lose money on every part sold - since procurement takes your time, and bites into your cash flow, warranty replacements then just increase that loss.

100% might be taking the pee, although it depends on the market and the product.

[Jethro_uk]

Bearing in mind a tradesman is unlikely to receive any recompense from a supplier for their time in refitting a part, it seems fair they charge a markup (possibly to mrp/rrp) to offset that.

It's one thing about quotes/estimates I'm pretty happy with.

But then I've worked "in trade" ...

[alan_m]

And maybe the price also has an allowance for some of the consumables to fit it.

[williamwright]

I always marked parts up 30% to allow for stocking, warranties, etc.

Bill

[alan_m]

But how many other suppliers did you discard because the same items were more expensive? As a customer you perhaps have the ability to search the internet for hours to find the cheapest price at no cost for your own labour.

Thee days trade doesn't always mean a discount - it may just mean they have 30 days to pay. Just turn up at Screwfix, Toolstation, Wickes and even B&Q early morning and see how many people in white vans buying the same goods as you can buy.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I think its a good point about the procurement, as somebody has to find the parts and buy them, and that time has to be paid for of course. I can remember a friend who used to repair electronic things before the days of surface mount made it a job for the brave, and often he would get a call from somebody who said a chip had gone, but he did not have the confidence to change it himself, hoping that my friend would do it very cheaply. Often he would do the job, but equally often the original person did not take into account that the faulty chip might have been caused by a fault elsewhere so he always checked the circuit and this made the bill higher of course. but some people just won't accept this sort of knowledge driven repair strategy. I don't know about boilers but often the reason why boards are swapped is not because changing the parts is hard but because the time taken to fault find the pcb, would make the repair cost much higher. Brian

[Pancho]

Part of that is clearly time and hence billable as such. I'm not sure about risk of faulty parts, incurred as an intermediary.

Surely it should depend on time and risk?

[Adrian Caspersz]

There's a difference between the costs of goods in wholesalers and the prices in supermarkets as well. Something has to pay for the last mile, promotions, staff and buildings.

[nightjar]

It is normal to charge list price. However, when I had trade accounts for my business, the trade discount varied from 15% to 65% from the same supplier, depending upon the item.

[Chris Green]

I think the 'tradesman' has a number of problems nowadays:-

If you shop around you can nearly always find bits and pieces more cheaply on eBay or Amazon.

The tradesman needs to buy everything he uses quickly and simply from just one or two suppliers, he can't spend his time searching for the best price on the internet - time is money

The 'trade discount' may not be all that much, or even available to a one-man business.

It *might* be worth asking if the tradesman would be happy if you source the parts.

[Chris B]

But these days its not "shopping around" its one google search.

That is a fair point, and as someone else said I have the opportunity to spend half a day looking for the best price. In practice however these days with google it takes but seconds to get the best price.

For the tradesman however this could result in him having to set up payment arrangements with dozens of different suppliers (or pay up front), as opposed to just settling one bill at the end of the month.

I can understand anyones reluctance to install parts supplied by the customer - you might never know quite what you are letting yourself in for - even though in this case parts would be identical part numbers I would expect a "No".

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[charles]

last week I visteed Screwfix and B&Q, in that order. Screwfix had masks 10 for £5. The same package was in B&Q - £6.

[Richard]

You are not wasting 3 people's time if they offer quoting for the job. They will have built in time wasters time into their quoting if they have any sense.

[Dave Plowman (News]

You need to look at the total price you'll pay before deciding. Doesn't much matter how it is arrived at in an estimate.

[GB]

I'd expect the time spent ordering and getting the parts to be charged for, but I really didn't see why I should pay him twice the parts cost.

[GB]

Is that 30% above trade price, or 30% above retail? Anyway, 100% on top of retails seems like piss taking.