Weird,Aldi selling B&D tools now

Do you live in a field?

All the population is lost then, except Matt.

Are they on social security as well?

Get a bus, instead of driving around in a 4x4.

In your poluting 4x4.

Use Ebay then.

...and get lawyer each time you buy.

Matt, you are a madman.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel
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Just next to one.

I actually meant walking. People tend not to push their pushchairs along the motorway.

No guarantee...

No need.

Reply to
Andy Hall

A curiosity. There are places with mockups of Victorian sweetie shops and 1920s grocers. 50 years from now there will be places with mockups of supermarkets.

Reply to
Andy Hall

That figures.

You walk on the motorway?

Well then get ripped off.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

Then it all assumes that stock is available.

And still necessary to hang around waiting for deliveries or, in the case of a friend of mine, lining up for an hour at the courier's local depot at 7 in the evening

Reply to
Stuart Noble

I have two B&D drills (one inherited, one bought when I was younger and didn't know better) and both do that.

Reply to
Skipweasel

But you have to give them your name and address before they'll let you shop.

Reply to
Skipweasel

Should have used Royal Mail (waits for AH rant :-) )

Reply to
Clive George

That's precisely the point....

Reply to
Andy Hall

Wow! He likes to be ripped off.

Reply to
Doctor Drivel

Which makes it even less appealing.

The solution to that problem is to specify a delivery before 1000. Most couriers make those deliveries before 0900. If they don't then they deliver it before 0900 the following day at their cost.

I am certainly not going to spend an hour at a courier's depot. This is one reason that I won't deal with any supplier who uses Royal Mail.

Reply to
Andy Hall

My first hammer drill was a B&D - orange plastic body and silver metal gearbox case. With a slide gearchange. It didn't slip into hammer mode - just jumped out of gear. A matchstick wedged under the slide cured it.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

You've had that one before.

This week's more successful result is with Marks and Spencer. I ordered some items totalling about £50 from their web site and selected the nominated day delivery option for £4.95 with today selected as the delivery day. The items were not required for a Christmas present or anything like that but it suited me to have delivery today.

This morning I received an email from them to the effect that they hadn't dispatched the items and wouldn't be able to until next Thursday, but they wouldn't charge for the shipping. So I telephoned them and we had a discussion.

After the opening line with the excuse that "it's because of Christmas" we had another discussion with the supervisor in which I explained that it's irrelevant that it's Christmas and that if they commit to something then that is what I expect to happen, Christmas or not.

We agreed to confirmed delivery for next Friday, no shipping charges and a credit for half the price of the goods.

"Christmas" is the universal excuse for poor service from traders, restaurants and most other places selling goods and services. It isn't as though this is the first year in which Christmas has happened, so there is no excuse for not planning for it.

If traders don't want to give full service, that's fine as long as they don't expect to receive full price.

Reply to
Andy Hall

On the contrary. I don't need a lawyer to secure goods and services according to what has been bought and paid for. There are plenty of ways without the need to resort to that.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Hmm .. ! I recently purchased a 'boiler' - if it did _boil_ there'd be something definitely dodgy!

I researched , and considered the cumulative advice / recommendations of this group, then 'googled' for the lowest price. This eventually was a site in some obscure part of the country.

An order was placed and reasonably quickly a man form 'Pl*mb Cent*r' turned up in a wagon bearing my boiler!

I commented; 'I'm surprised _you_ are delivering this', he grinned back and said ' We do the final part of the delivery for all/most web-sales in this area! . If you'd bought it from us you'd pay hundreds of pounds more and it costs us the same to deliver this as it would cost us to deliver one you'd ordered in the shop. Doesn't make sense to me; but I'm just the driver. Enjoy your savings!"

I'm not sure who, if anyone, got 'ripped off'.

The boiler is now heating the house I saved hundreds of pounds, Brown's Darling is less tens of pounds of VAT .... !

Reply to
Brian Sharrock

big snip

It's not just traders and Christmas ....

Because of my age ; I had to contact the Department for Pensions (or whatever it's called this week ...). Now; I'm, a fully paid member of what's called the 'Baby Boom' .... whose birth was related to that War Basil Fawlty tells us not to mention.

The Government has had Sixty-Five Years (that's half-a-century plus a decade and a half) to prepare for this 'demand'. Yet my initial contact, a month before the retirement date, was met with a 'Due to unprecedented demand we are unable to process your claim currently, please phone fourteen days prior to your retirement date!" [Or words to that effect]

Reply to
Brian Sharrock

Possibly Discounted Heating?

The equation is a simple one, based around the avarice of distribution

- a fascinating world in its own right.

Plumb Center is both a distributor and reseller of products. The three key metrics for a distributor are:

- Margin

- Stock turns - how many times a year does a line item or a product group or a manufacturer's product move?

- Volume

These all factor in their commercial negotiations with their suppliers. It may also be that there is an agreed stock rotation back to the manufacturer. The distributor will want to maximise that while the manufacturer will want to minimise it. OTOH, the manufacturer also wants to maximise product out of the door. This can lead to additional fun and games such as manufacturers, at their year end, getting a distributor to agree to take more product, but with an agreeement that it can be rotated back in the next financial year - a procedure colloquially known as channel stuffing. Auditors have become wiser to this one than they used to be, because of course it is overvaluing the manufacturer.

The reseller aspect of PlumbCenter also wants to keep its trade customers (e.g. Mr Local Corgi) happy as well and so does not want to be seen to be offering very low prices to non trade end users.

So the arrangement that you describe ticks all the boxes:

- PlumbCenter increases their sales volume and improves their stock turns and volume and hence negotiating position with the manufacturers

- PlumbCenter is selling to a "trade" customer (e.g. Discounted Heating) at prices that are invisible to Mr Local Corgi at the trade counter.

- PlumbCenter can afford to make a small margin on the sale because they haven't had to use their trade counter to make the sale or handle

30 day credit accounts with small traders

- Mr Internet Trader handles the payments with the end user, although that is all credit card - not 30 day accounts.

- Mr Internet Trader can be anywhere in the country and never have to physically touch the goods. There is a cost saving from that.

- Mr. Internet Trader has low overheads and only a cash flow to manage with Plumb Center. However, almost all of his money is cash up front. The 3-5% with the credit card company is factored into his margin.

So the answer to your question is that nobody in your supply chain got ripped off. All were perfectly happy with the arrangement.

You could look slightly bigger picture.

- If Mr Internet Trader wasn't there, you would have bought the product from the trade counter.

- If the trade counter wasn't selling to the public, you would have employed a fitter who would have sourced the product.

On that basis, you could argue that Mr. Local Corgi is being ripped off.

The notion that Mr Brown's junta is missing out on some VAT warms my heart considerably. Don't feel guilty about that - he only wastes it.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Hmm... I think that when the time comes, I will get my accountant to sort this one out. He has been known to reduce tax inspectors to tears (as it should be).

Reply to
Andy Hall

(I've never been in Matalan. But that's what I used to do when Radio Shack used to ask for your address. And I memorised the postcode of the local town hall for use when people pointlessly ask for a postcode.)

Reply to
Huge

W1A 1AA works well (the postcode for BBC Broadcasting House). It's a way of testing the sentience of the assistant.

I have to say that nobody has ever queried that one when I have used it.

Reply to
Andy Hall

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