Which cordless drill/driver to get?

I don't assume that. A nation that invented gunpowder, the wheelbarrow, the compass, the clock, kites, iron casting, paper, the blast furnace, Spaghetti, and built the great wall obviously aren't incapable.

Dave

You forgot plague and flu. ;-(

That was me. I sent two Makitas back. I have now got a Hitachi which I am very happy with.

Commercially I would have thought it a very nice arrangement: you sell whole lorry loads of tools to one customer whose PoS systems can (presumably) feed back to you exactly what is selling. You have none of the costs of marketing, support, distribution etc so presumably can agree a win/win price.

The risk of course is the same as that of all supermarket suppliers and anyone else who has a dominant customer. If they choose to drop you it is bad news.

i would go with a Ridgid dude. they have lifetime warranties. that is just unheard of in cordless powertools. but i would buy it now before they quit that deal.

Good on you. I much prefer Hitachi. Their core drills are superb. Makita is designer label garbage. Good enough in most cases but way over the top in price/performance.

Bollocks, Matt!!!! Designer label Matt again.

Go for the Kress/Wickes angle drill attachment job at £95. Two drills in one. Knocks cobs off a Makita all around, in price, quality and functionality.

Matt is brainwahsed. Sad but true.

No..... That isn't how private labelling is meant to work.

The point is that the organising forming the sales channel (Wickes in this example), takes a standard product from a manufacturer typically with only cosmetic customisation such as colour, label and the instruction book.

The manufacturer would expect to be able to sell the same product in its own livery in the same geographical territory, and indeed to offer it on the same cosmetic relabelling basis to other similar channels.

Clearly the manufacturer is not going to expect to be able to sell a Wickes labelled product in Homebase, but they should be in a position to sell the same thing in orange and green to Homebase.

If they have restricted themselves to only one private label deal and no own presence in a geographical territory, then my conclusion would be that they are not very commercially adept, and that raises other concerns.

It could be if that is covering the potential market - clearly it's not because Wickes does not have dominant market share in anything.

This is my point. They appear to have locked themselves into some deal that restricts their route to market through one player who can only cover a small part of the market.

Not good business at all .....

Like selling 700,000 first class products a year in 60 countries.

They sell a shed load of power tools though. The groups is TP and Wickes. Which is a hell of a lot of trade outlets.

Wickes and TP small? The point is that top quality Kress products are available in the UK and highly competitive prices. I always look at what Wickes sells before looking at others.

Like why limit the addressable market in the UK?

Undoubtedly, but that wasn't the point being made.

I can imagine.

Mat, you can't as you drool over the Makita brochure.

Matt, who knows. Email Kress, I'm sure they have a press officer..

I think not, certainly not ever in my experience. Any deal I've ever been associated with has been exclusive rights to the UK market. The last thing you want is an identical product being available, extreemly bad for business.

Not if they ever expect to do business with Wickes again. Wickes would never negotiate a deal that allowed an identical product to be sold by a competitor - commercial suicide.

The major chains always negotiate exclusive deals. With extreemly FMCG where the brand name has the channel power you might buy a BLOGGO XYZ 123 from Currys, but in Dixons it will be a different colour with a different logo and called the BLOGGO XYZ 124.

Trust me, no major national is stupid enough to allow an identical product to compete with their branded version.

Dave

Why would I want to waste my time doing that? I don't suppose they would tell me anyway.

Then you can go out and buy some quality Teutonic tools.

I wouldn't tell you. You never know what you would say down the pub.

Matt here, thinks that Kress is low level DIY, always rubbishing the brand, showing real ignorance. Yet pros always think highly of them, because they are pro tools. Most Wickes power tools are sold to the trade and the Kress models are in the Wickes grey Professional range. I doubt Kress would sell a Homebase branded drill as it wouldn't sell being too expensive, and would lower their status. Porter Cable, a quality US maker, rebadge Kress: Look at the SDS