Howdens, builders pass on discounts????

burnsdm

My fitter said he'd only charge for fitting and building work and would pass on his discount at howdens, in fact he urged me to use them. His detailed quote from them shows 80% discounts on madly hyped retail list prices. A typical base unit was 230 quid after the alleged 80% discount. On another forum I saw recently someone got a trade account at howdens then got a lower discount than people he knew of 50%. He had trade price list which showed a typical unit at 220 quid after his 50% discount. I'm not a maths expert but it seems to me that if a typical unit is appx 440 quid then, an 80% discount would bring it out to about 120 quid. So finally my question....is my proposed fitter lying and not passing on all his discount and using the supplier to doctor a quote to make me feel like I'm getting a deal? and the fitter getting more out of it than he made out to me? 80%n discount leading to 230 quid for a basic unit seems suspicous, I thought a typical 18mm mdf type unit would be a lot less than that. Can anyone help me figure out if I am being fleeced?

hollydays

In our experience,we didn't take up the howdens quote,via the fitter,and howdens rang us aweek later offering a lower price,not THAT much lower though.

andyhop

howdens retail prices are massively overpriced but the 80% discount brings it back in line with others

best to speak to your builder again, you could ask for howdens quotation sheet

from a kitchen fitters point of view i always do the prices at cost plus 10%, this pays for my time and fuel to order/ collect as well as sort out any problems that may arise

burnsdm

thanks, I got a look at the quotation sheet but the discounted amounts didn't tie up with other recent posts on other forums. The only surefire way I would have is by getting access to their trade list price sheet. I spoke to the company concerned and got the impression that they could make a quote say whatever any builder wanted it to above bottom line pricing, even if the actual charges later to the fitter were different i.e. lower. How much should units be from them after the large discounts, then I'll know if there's any funny business going on. Even if there was discount being held back from me, that's fine but would rather someone told it like it was and don't like being misled. I could be wrong and it could be valid/innocent.

thehairybuilder

you`re right to be suspicious . I work in a builders merchants and can assure you NONE of our trade customers sell materials to end users for no mark - up . It`d be financial suicide , if jimmy the joiner makes no moneyoff materials then what`s the point in putting them through his books . . . ?

burnsdm

I've got no issue at all with someone making money on materials apart from when they assure me they won't be making any money on materials and I will only pay for the fitting itself. I don't mind people making money and would happily pay a premium to a fitter over the discount to share in savings. Just don't want to be misled and have a suspicion there's a bit of a scam going on in general via some of these companies in this business. Called a pal tonight who had a similar quote from his fitter with the same supplier yet his final price after his fitter 'passed on all the discount' still seems the same or higher than other companies. Surely that means that the fitters/builders are pocketing something somehow? Bit of a coincidence that two unrelated fitters are 'passing on the discount in full'? One possibility is that suppliers might be encouraging fitters/builders to imply they are passing on their full discount when the figures presented are falsified in some way. Clearly there are laws against messing about with numbers like that. If only I knew the trade price list for some typical items I could get to the bottom of it. Problem is those that know are in the trade and may well be part of it all.

Doozergirl

Howdens themselves pay about £3 for a base unit. It makes me slightly nauseous!

The discounts are ridiculously phoney. The last bits we bought consisted of a tall larder unit, a 60cm base unit, three plinths and a couple of end panels. The "list" price on that was about £2500!! You just wouldn't, would you?

My husband was on the phone to me whilst he was in there bantering with them and faking a heart attack for charging us £500! Different people apply different discounts to different tradespeople - it depends on the member of staff and how hard the buyer pushes - and I guess, their relationship.

It would be hard to draw a comparative line with friends unless you were having the same style kitchen.

I'm certain that the Howdens Invoices have the RRP on them for each item. I don't know whether quotes do. I think they also apply different % discounts on different items. I don't think they could fake it - they use that funny paper with the holes in so the system is probably especially designed for one purpose - I don't think they could pretend it was an 80% discount, only apply a lesser discount less, IYSWIM.

Best thing you can do if you're not confident of the best price is to shop around - either with a different fitter at Howdens or have the kitchen designed in MFI or B&Q, whatever and start haggling.

I think the number one rule of moneysaving is to shop around - and do it yourself! It really helps drive the prices down anyway as you have leverage with retailers when you have cheaper quote from elsewhere.

It's a big spend. I'd go to a few places.

burnsdm

Great advice.

Looking around shows that better quality 19mm units are about the same price as the supposed 80% cabinet discount 'quoted' to me.

Still a bit confused how someone a few weeks ago got a 50% discount ended up with a base unit at 220 quid and for a very similar base unit with 80% discount, a different quote to me shows about 220 quid?

Sure there are differences in local, discount etc. but 50% = 220 means full price was 440. If he'd have got 80% it would have been 120ish. Now that does seem about right for the unit.

sodamnfunky

Which builder is going to give you his discount? I certainly dont give anyone any of my discount. If I go to Howdens for a price for a kitchen, they print me a quote and usually dependant on the price, I add 10%, which is what everyone here does.
If a customer tells em they will supply materials, I know it will be crap so I up my hourly rate.

Doozergirl

I wonder if they move the discounts around so you never really know what the supposed RRP is. It's obviously a mickey mouse price. To be honest, I've never found them that competitive once you've really screwed down the other retailers - they're jsut handy because you can pick the stuff up rather than wait weeks for it.

I was really disappointed with the quality of the units actually that H came back with. It was just for a utility room but I was a bit shocked at the price - I've managed huge Schreiber kitchens, 20 odd units from MFI for £4000, solid wood doors - and the un its were better quality - well, they'd made some effort to make the units look like wood rather than the cheap white faced melamine tripe that my H came home with.

The irony is that the rest of the kitchen is John Lewis. It's absolutely amazing quality - heavy, heavy ready built solid backed units, metal draws, luxury upgrade on the wall units so glass bottoms with lights, Blum closings and all sorts.. and the whole lot cost me £500 from ebay, only ever used in a photoshoot! So yeah, worth shopping around!

I still have a few wall units left over in the garage ready to ebay on and sold the old kitchen for £420 on ebay too!

burnsdm

Anyone know roughly what basic floor units with and without doors should be fully discounted (80%) in Howdens.

Found a few companies who do assembled 19mm units with same colour inside at same sort of prices to Howdens so something's wrong?