Shower pump

Alan_M_2

George_Bray wrote:

But they weren't produced in Africa (of course). They were made in the UK, then shipped at some significant cost to Africa, and still costed 10% of the rip-off UK price.

That simply isn't feasible, it's highly likely they would be locally manufactured, locally assembled or probably rebranded locally manufactured items under licence.

gromituk

Alan_M wrote:

Interesting, do you consider you are automatically entitled to trade discount? And if so why?

Because it costs them no more to supply me than to supply a builder - as far as I'm concerned it's not a trade discount but a non-trade surcharge.

Do you feel you should be able to buy at the same price as someone who would make 12 purchases a year from the same quarry?

No idea - but this builder had never ordered from them before and as far as I know has never ordered since (he was about to jack it in).

Not criticism, just curious how people think and why people generally consider they are entitled to some form of discount.

As you can see, the reason why I am curious is why they offer arbitrary discounts to some people and not others, when the amount of work involved in both cases is the same. It's anomalous, and I'm sure dubious under competition law.

I upset a lot of builders and people who consider themselves in the trade, I don't differentiate between trade and retail, my prices are solely based on volume.

Yay! :j

Alan_M_2

So on your line of thinking you should be able to approach, lets say Ford for instance and By a New Ford Focus at the same price as say Hertz Rental (who may well buy 1000 vehicles every six months) on the grounds that it costs the same to supply you the one unit.

Utter nonsence.

As you can see, the reason why I am curious is why they offer arbitrary discounts to some people and not others, when the amount of work involved in both cases is the same. It's anomalous, and I'm sure dubious under competition law.

There are no laws governing this, it's a free market economy, (the only time a competition law would come into force is if a company grew so large it could effectively dictate to it's producers what price it would pay - effectively exactly what Tesco do) I sell a product at a price, if you don't want it pay that price for a one off order thats fine by me. Buy the product elsewhere.

But if you come to me and place an order for that product plus 11 further repeat orders, the price is negotiable, because it's more effecient for me to produce in larger volume to supply you even if I produce that product and store it. So it's not the same, it does cost less to supply larger amounts or resupply the same customer regularly.

gromituk

Alan_M wrote:

So on your line of thinking you should be able to approach, lets say Ford for instance and By a New Ford Focus at the same price as say Hertz Rental (who may well buy 1000 vehicles every six months) on the grounds that it costs the same to supply you the one unit.

Not in the slightest. Please read my posting properly.

Utter nonsence.

Indeed, because I didn't say it. :rolleyes:

George_Bray

Alan_M wrote:

That simply isn't feasible, it's highly likely they would be locally manufactured, locally assembled or probably rebranded locally manufactured items under licence.

You say it isn't feasible without leaving any element of doubt. But how can you know? Neither do I, actually. But if cheap bags of sugar and many other commodities can be shipped around the world at relatively low cost, perhaps so too can Stuart Turner water pumps.

They couldn't possibly assemble or manufacture these pumps where I was in Africa. And the availability was too widespread through mainstream plumbing outlets, at £20 each, for them all to have come off the back of a lorry. I bought four and brought them back to where they started life, in the UK. I use one for my power shower. It has a 'made in the UK' tag on it.

The cost of metal, windings, brushes and brass pump elements would be quite low for one of those pumps. Sold at a price of well over £200 in the UK, the profit margin must be HUGE - like I said, a rip-off.

Regards
George

Alan_M_2

I own and run an import business, my day to day dealings are with container and truck quantaties of items being shipped. mostly around Europe.

I say it isn't feasible without any shadow of a doubt, because I simply understand from my own business what the costs of transporting these items would be and that is even without considering the restrictive import duties in place to encourage the use of locally manufactured items.

They are highly likely to be remanufactured units from UK originals that were either seconds, obsolete or damaged repaired locally.

You can go to Africa and buy a brand new Series one Land Rover, it's a fraction of the price of a UK Land Rover, it's also utter rubbish produced by a company out there called Santana, the pumps will be the same story.

Alan_M_2

Actually I'm getting sick of listening to people moan about getting ripped off in this country, we make a rod for our own backs and that rod is property.

We are obsessed with owning property here, to such an extent that it's driven prices to an unprecedented level, not only for purchases but also rents and leases.

Any business in the UK requires premisies of some sort, wholesale, retail, manufacturing, whatever...these premisies need to paid for.

I'm currently looking for a new warehouse, the one I'm in isn't big enough yet everywhere I go locally I'm being quoted £10 sq/ft in rent per annum excluding business rates.

I need 5000 sq/ft for my business to operate, about the same size as an average pump manufacturer. That 5000 sq/ft unit with business rates will cost me just short of £6000 a month + vat.

I then have to pay staff a reasonable wage so they can afford to buy or rent the overpriced properties in this country. I then have my operating overheads on top and quite quickly I'm at close to £20,000 per month in outgoings.

So lets say I sell the pumps for £20 each and I'm making £5 profit on each unit. I have to sell 4000 pumps a month just to meet my operating costs, thats 145 a day before the business even makes a single penny in revenue.

Maybe now it's a little clearer why a pump is £200 here.

Alan_M_2

gromituk wrote:

Not in the slightest. Please read my posting properly.

Indeed, because I didn't say it. :rolleyes:

I read your post quite clearly, you want to buy products at a bulk purchase price, but you only want to buy in small quantites.

A large proportion of the calls I deal with on a daily basis are characters similar to you, I'm happy to negotiate with anyone on an order, a guy this morning got me down to a very keen price for an entire container of limestone tiles, I've discounted heavily to get the business because this particuar company refurbish hotels and the possible future business this could generate will outweigh the low margin I have on this particular order, speculation, or put another way, a loss leader.

You offer no upside for any future possible orders, the product goes to you at full price or it doesn't go at all.

Whether or not you feel this is fair is actually irrelevant, that's the power of bulk purchase, It's a basic economic fact.

George_Bray

Alan_M wrote:

They are highly likely to be remanufactured units from UK originals that were either seconds, obsolete or damaged repaired locally.

Thank you for your suggestions. You make some good points. I don't know the source history of these pumps but they look perfect and work well too.

Regards
George

gromituk

Alan_M wrote:

I read your post quite clearly, you want to buy products at a bulk purchase price, but you only want to buy in small quantites.

No I didn't. I said that I wanted to buy exactly the same quantity of goods (delivered to the same address in exactly the same way), and yet, because I wasn't a "builder" (not a builder who is a regular customer or orders in bulk - any builder), they wanted to charge me 25% more.

That is it. Simple. Now please will you drop it? :mad: