B&Q Price "Promise"

sheldonb14

Just been to B&Q where they have posters and banners everywhere stating "we will beat any price”. Suspicious as ever I look for the terms, of which they are none. The signs merely state "we won’t be beaten on price". There are additional signs at the till area, but these do have small print. The small print states “we’ll refund the difference and give you an extra 10% off the lower price. Subject to availability. Within a 10 mile radius. Excludes services and internet". Regardless of that I was asking them to price match some items which were cheaper at a Screwfix store about 4 miles up the road.

The assistant said I couldn’t match Screwfix as its a mail order company. I explained that while Screwfix do have a mail order service they have a retail store locally. She asked her other colleagues on the tills and they all agreed that they weren’t allowed to price match Screwfix. The supervisor was called and the goods were eventually (very begrudgingly)matched, but we were again told that Screwfix couldn’t be price matched again as it was part of the same group as B&Q

I won’t bother going into all the legal shortcomings of the B&Q point of sale literature versus the “policy" as I’m sure these are obvious. I do however wonder if these big companies, who spend so much time effort and money to come up with these policies designed to create customer goodwill and trust, realise how the message becomes so lost in translation by the time it reaches the shop floor. Policy which, I’m sure, has been designed to have the customer leaving with a smile on their face has had the opposite effect.


Moral of the story- if you see a price cheaper elsewhere. Buy it there

sweep9

Ah, another one of those price promises...

Must only be valid when there's a "B" or a "Q" in the day name!

System

i never understand why people bother with price matching , if its cheaper elsewhere why not just buy it there?

Jo_F

Screwfix is not strictly speaking a retail store, its more aimed towards tradesmen, thats why the screws come in packs of 500, and plumbing bits come in packs of 10. It's just that they do sell to the general public too.

B&Q caters for the general DIYers, hence there you get screws in packs of 10 and you can buy a single elbow/connector.

sheldonb14

CHRISSYG wrote: »

i never understand why people bother with price matching , if its cheaper elsewhere why not just buy it there?

yes I think thats good advice. B&Q offer to beat the cheaper price by 10% which is why I thought I'd give it a go.. but as what they offer in their marketing isnt what you get in store it's irrelevant.

It amazes me that these big companies can make such claims apparantly unchecked and contiune to get away with these misleading practices.

sheldonb14

Jo_F wrote: »

Screwfix is not strictly speaking a retail store, its more aimed towards tradesmen, thats why the screws come in packs of 500, and plumbing bits come in packs of 10. It's just that they do sell to the general public too.

B&Q caters for the general DIYers, hence there you get screws in packs of 10 and you can buy a single elbow/connector.

Sure Screwfix markets itself heavily at the trade, B&Q the public, but they both retail to either. Now if B&Q had a poster which said "we beat most prices, see inside for detials" or "we beat Homebase and Wicks" I wouldnt have a problem. They have a sign which reads "we will beat any price". No small print, nothing. This being the case why is it acceptable for the staff to bring out a whole raft of conditions at the till?

cddc

Erm..... who owns Screwfix, I think you'll find it is B&Q.... we will beat ourselves on price then will we on identical items?

Misleading as ever then....

Jo_F

Kingfisher is the parent company of both B&Q and Screwfix, neither owns the other, they just come under the same umbrella

George_Bray

Jo_F wrote: »

Screwfix is not strictly speaking a retail store, its more aimed towards tradesmen, thats why the screws come in packs of 500, and plumbing bits come in packs of 10. It's just that they do sell to the general public too.

B&Q caters for the general DIYers, hence there you get screws in packs of 10 and you can buy a single elbow/connector.

I disagree. First, you suggest Screwfix is not really a retail store. It's no less a retail store than Argos. They brag about the high number of branches and that they're open to all. I've stopped using Screwfix, though, because their natural instrinct is moving towards Kingfisher group policy of charging high prices, like their sister company, B&Q. I now use Toolstation instead - much better value on most things.

Second, you suggest that B&Q caters for general DIYers. Not any longer it seems! I noticed the other day how they charge sky-high prices for individual items which DIYers might want, but more reasonable prices if you buy 10 units of something. For example builders sand is a whopping £1.81 per bag unless you buy 10 bags when the price falls to £1.18. How can that be fair? I now see B&Q as anti-DIYer. It's strange for a company which has the web address diy.com


Back to the original point... It's a con. They should definitely match Screwfix and Toolstation prices if their price promise is anything other than a con. Complain to Trading Standards.

System

cddc wrote: »

Erm..... who owns Screwfix, I think you'll find it is B&Q.... we will beat ourselves on price then will we on identical items?

Misleading as ever then....

erm .. i think you will find they arent , they have the same parent company

cddc

CHRISSYG wrote: »

erm .. i think you will find they arent , they have the same parent company

Correct and they should still match screwfix prices if they are to live up to their claim, so the claim is still misleading. Should not be using shared ownership to weasel out of it.