Why won't kitchen retailers tell you the price of individual units?

gregch

We're about to completely refurbish our kitchen and having a nightmare with kitchen retailers. I've done a plan, using the breakdown of unit types and sizes and the detailed scale plan we have of the space. I've been able to roughly cost this for one company's range (Crown Imperial) using a combination of their itemised price list and an idea of what discount off that is available (I know we can do this for IKEA too, but we wanted something a bit fancier).

However, we also wanted to look at Mereway and a couple of the mid-market German brands. None of these retailers will provide a price list. They insist on doing their own "design" and will only provide one total price, not the cost of each unit - presumably to try and hide their massive margin.

Can anyone recommend a mid-range kitchen company that will tell you the prices of the products they're selling?

Furts

Hi gregch
Not a direct answer, But B&Q Trade do a clearly priced itemised catalogue for two quality ranges. This would give you a starting point to judge quality and value.

HTH

phill99

If you go via a trader, Howdens will give you a breakdown of unit prices. Magnet Trade will also.

SailorSam

It's the same reason as when i was selling double glazing, we would always want to price the whole house.

gregch

Thanks for these suggestions - I'll take a look at them.

Still, was hoping for something slightly swankier, within reason. But all of the retailers of mid-market brands that we've spoken to - eg Hacker, Mereway, Beckermann, etc etc refuse to tell you the price of the units they want to sell you, only the total cost of all the units they think you should have. I can't see any legitimate reason for that.

Leif

gregch wrote: »

None of these retailers will provide a price list. They insist on doing their own "design" and will only provide one total price, not the cost of each unit - presumably to try and hide their massive margin.

Can anyone recommend a mid-range kitchen company that will tell you the prices of the products they're selling?

It is interesting that they get away with this, you'd think there was a law preventing hiding of unit costs, as clearly they want to sell as many high priced items to you and yet hide which are the high priced items.

Anyway, are you doing your own design? Otherwise, why not play their game.

CKdesigner

Hi All

OK let's talk about this one before anyone else suggests there are huge profit margins to be had by independent kitchen specialists in the middle market!

If someone asks me for the price of 'a unit' my normal reply is 'To be honest I don't know' and explain that most of our customers purchase complete kitchens from us, so the price of an individual unit is kind of irrelevant.

For quality German makes there isn't a printable price list for a customer to take away. We have 2 sales manuals from Schueller of well over 1000 pages long each and trying to turn this into a price list that a normal consumer could understand would be impossible. There are just so many options and alternatives we have to consider. Also the whole system is geared up to us ordering a complete kitchen from the factory and sending across a 'complete file' with floor plans, wall elevations, a very detailed list of units including appliance model numbers and even 3D pictures, so they can see exactly what we are expecting them to make. Whereas typically DIY store and trade type kitchens are just sold and ordered as a list of units.

I'd say it would also depend partly on the OP's approach to these independent kitchen specialists, I can understand that some specialists would want to design the space for you and try and sell you the complete project for an all in price, but if the OP had a list of may be up to half a dozen units they could send the kitchen specialist then I can't see a problem pricing these individually for comparison purposes.

To save confusion and try and make things as simple as possible we separate our 'design service' from our 'supply and installation service' this way if a customer wants their new kitchen designed properly by an experienced kitchen designer not a kitchen salesperson, then the customer pays for this service, with this design service they get issued the 'complete file' for them to give to what ever kitchen companies they like for a quotation on the supply and installation of their new kitchen, this way the quotations they get are as close as possible in terms of design and specification. If this customer eventually decided that they do want us to supply and install their new kitchen then we would give them the design fee back.

Alternatively customers would also bring us kitchen designs done by others for us to price for the supply and installation, often we can come up with little tweaks and suggestions to improve these designs, but at least everyone knows where they stand.

Hopefully this information helps to clarify things a bit.

CK

Hintza

gregch wrote: »

I can't see any legitimate reason for that.

It's so they can their use smoke and mirrors.

The price you pay will be different to the price I pay and different to the price your neighbour will pay.

If they gave you the prices then you could actually compare them and that is not playing the game!

Car manufacturers can do it so there is no reason kitchen companies can't.

Mr_Ted

No matter what any "SALESMAN" may tell you, purely and simply greed, so you wont see the profit and the salesmans bonus!
THEY have to price on individual unit if its estimated properly, or maybe just grab a price out of thin air to save time, thats called a "GUESTIMATE"?
Have known of individuals who have price major contracts purely on the size of the paperwork, bad bad business ethics, but sometimes they get away with it, remember the salesman is only interested in his bonus in reality?
Now wait for the flack from salesmen! But doesnt mean it isnt true?

gregch

Grateful for CK's input, but seems to just confirm what we're saying. If you really don't know the individual prices of the units you're selling, how can you help your customer make the right choices?

No problem with putting together a complete package, doing the design and so on for the customer if required (great to have that as a separate paid service btw) - but still don't understand why a resulting quote for cabinets can't be itemised?

To try and keep it positive - are there any companies (apart from those already mentioned) that will tell their customers what they're being charged for each item?

I should add: not got a quote for Schueller yet, although I have looked at them; but we got a quote from two different retailers of Hacker - and one was almost double the other (approx the same design, approx the same doors)! Without a breakdown of the unit costs, hard to tell what kind of "smoke and mirrors" might be going on there!

Right now I'm minded to go with Crown because the product seems OK and they're very clear and open about what their individual products cost.

CKdesigner

gregch wrote: »

Grateful for CK's input, but seems to just confirm what we're saying. If you really don't know the individual prices of the units you're selling, how can you help your customer make the right choices?

No problem with putting together a complete package, doing the design and so on for the customer if required (great to have that as a separate paid service btw) - but still don't understand why a resulting quote for cabinets can't be itemised?

To try and keep it positive - are there any companies (apart from those already mentioned) that will tell their customers what they're being charged for each item?

Right now I'm minded to go with Crown because the product seems OK and they're very clear and open about what their individual products cost.

Hi Gregch

Whether I know the price of an individual unit off the top of my head has no relevance as to whether I can help my customer or not. I can obviously give a customer a price of an individual unit but I fail to see the relevance the price of one unit is as a kitchen is, in basic terms a 'set of units'.

As I said in my previous post if someone asked me for the prices of say 6 different units I would happily give them the individual prices but this is a long way from giving a customer a quote for the cabinetry for their new kitchen.

Gregch, I take it you need a new kitchen and have a plan for this new kitchen and a list of the units in the plan? If so why are you concerned about the individual unit prices? What's wrong with having a total price for the cabinetry? As a comparison its kind of like buying a new car and asking how much the seats are? and how much the wheels are? You don't do you, you want to know how much the complete car is ready for you to drive away.

CK