Question is. Do you tell Joe (or Josephine) average customer that you are making a profit on parts? PS I have no objection to you making a decent living, by the way.
If your procuring a product, why wouldn't you add a margin..? Do you think there is a business that does not..
That's a fair point. But it doesn't answer the question, does the average customer, know this happens, or not?
standard practice- If someone running a business doesn’t make profit through supply of materials (and labour) how else would they make profit?
The place that annoys me is Howdens. Went in to get a kitchen and we were treated like muck as we weren't trade but were going to buy one through someone with an account. Wouldn't give any prices - apparently each account holder gets a different discount and can then charge the final customer whatever they think they can get away with. It's not like the kitchens are terribly good quality, at least at the budget end. I wanted to walk out there and then but Princess C tried to get an indication of prices. When she failed, we left and have since bought 3 kitchens from B&Q and will be getting another in the next 12 months. I'm more than happy with the trade-retail price difference, I just want to feel that I'm not being ripped off.
When I was an electrical contractor for a couple of months, admittedly 25 years ago, I got 95% discount on twin and earth. Apparently I was being ripped off and paying more than twice the price of other account holders who got 98% discount. Sockets - 85-90% discount. NOTHING had less than 85% discount applied. Eye opener that one. I had two biggish jobs and the profit on the materials was so high I didn't need to make a penny on the labour... though I did of course. I made £thousands by making a list of parts, picking them up from the wholesaler and delivering them to site. The electricians I hired were of course rather disgruntled but doffed their caps and got on with it hoping for more work in the future because they still did pretty well out of the deal. This is all commercial, not private which is a whole different ball game. As far as whether the consumer gets the breakdown, that's up to them but musn't be forgotten that they would probably not be able to even make the parts list themselves, that's why they're looking for a plumber.
Yes, but the lack of transparency gives room for unscrupulous behaviour. Say I ring up a heating engineer to fit a new boiler. They call two suppliers, one is offering more discount (or is that kickback) for a inferior quality part. What would your average plumber do? As a customer I may well end up with the inferior part, is that right? This type of business practice is getting more and more frowned upon by many industries where the lack of transparency gives room for unscrupulous behaviour, I wonder if it will ever make it to the building trades, or not? Again, I have no problems with anyone making a decent living.
It’s kinda easy with Howdens - you get their man in to do a design - your builder/fitter gets the price sent over and forwards plus his margin (0% up to whatever%) and you go yes or no? I fitted a wickes kitchen for a customer and winced at what they paid for even after 50% off and a free speedboat offer....
In this example if you are pricing to fit a specific boiler then the boiler is the same it’s just the price that it is purchased by the trade that changes? if it’s two different makes of boiler, one of a lesser quality then that would be specified in the estimate so no conspiracy to rip you off.
How would the customer know it was inferior? And how would they know why one was recommended, over the other? What if the plumber simply decided upon "price"? It's not really transparent, is it?
No different to a garage Andrew, when you pay for a car service the invoice shows Parts and labour but they will have bought the parts at trade prices so they'll be making a profit on them.
Maybe, but not in my experience. The company that did our cellar conversion used Howdens and the design was rubbish. We scaled it back to the minimum and I did the rest how we really wanted it with B&Q units.
I know. But I wonder if disruption is coming, may be not, I dunno? I have had to sit thru multiple hours of anti transparency training at work in the last few years, and I am not even customer facing. During these sessions you get quizzed, at the end, on the opportunities presented to you on how unscrupulous behaviour happens. Be thankful you retired before all these new laws came in. I can't help thinking that this "corporate training" will influence the future generations thinking and how, if I was twenty something, it might change my views beyond simply finding the whole trade supply chain thing being a little too cosy.
or maybe you could have just asked for the design to be done to your spec/ideas and got them to requote based on that - I have had 3or 4 revisions done for my customers before we press the button- it’s their kitchen after all.
I’m glad we don’t have to be transparent! We design and price a machine; the customer decides if they want to pay it. If they do, we build it; if they don’t, we don’t!
The plumber won’t supply and fit what they think to be a poor quality, cheap boiler by choice as they will end up wasting time when it breaks down- they will fit a poor quality boiler that the customer supplies or when they insist it has to be a cheap job I don’t really know how to explain it any further so I’m off to buy lunch - I see kwiksave have baked beans for 11p a tin so I’ll get those- they’ll be the same as Heinz - after all it says baked beans on the tin.
I do have a lot of sympathy, take a look a contractor daily rates for decent computer programmers. I doubt Joe average would want to pay those hourly rates upfront for a similarly skilled sparky or heating engineer, and yet those people still need to make a decent living. What did your last visit, assuming you're female, to the hairdresser cost? What about the dentist, if you're forced to go private? Garages are a great case in point, 50-80 per hour and still charge for parts My point is it's not transparent...there are unscrupulous heating engineers, you know ?
Hahahaha, no need to explain it, I get it. But you may face disruption in the future, think Uber versus Black cabs etc; that might not be the best example, and it may not happen, but it strikes me, it's a market ripe for disruption.
