Gone very quiet

[skwdenyer]

Dr Interceptor said:

borcy said:

I'm surprised supermarkets like aldi and lidl still have them. What with all the low carbon, reduce packaging they still give them out.

Old people.

I still get the oldies walking into my shop asking if we have a catalogue. They love the magazines / coupons etc.

And some of the less well-off who avoid internet shopping for budgeting reasons.

[r3g]

Still plenty busy on the MOT and servicing 'gig'. Traditionally it usually quietens down after Easter til the Autumn but no sign of a let up thus far. One thing we've noticed over the past couple of years is that people don't bother servicing their car anymore and just leave it til the MOT to "service" it when we find the tyres are bald, the springs are broke, the brake lines are corroded and the disks and pads are on the metal. This pretty much always leads to us getting that work to sort out and it's a good money spinner for generally straightforward work. Got that much on now that we can turn away Audi owners with their stty double wishbones which are always seized solid and tie up the ramp for most of the day .

Whilst being busy is nice, the flip side is that you spend far much time answering the phone, booking people in and then the time on the phone ordering parts with the motor factors who are all flawed in their own unique ways, either on price, speed of delivery, sending wrong parts etc, all of which is time-consuming and frustrating to deal with when you're trying to get on. We've looked at automated online booking systems as a neighbouring detailing and valeting business uses it and works well, online payment etc, but it wouldn't fix the biggest time sink which is ordering parts and dealing with errors.

[Digga]

Dr Interceptor said:

borcy said:

I'm surprised supermarkets like aldi and lidl still have them. What with all the low carbon, reduce packaging they still give them out.

Old people.

I still get the oldies walking into my shop asking if we have a catalogue. They love the magazines / coupons etc.

Yes, there is that demographic that, no criticism to them, is beyond reach of email and internet. They want a paper catalgue or brochure.

TBF, I am personally sentimental for the days of boujee car brochures, but that's probably a sickness.

[Steve H]

A workshop with 2-3+ techs in generally seems to need a fulltime guy driving the desk/parts etc.

I do diagnostics for the trade, the most successful places seem to be set up this way and like you are turning down the crap work in favour of MoT/service and related repairs. No head gaskets, careful about what clutches, timing belts/chains etc they take on and if a diag job comes in that isn’t going the right way within an hour they bin it off or send it to me rather than waste time that could be more productively used.

The workshop trade hasn’t slowed down in years aside from lockdown hiccups. The ones having problems are often just taking on jobs or customers that they should know to stay away from and the biggest real complaint is the shortage of good staff.

[ben5575]

Digga said:

Yes, there is that demographic that, no criticism to them, is beyond reach of email and internet. They want a paper catalgue or brochure.

TBF, I am personally sentimental for the days of boujee car brochures, but that's probably a sickness.

I'll just leave this here...: https://autocatalogarchive.com/

[President Merkin]

skwdenyer said:

Dr Interceptor said:

borcy said:

I'm surprised supermarkets like aldi and lidl still have them. What with all the low carbon, reduce packaging they still give them out.

Old people.

I still get the oldies walking into my shop asking if we have a catalogue. They love the magazines / coupons etc.

And some of the less well-off who avoid internet shopping for budgeting reasons.

They're stuffed with ads & thus I doubt represent a cost to the supermarkets. A few years ago, they would be delivered to store on a pallet & staff would fill a cardboard fixture with them for people to collect. Now, the filling is done at the packaging company, creating a pre filled fsdu that is simply wheeled into place on arrival & thus another cost is pushed from customer to supplier.

The supermarkets are very adept at this sort of thing. BTW Freebie magazines are merely an illustration of this market, if you look around, the shops are full of these things, the industry called co-packing & it's big business. Lots of companies in the sector doing very well out of it.

[robscot]

Hospitality guys I speak to say there has been an unexplained uptick in April, so they seem happier, which takes a lot!

One import / export bloke less so, does lots of (dead processed) animal based stuff from Scotland to Asia, says UK Gov have become utterly useless on paperwork stuff - so much so Europe now a no go for him.

Ecom lot say consolidation in markets they are in taking place, people selling up and moving on. General feel of doom in 2024 so far.

[Digga]

ben5575 said:

Digga said:

Yes, there is that demographic that, no criticism to them, is beyond reach of email and internet. They want a paper catalgue or brochure.

TBF, I am personally sentimental for the days of boujee car brochures, but that's probably a sickness.

I'll just leave this here...: https://autocatalogarchive.com/

One of my biggest regrets - I somehow lost the final Range Rover Classic brochure which was IMHO the very pinnacle of 'Best of Brtish' brand promotion.

When I was a kid, mid 80's, the salepeople at the BMW garage down the road were extremely kind and I snaffled the full set - 3 series to 7 series and also the 'M' brochures too for the M5 and M635csi.

[GlenMH]

Digga said:

One of my biggest regrets - I somehow lost the final Range Rover Classic brochure which was IMHO the very pinnacle of 'Best of Brtish' brand promotion.

When I was a kid, mid 80's, the salepeople at the BMW garage down the road were extremely kind and I snaffled the full set - 3 series to 7 series and also the 'M' brochures too for the M5 and M635csi.

Those were like currency when I was at school in the early 80's....

[GlenMH]

Steve H said:

A workshop with 2-3+ techs in generally seems to need a fulltime guy driving the desk/parts etc.

I do diagnostics for the trade, the most successful places seem to be set up this way and like you are turning down the crap work in favour of MoT/service and related repairs. No head gaskets, careful about what clutches, timing belts/chains etc they take on and if a diag job comes in that isn’t going the right way within an hour they bin it off or send it to me rather than waste time that could be more productively used.

My local Merc indy is set up exactly this way: 3 and an apprentice on the tools, full time office bod doing all the paperwork/calls/chasing and an outsourced MOT tester for a couple of days a week. And they are flat out...

[Phooey]

It'd be interesting to hear from Postman Pat if he's still flat out with parcel deliveries or if it's showing any signs of cooling?

[egor110]

Phooey said:

It'd be interesting to hear from Postman Pat if he's still flat out with parcel deliveries or if it's showing any signs of cooling?

Flat out because they've had so many staff leave and haven't replaced them.

[Phooey]

egor110 said:

Flat out because they've had so many staff leave and haven't replaced them.

Yeah, sorry i meant the PH regular (105.4?) that delivers parcels (after opening them first to see what customers are ordering )

[skwdenyer]

President Merkin said:

skwdenyer said:

Dr Interceptor said:

borcy said:

I'm surprised supermarkets like aldi and lidl still have them. What with all the low carbon, reduce packaging they still give them out.

Old people.

I still get the oldies walking into my shop asking if we have a catalogue. They love the magazines / coupons etc.

And some of the less well-off who avoid internet shopping for budgeting reasons.

They're stuffed with ads & thus I doubt represent a cost to the supermarkets. A few years ago, they would be delivered to store on a pallet & staff would fill a cardboard fixture with them for people to collect. Now, the filling is done at the packaging company, creating a pre filled fsdu that is simply wheeled into place on arrival & thus another cost is pushed from customer to supplier.

The supermarkets are very adept at this sort of thing. BTW Freebie magazines are merely an illustration of this market, if you look around, the shops are full of these things, the industry called co-packing & it's big business. Lots of companies in the sector doing very well out of it.

Interesting. At my local Aldi, there's a long counter beyond the checkouts. This type of material is just dumped in piles on the counter, presumably off of a pallet. But agreed, there is lots of it about, and every commercial printer I've used has been keen to sell me "solutions" of this type

[Regy53]

We’re about to have a very quiet month in used plant sales….. its been “ok” for a while now but just ok, we talk about going back to pre 2020 days but its a lot quieter out there. I do hope the weather lifts soon. April will be our worst month in since march 2020 but we have 3 x the stock

[Frimley111R]

Spoke to the manager of a Gucci store where they sell handbags for £6000. She said it's really quiet at the moment, no-one spending.

Spoke to a guy who works for a major soft drinks manufacturer. He said he can't get any expenditure signed off at the moment.

And I spoke to my daughter who works for London Underground and she (and presume others) are getting an 8% pay rise! I'm going to check their job vacany board!

[classicaholic]

Cap ex seems on hold in lots of our clients across a wide range of industries, I had planned on it being quiet but not like a library!

[skwdenyer]

Many hoped interest rates would fall. They’re not. That’s going to hit hard.

[Phooey]

Online retail is very quiet. Normally a quiet time of year but noticeably much quieter than usual

[loafer123]

skwdenyer said:

Many hoped interest rates would fall. They’re not. That’s going to hit hard.

They will be on the way down in June.

A couple of months late because the BoE seems to think that we should set our rates based upon the growth and inflation rates in the US instead of the U.K., mainly because they are tts.