Wholesaler prices
Discussion
I'm in the building trade and use wholesalers all the while, I don't like credit accounts so I pay for everything as I need it. But wow the price that some wholesalers are charging over the counter is crazy, even allowing for inflation they are way over the top just lately.
This isn't a whinge by the way, just a statement. In todays day and age with a multitude of on-line sales how do they stay in business when its so easy to go on-line and have everything delivered to your door or to site the next day? I only use the physical wholesalers now when I forget to get something on-line but the price difference is staggering. I know we pay for the convenience of being able to rock up and get things there and then but half the time its not in stock anyway and they want you to order it through them for next day but pay full cost, it doesn't make any sense.
Gone are the days of any trade discount at wholesalers, most of the time they are dearer than B&Q. So this morning I've been organised and bought twice as much as what I need for the next job, then I'll have a stock of goods ready for the job after that. I reckon I've only got to do this 8 times and all the stock I will have then have will be effectively free compared to getting it from wholesalers. I do think we should support local business's but they have forced me into doing this just out of greed.
So if anyone runs some sort of wholesaler do you not want the custom of the smaller guys anymore because it looks to me like they are saying go somewhere else. But if you only want the bigger firms why have a trade counter as I assume most of their buying is done though the office on-line anyway or over the phone.
This isn't a whinge by the way, just a statement. In todays day and age with a multitude of on-line sales how do they stay in business when its so easy to go on-line and have everything delivered to your door or to site the next day? I only use the physical wholesalers now when I forget to get something on-line but the price difference is staggering. I know we pay for the convenience of being able to rock up and get things there and then but half the time its not in stock anyway and they want you to order it through them for next day but pay full cost, it doesn't make any sense.
Gone are the days of any trade discount at wholesalers, most of the time they are dearer than B&Q. So this morning I've been organised and bought twice as much as what I need for the next job, then I'll have a stock of goods ready for the job after that. I reckon I've only got to do this 8 times and all the stock I will have then have will be effectively free compared to getting it from wholesalers. I do think we should support local business's but they have forced me into doing this just out of greed.
So if anyone runs some sort of wholesaler do you not want the custom of the smaller guys anymore because it looks to me like they are saying go somewhere else. But if you only want the bigger firms why have a trade counter as I assume most of their buying is done though the office on-line anyway or over the phone.
We see the same from some of the builders merchants when it comes to small items (underground drainage bends/connectors etc): as you say, it’s cheaper in the long run to hold spares in stock. We also standardise where we can: e.g. two brands of consumer unit (one single phase, one three phase) and bulk buy when there are relevant offers on consumables.
There’s one a few 100m from where one of the lads who works for me lives. He has to pass it every time he leaves the house. We were chatting about their pricing the other day and he reckons that although the lads on the counter will try to help with discounts they don’t actually know what the real market prices are because they don’t buy the stuff themselves and all they have to go on is what’s on their system.
Wholesalers don’t come close to farm supplies shops. We killed off our accounts with one when it became apparent that a large part of their business model seems to be based on charging outrageous prices for basic items. Memorable one was an attempt at £30 for a MDPE T pipe connector (<£8 online)! They try to make the prices look less bad by only showing ex-vat on the shelf and simply saying “on account?” when it becomes time to pay. Taking the account away has saved us a small fortune.
There’s one a few 100m from where one of the lads who works for me lives. He has to pass it every time he leaves the house. We were chatting about their pricing the other day and he reckons that although the lads on the counter will try to help with discounts they don’t actually know what the real market prices are because they don’t buy the stuff themselves and all they have to go on is what’s on their system.
Wholesalers don’t come close to farm supplies shops. We killed off our accounts with one when it became apparent that a large part of their business model seems to be based on charging outrageous prices for basic items. Memorable one was an attempt at £30 for a MDPE T pipe connector (<£8 online)! They try to make the prices look less bad by only showing ex-vat on the shelf and simply saying “on account?” when it becomes time to pay. Taking the account away has saved us a small fortune.
I've noticed a similar thing in the motor trade. The prices the local motor factors charge have gone through the roof over the last few years. Fortunately we are niche and have good agreement with our three main suppliers (a main dealer, an online reseller of OEM parts and a specialist engineering company). However we used to use local motor factors for consumables and anything that they could supply that we needed quickly. Now it's cheaper to buy stuff in bulk online - yesterday I bought a load of brake cleaner off eBay of all places for 1/3 less than I could buy locally. That included it being delivered next day by DX.
The only thing I do buy locally is oil, and that is because I have an agreement with the head office of a factors to buy a minimum of x barrels a year at £y. Even then it is charged out locally at an insane price and then I get a credit applied by HO at the end of the month.
I guess if they are all acting in unison then the business that rely on local suppliers have no choice and the customer ends up paying more.
The only thing I do buy locally is oil, and that is because I have an agreement with the head office of a factors to buy a minimum of x barrels a year at £y. Even then it is charged out locally at an insane price and then I get a credit applied by HO at the end of the month.
I guess if they are all acting in unison then the business that rely on local suppliers have no choice and the customer ends up paying more.
Well it seems daft to me mostly because some of the 0n-line wholesalers we use are just trade counter branches with half a dozen branches but have a good well known on-line presence, if they can sell something for X then so can everyone else.
We used to use one local to me (although it was a national chain) for years, we were in every day for stuff, it was the type of place where you could go in and have a laugh with the staff, sit down for a coffee with the manager, that sort of stuff. but in the last couple of years it went so expensive, we tried showing the manager what we could get stuff for elsewhere for almost half the price but obviously his hands were tied by head office. It always used to be full of tradesmen at one time but lately it was dead if you ever went in. Drove past a couple of months ago and it was gone. That worked out well for them, unless they wanted it shut down for some reason.
the other thing I like about on-line sales is there is no loyalty, if you don't like the price of something you simply close the page, there is no arguing with anyone and getting the line "we pay more than that for it" off the sales bod all the while. It will also save us hours of trekking round looking for stock that no-one ever seems to have either, you can be in some wholesalers half an hour whilst they endlessly tap away on the computer and then disappear out the back for ages.
So all said and done I reckon the wholesalers in general have opened my eyes and done me a massive favour to be more organized in the future.
We used to use one local to me (although it was a national chain) for years, we were in every day for stuff, it was the type of place where you could go in and have a laugh with the staff, sit down for a coffee with the manager, that sort of stuff. but in the last couple of years it went so expensive, we tried showing the manager what we could get stuff for elsewhere for almost half the price but obviously his hands were tied by head office. It always used to be full of tradesmen at one time but lately it was dead if you ever went in. Drove past a couple of months ago and it was gone. That worked out well for them, unless they wanted it shut down for some reason.
the other thing I like about on-line sales is there is no loyalty, if you don't like the price of something you simply close the page, there is no arguing with anyone and getting the line "we pay more than that for it" off the sales bod all the while. It will also save us hours of trekking round looking for stock that no-one ever seems to have either, you can be in some wholesalers half an hour whilst they endlessly tap away on the computer and then disappear out the back for ages.
So all said and done I reckon the wholesalers in general have opened my eyes and done me a massive favour to be more organized in the future.
Ham_and_Jam said:
It sounds like you are paying list price. Have you asked to set up an account and get discounted prices?
I've tried a trade account before and didn't like it, I'd much rather pay for stuff as we need it, with a trade account you never really know what you are paying until you get the invoice, the materials only ever came with an unpriced advice note. So you still spend hours going through each invoice at the end of the month and finding stuff that's not been discounted anyway so there is still arguments with managers etc. It also means we don't get a bill of thousands at the end of the month. We also use lots of different places for lots of different stuff.Frane Selak said:
the other thing I like about on-line sales is there is no loyalty, if you don't like the price of something you simply close the page, there is no arguing with anyone and getting the line "we pay more than that for it" off the sales bod all the while. It will also save us hours of trekking round looking for stock that no-one ever seems to have either, you can be in some wholesalers half an hour whilst they endlessly tap away on the computer and then disappear out the back for ages.
One online place has tried to give us an Account Manager, supposedly able to give us bigger discounts.The thing they don’t get is that I often order stuff at a weekend or in the evening and can’t be doing with the hassle of going through and listing out what I wanted, emailing it to him, and then waiting until the next working day for a response. End result is that I either buy at their online prices at a time convenient to me or, if their prices aren’t keen enough, buy elsewhere.
LooneyTunes said:
One online place has tried to give us an Account Manager, supposedly able to give us bigger discounts.
The thing they don t get is that I often order stuff at a weekend or in the evening and can t be doing with the hassle of going through and listing out what I wanted, emailing it to him, and then waiting until the next working day for a response. End result is that I either buy at their online prices at a time convenient to me or, if their prices aren t keen enough, buy elsewhere.
Exactly, I either do stuff very early in the morning or in the evening time. I hardly ever order stuff in the day time as that would mean going on my phone to do it which I find a pain in the arse to do, much rather sit down at night with a big screen and do it.The thing they don t get is that I often order stuff at a weekend or in the evening and can t be doing with the hassle of going through and listing out what I wanted, emailing it to him, and then waiting until the next working day for a response. End result is that I either buy at their online prices at a time convenient to me or, if their prices aren t keen enough, buy elsewhere.
I also wouldn't entertain emailing lists to managers and waiting for a reply, much easier to google waht you need, hit the shopping button and see what's cheapest, then order it from them. Most stuff I do get on-line now turns up the next day or at the latest the day after, its beats me how someone can get stuff from the other end of the country overnight for cheaper than someone in the same town.
voicey said:
I've noticed a similar thing in the motor trade.
I had the same. I had an account with a place that you assume specialised in european car parts and occasionally I would check a price against the local factors if it seemed a bit harsh. I gave up with them in the end when they quoted 25% more for a Delphi injector so exactly the same part and when I suggested they should be able to beat the price of a local factor they couldn’t change the price. I concluded that as a company they must just make more by charging the extra wherever possible and occasionally losing a customer.
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