Is there a barbecue stock shortage or am I just too early?
Discussion
After looking around on and offline for most of the last couple of weeks, it seems like next to no stores have many (if any) barbecues in stock at the moment.
I'm ideally after a Weber E320 Spirit II gas barbecue but they're nowhere to be found. I'm not sure if this is just knock-on replenishment issues from the Suez Canal blockage, but even Weber's own site don't have them in stock, (they do have the S320 but I'm not spending an extra £60 or so just for a stainless hood!, plus Weber's direct pricing is even higher than places like B&Q etc.) and most of the usual online barbecue shops don't have them either.
Seemingly though it's not only Weber kit that's hard to come by, local DIY places (B&Q, Homebase etc.) and garden centres seem to have a very slim selection generally, offering either own brand cheapo stuff that'll probably last a season if you're lucky, or are holding the absolute top end, gourmet stuff with prices deep into 4 figures.
I know I can get a charcoal one relatively easy - I had one last year but gave it away as where I live doesn't lend itself to regular operation of a conventional barbecue.
I'm ideally after a Weber E320 Spirit II gas barbecue but they're nowhere to be found. I'm not sure if this is just knock-on replenishment issues from the Suez Canal blockage, but even Weber's own site don't have them in stock, (they do have the S320 but I'm not spending an extra £60 or so just for a stainless hood!, plus Weber's direct pricing is even higher than places like B&Q etc.) and most of the usual online barbecue shops don't have them either.
Seemingly though it's not only Weber kit that's hard to come by, local DIY places (B&Q, Homebase etc.) and garden centres seem to have a very slim selection generally, offering either own brand cheapo stuff that'll probably last a season if you're lucky, or are holding the absolute top end, gourmet stuff with prices deep into 4 figures.
I know I can get a charcoal one relatively easy - I had one last year but gave it away as where I live doesn't lend itself to regular operation of a conventional barbecue.
iacabu said:
A few places (wowbbq and bbqworld) seem to be expecting delivery mid April. I have to say, prices seem much higher than when I was looking last year.
FWIW I ended up going with a Napoleon Rogue 425 from Costco. It was about £470.
That one looks decent, I've had a look at the local Costco but the only one they had ended up being sold last week. Not sure if it was a Napoleon, but fingers crossed they'll end up getting some more stuff in before too long.FWIW I ended up going with a Napoleon Rogue 425 from Costco. It was about £470.
Costco in general seem to be a bit spartan for a lot of things, example the basic Kirlkand yellow microfibre cloths - usually a staple, they're sold out now pretty much constantly.
I'm graduallly erring towards pre-ordering with bbqworld or wowbbq, just sticks in the throat a bit that the E320 SII costs £725/£741 at those dealers, but is £629 at B&Q. I'll wait and see how the next month pans out for stock availability I guess.
LeadFarmer said:
Mr Happy said:
I'm graduallly erring towards pre-ordering with bbqworld or wowbbq, just sticks in the throat a bit that the E320 SII costs £725/£741 at those dealers, but is £629 at B&Q. I'll wait and see how the next month pans out for stock availability I guess.
Depends if that extra £100 is worth it for the comfort of being fairly sure of securing you the bbq you want. You could wait for BnQ to have stock, then find they don't, or they sell out, and then discover bbqworld have since sold out also. You could pre-order and then cancel at a later date if you find one elsewhere.If the online retailers offered value add packages (such as including the cover in the price etc.) then I'd be more inclined to do that, but whacking a ton on the price just because they can makes me less inclined to buy online.
Dicky Knee said:
Many thanks for looking, I went to order it but they want £85 for palleted delivery, putting it up to £773 including the 10% discount. If it was £15 for regular delivery (as their site suggests for larger items) I'd have been all over it.In the spirit of more fire = better, Costco are doing this 4+1 burner KitchenAid grill at the moment for less than the Weber e-320 (3+1)
Anyone ever used the KitchenAid grills? Some of the spurious review sites seem to rate them but they're rebadged Chinese Nexgrills, whereas the Webers are made in the USA.
https://www.costco.co.uk/Garden-Sheds-Patio/Barbec...
Anyone ever used the KitchenAid grills? Some of the spurious review sites seem to rate them but they're rebadged Chinese Nexgrills, whereas the Webers are made in the USA.
https://www.costco.co.uk/Garden-Sheds-Patio/Barbec...
Just to round this off, I missed out on the wowbbq E-320s at £749.99 due to too much procrastination on my part, but ended up getting the next model up (the S-320 with the stainless hood) from Hayes in Cumbria for £741 (after a 10% discount from £825).
Just need to wait for it to arrive now, roll on summer grilling without pissing off the neighbours!
Just need to wait for it to arrive now, roll on summer grilling without pissing off the neighbours!
sherman said:
Was in Dobbies garden centre and b&q today. There was no stock shortage in either in the weber bbq section.
All of the local dobbies and b&q up here in the frozen North were completely out of weber under 1k unless you wanted a spirit e210 2 burner.Getting hold of a decent size gas canister was the next issue, calor aren't doing new 13kg patio gas bottle contracts, only 5kg and flogas were similar.
Ended up getting a 10kg flogas patio gas bottle from gumtree, but I'm keeping an eye out for the calor 13kg one as b&q offer refills cheaper than the 50 quid that homebase want.
Still waiting for the grill though, Hayes kindly emailed me on Monday to say it was out of stock and they're waiting for replen from weber... Most of their stuff is now marked out of stock on their site now, gas grill and gas supply seems to be the business to be in if you want endless demand at the minute!
Bacon Is Proof said:
Not heard anything about gas shortages and my missus is on all the local boating groups. Got a Flogas 11 coming tomorrow, £30 from our localish newsagent. Cambs.
If you already have a bottle, you'll be fine - but Calor definitely aren't writing any new contracts out at all for their 13kg patio gas bottles. You can get 5kg ones though, as nobody really wants them.https://shop.calor.co.uk/13kg-patio-gas-bottle.htm...
Flogas 10kg Gaslight (the one I've just got) is available though: https://www.flogas.co.uk/product/10kg-gaslight?c=a...
Edited by Mr Happy on Wednesday 21st April 15:46
sherman said:
Mr Happy said:
To bring this to a close, the S-320 Spirit 2 finally landed today and I've just finished building it, bang on time for the next 7 days of non stop rain!
And the day after the bank holiday 
At least the bank hol was a washout, if it was glorious sunshine I'd have been rather annoyed!
ETA - I also don't think there's been much of a stock shortage from manufacturers - the sticker shows my BBQ as being manufactured in April 2018, so somewhere there's warehouses full of the bloody things!
Edited by Mr Happy on Wednesday 5th May 09:15
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