In an article in the Guardian over the weekend Howdens who sell the own label brand Lamona appliances has been slammed for their pricing for practices we keep warning people about with the appliances.
The story goes that a Lamona washing machine can be costing people (who accept it!) as much as £1,291.99 for an integrated washing machine. Now we know that the machine is just a rebadged Beko so, if someone pays that much for a Beko they really have been ripped off. The machine is actually worth about £400 or thereabouts.
Yeah we know, £900 or more on top is just taking the proverbial.
Thing is though that it’s not actually Howdens that are doing that, it’s the builder of kitchen supplier that marks up Howdens prices.
But with hoydens being so large they are under fire for supporting this practice as they say that in 2015 the company supplied more than 400,000 kitchens, 2.4m doors and 750,000 appliances to UK homes. That’s a lot!
In the article one customer, a Mr Hussein, got hugely different quotes for the same kitchen, between around £44,000 at the top end and as low as $10,000.
We are not for a minute saying that was all down to the appliances of course but this does highlight one of the things we drone on about all the time, not checking out the prices properly can cost you thousands of pounds on a new kitchen full of appliances.
The bottom line is that people could end up paying almost £1,300 for an basic, own-brand washing machine. Or more than £1,600 for a basic fridge-freezer combination? £1,090 for an own label brand dishwasher? All of these prices were on the Howdens “full price” quotation given to Mr Hussein.
Another quote received by Mr Hussein shows the exact same washing machine could be supplied for just £380 – a £912 saving. The dishwasher down to only £320, while the integrated 70-30 fridge-freezer fell from £1,609 to £480.
Don’t say we haven’t told you, on one kitchen alone that’s a saving of about £2,379!
Maybe if came with a free cooker… and a butler!
