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We had a lovely friendly wholesaler up here, even used to STOCK (!!) Bosch and Servis parts. Then they took on a BG contract and a Servis contract; then they started buying up containers of scrap washers (It was quicker to reclaim Servis parts than wait for delivery, though everything was ordered.) Then they didn’t have time to maintain stock for the local engineers, so we gradually reduced our level of business as the availibility dropped off and ordered elsewhere, and now they’ve gone. I’m actually quite sad, as in their early days I helped build up what they carried ( well, ex purchasing/stock control, you can’t help yourself, can you?).
All you need is a couple of contracts to foul up your cash flow and that’s it. Glen and Mick, I’ll miss you guys, good luck for the future.
This leaves us up here with a superb Whirlpool stockist (but little else), a retail based Hoover stockist who deny the existance of Candy, and one trade wholesaler who haven’t cottoned on to the the Indesit “W” series yet, and still stock s@d all for Hpt WMA series machines.
I want to be able to pop into my local wholesaler a couple of time a week and top up the bits I’ve used and order up the more esoteric stuff. I don’t think esoteric includes all the Indesit Modules (!!!!) for a start! I could go on at length, but the implication is that unless I invest even MORE in van stock from Birmingham, Wales, Manchester or Kent my 1st time hit rate is going to drop and I’m not going to be happy. Damn thing already weighs 3 tonnes as it is.
What I want is a wholesaler who catches the appliances on the up curve, not on the down curve. The manufacturers can help – they can supply top 100 parts movers for example. I had to do it for the Service Director at C@m3t every Monday morning; as well as the problem ones.
I’ve no objection at all with dealing direct with the manufacturers (BSH are especially helpful) but as a sole trader I get a bigger discount through the bulk purchasing ability of the wholesalers than by going direct.
Come on you Guys, get it in stock early and we can all help each other.
Regards,
Penguin.Hey Penguin when do you sleep????
Most of your postings seem to be after the bewitching hour, or is this when Penquin emerges.Re: Wholesaler stopped trading
Penguin,
Having run a wholesale operation for about three years I can tell you it’s not an easy task especially if you actually care about your customers and work with them. Making money from it is very hard indeed and the outlay huge at times to achieve the prices.
One of the big problems is that Wash-Vac and Connect buy in massive quantities the bread and butter lines and sell them for less than the smaller independents can even buy them, even if they are often more expensive to order specials from people do as it’s easier.
However the underlying problem is not particularly that but the fact that there has been a massive decline in the little repair shops and service people to actually buy the stuff and this is because the appliances are too cheap, it’s often a case of more replacement than repair these days for the customer. Most, if not all, small spares wholesalers have moved into selling appliances with many concentrating on graded machines in an attempt to retain turnover.
This is why Connect (and rumoured Wash-Vac) have been talking about doing contract work, well Connect have done it, because their traditional market is dying and they have to look elswhere to even stand still let alone shrink back.
It does not surprise me that the small wholesalers are going to the wall, it was only a matter of time really before some of them did or where forced into looking at other ways to earn a crust from the industry.
Many of the people I dealt with in wholesales are no longer in the industry now and those that are have generally moved into other areas, primarily appliance sales, to survive with spares sales not taking the same impotance in the business as it once did.
As service people, we should see this as a warning IMHO, smaller spares distributors who once had a seemingly unassailable position within the industry are now gone, are we next? Or are we going to be held almost to ransom by a few large spares suppliers without a choice to go anywhere else?
Sad but true the way I see it. 🙁
K.
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