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I was yapping to John and Lawrence last week as I came up with an idea to make signing up to the TA a no-brainer for some.
The plan is that, using our contacts with some of the major spares suppliers (not all, one glaring omission deliberately), we’re going to try to negotiate extra discount with either the member number or, at a trade counter, on production of the WTA member card.
I’ve asked Dave to have a look into it with the suppliers and we’ll see how and where it goes. It may fly, it may not but as they say, nothing ventured…
It’s a quick “bada bing” we dunnit, that is high impact with minimal effort on our part and, I hope, will get more people involved as it’s an instant benefit to being a member on top of the rest, I think it could be a powerful argument.
K.
Re: Badda Bing
kwatt wrote:using our contacts with some of the major spares suppliers (not all, one glaring omission deliberately), we’re going to try to negotiate extra discount with either the member number or, at a trade counter, on production of the WTA member card.
Excellent idea, but what companies would we be thinking of approaching? Or more to the point, who is the ‘one omission’? (I’m afraid this is where me being a ‘newbie’ in this industry lets me down…. I don’t always see what is obvious to others)!
Adrian 🙂
Re: Badda Bing
Good idea…..
I presume the missing one has a multi-layer pricing strategy which means you have to check the price of everything before you hit the button?
Chris.
Re: Badda Bing
Yes Chris, absolutely correct and, for the benefit of Adrian, the omission is CDSL.
The reasons are pretty simple, they rip us all off all the time and, we don’t have much contact, virtually none in fact and I certainly haven’t spoken to anyone there for many months if this year at all. So, to my mind, if they’re not interested enough to speak to us why should we bother to help and/or promote them?
So far the targets are:
- Masterpart
Qualtex
Seme Nedis
HomespsaresAlthough, if a success, it may well not stop there as I may have one or two other ideas to push it forward a little. 😉
K.
Re: Badda Bing
OK, I’m now confused again! :rolls: 😮 😆
The discount idea is a good one. But I’m thinking back to the initial talks, and what keeps popping into my mind is ‘inclusivity, not exclusivity’. Surely by not including CDSL in the proposed discount idea, that is contradicting what we have said 😕 ?
I have to be honest here, personally, I can’t say that I’ve ever been ripped off by connect, and I have quite a good contact history with them. That is why I can’t agree to something that will deliberately exclude them.
It’s probably now well known now that I have a good relationship with CDSL. I understand that sometime in the past or even in present day, CDSL may have upset a few people, but, isn’t this now the ideal time to include them, maybe start to build a few bridges (if there are any broken).
By ignoring and excluding a company of that size that is presently supplying alot of work, spares and tech info (mediator etc) to Independents up and down the country would IMO be a mistake. I believe that CDSL are here for the long haul, and are only going to grow even more. I would therefore like to see them included in our plans rather than make an enemy of them.Waiting to be shot down…. Adrian 🙂
Re: Badda Bing
washdoctor wrote:Waiting to be shot down…. Adrian 🙂
😆
It’s politics to a degree Adrian. You haven’t lived through the glory days of dead animals severed heads being delivered in a war between a couple of spares suppliers. And no, I’m not joking.
The problem with CDSL is twofold in my mind, the first is that they are in bed with Currys and have managed to p1ss a lot of people off with that and some of the stuff in the background that you don’t know about. Don’t take that wrongly, there’s just so much information that is not given to me in confidence. The second is that, in all the time that I have been in this trade I have not once met any of the people that actually own the business, the Depper family and have only once met the MD and that was pure coincidence.
Connect have a deliberate pricing policy and, I can almost assure you that unless you’re spending in excess of £10K a month with them on non-contract work then you’re not on good discounts. I can also assure you that, if you are doing contract work for them, you’re being screwed over on a lot of spares pricing. Why you may ask, well think about it and how they make the contract work pay, it isn’t rocket science.
However all that’s an aside really. The fact is that if you want to get CDSL’s attention then you just don’t bother to tell them what’s going on and, in any event they are staunch DASA supporters and so I doubt very much that they’d lift a finger to help us or even take us seriously, for now. On the other hand, if they see all the competition chiming in then that puts a whole new light on it.
But, just another little thing that you may like to know. CDSL wanted to advertise by sponsoring a forum on here but there was a catch. The only one that they’d sponsor was the trade spares one which of course was already taken by Masterpart. In short they basically expected me to kick off MP in preference to them. They didn’t like it when I said no.
When this goes, if it goes, live then CDSL are more than welcome to join in, I’m certainly not going to exclude them but, by the same token, I’m not going to waste my time trying to talk to someone there that can actually make a decision and talks sense. This is especially so of a company that charges genuine traders more than they sell online retail at and, if you like, we can provide several examples of this.
So my question back to your staunch support of CDSL is, should we support a company that screws our members over in that way? And, if you think yes then please explain why.
K.
Re: Badda Bing
It was a shame you missed the Manchester meeting about eighteen months back. We gave a classic example of a spare you could buy from the manufacturer being spanked up by over £100 above cost to the trade.
That is just downwright greed !!!
You might think this is just business, when in actuall fact it is part of the problem that our trade is facing, in uneconomical repairs due to spares pricing.
To a degree you can understand it from manufacturers as they try to recoup margin on the cheap low profit machines they build, by banging it onto the spares but when your own spares supplier does it to this extent then it is just pi$$ taking.
I fully understand that we are all in bussiness to earn a living but jus imagine if one of our own members said he charged £100 a visit on the forums he would be in for some serious stick from members and rightly so.
That is why I pesonally dont mind leaving a certain supplier out of the loop. Especially when I have witnessed their controling shenanigags with DASA. dictating in secret phone calls who can and who can’t join.
Sean
Re: Badda Bing
Del wrote:That is why I pesonally dont mind leaving a certain supplier out of the loop. Especially when I have witnessed their controling shenanigags with DASA. dictating in secret phone calls who can and who can’t join.
We’re not leaving them out at all, we’re just not openly telling them what’s going on, it’s not a case of them being excluded at all. But then they can read like everybody else I assume and, unlike others, they’ve made no efforts at all to become included. Why should I or anyone else bother to go off chasing them?
To be quite frank, I’m interested in people that can help the indies, not those that take the Mickey out them.
Apart from which they regularly breach the site T&C and have been warned several times about it. Several users use the same login and, oh what a surprise, it doesn’t identify them as being from CDSL. Then people wonder why I like the anonymity thing, it’s often used against us as a couple of repairers have had their knuckles rapped for saying something on here and yet the person doing the rapping is cloaked.
And yet again I go back to the question I posed at the end of the last post I made here.
See Adrian, you only know a little bit of the story. 😉
K.
Re: Badda Bing
I realise that CDSL has it’s critics, and I accept that people have had bad experiences with them. But, again, I can only speak from MY personal experiences with them.
I’m just saying that if we invite suppliers to enter talks with us regarding discounts for WTA members (which again, I think is a great idea 😀 ), by leaving out CDSL, we’re instantly saying…. We’re starting a club… and your not invited! That is something we said we wouldn’t do from day 1.
IMO we should include them, even if they do decline, or not take us seriously, at least we are showing to them, DASA and everyone else, that we have an open door to all…Adrian 🙂
p.s… going to put my Scotland shirt on now 😀
Re: Badda Bing
You still haven’t answered my question Adrian. Should we help or be seen to support a company that treats people this way and has the constant stream of moans and groans we get? 😉
I get totally where you’re coming from with it though.
It’s not a club at all, I don’t agree with that but then I don’t agree with members getting shafted either.
K.
Re: Badda Bing
kwatt wrote:So my question back to your staunch support of CDSL is, should we support a company that screws our members over in that way? And, if you think yes then please explain why.
I can’t really answer that Ken because like I’ve said, my experiences with CDSL are all good, and as individuals, we can only go on our own experiences. Again, I’m aware of what may have happened in the past, and if the WTA is going to be run based on things that have happened years ago, then, that saddens me.
If this association is looking to go forward, surely, IMO, that has to include working with a Company that may have had its faults in years gone by, because to go forward, again, IMO, we need a clean slate, not one that’s partialy stained.
Again, I can’t speak for what has gone on in the past, and I’m in fear of upsetting some people here, but I have to speak honestly, we are not in the past anymore, what has happened needs to be put to bed. We are nearly in 2008, and as we stand, like it or not, CDSL are a big part of this trade and needs to be treated accordingly. I am getting the feeling that this is becoming very anti-CDSL association, and that worries me abit.I would like to apologise to all if I am coming across as dis-respectful to those that may have had bad times with CDSL 😥 , that is not my intention.
Adrian 🙂
Re: Badda Bing
I put you in an impossible position, the same one I’m in.
If you acknowledge that there are a lot of issues with CDSL, whether you experience them or not is an irrelevance as is your experience with them, then the logic surely tracks that we cannot support anyone that is basically shagging members over.
See, this is the hard part of being on the council, you have to weigh and balance each issue and not cloud it. This is why I say that your own experience is irrelevant as you’re representing the members here, not Appliance Care. 😉
Fact is that there is a swell of opinion within the trade that says CDSL ain’t treating members right and there’s experience of it in here first hand as well as throughout the forums from many.
That said, as you say, CDSL pass a lot of work out to the indies and we should work with them.
But at the same time you have to balance that against the rest.
However I know that won’t happen until they have to as they have always seen us as being trade terrorists and appear to resent us. I have had several meetings with CDSL over the past few years and, on most occasions all I can say is that we have been treated with mild contempt or seen as an annoyance, usually ‘cos I’m gobbing off when the indies get shagged. So, it’s not for the want of trying to work with them and the door’s still open but I’ve done enough chasing after them and I wont’ bother myself anymore now. If they want to talk they know the number.
But it’s still more complex than that isn’t it…
What is CDSL? Is it a spares supplier, a manufacturer and appliance distributor, a retailer? Do they even know what they are anymore?
We haven’t asked any other WP about this. We haven’t asked any distributors or retailers either so first you have decide what CDSL actually is first before you go anywhere here.
As for the others, well, they just sell parts.
K.
Re: Badda Bing
Ok, I think I can see a solution. Your idea about spares discount for WTA members is a good one and must be a go somewhere. Why don’t we put a poll in the WTA members forum, asking all members which suppliers they would like extra discount with, if any can be agreed at all.
Any supplier that gets a vote, we contact and try to get a deal. I am more than happy to speak with CDSL if no-one else wants to?Adrian 🙂
I’d keep it in here for now. Just my advice since we’d have to play one off against the other to get the best deal for the members. 😉
Apart from that you can’t have a poll with multiple answers I’m afraid.
Adrian all I’d ask is for a little faith, it will come right but sometimes the shortcut isn’t worth taking.
K.
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