Parts now coming slowly

[FlyingBrick]

Have been using UK Whitegoods for some ten years or so and in the beginning the parts ordered came quickly in 2-3 days every time in our area via standard rate Royal Mail. No problem so used to order everything from UK Whitegoods. But recently in the last year or so things have slowed right down to the point of my customers starting to go elsewhere.
Ordered fan element and grill element on Tuesday the 8th August and still waiting for the grill element next Monday 14th I hope. Trouble also with Hermes is that they deliver anytime in the day and the fan element came at 2.30pm in the afternoon. With Royal Mail at least I know where postman pat is on his rounds and normally get the parcel by 9.00am so I can ring the customer and be on my way.
This has happened before using the recommended courier service. Personally I never use Hermes but DPD who have never let me down. If I request next day post then the customer gets in a huff over post and I take the hit.
Would like to keep using UK Whitegoods but there are some others I have used and they came the next day without having to pay out a large delivery charge.
Anybody else having trouble ordering parts recently with postal delays?

FlyingBrick

[kwatt]

Re: Parts now coming slowly

My experience is, the Royal Mail is at best patchy. Depends where you are in the country and it can be well slow, especially on the new RM48 service which is effectively what was second class.

RM24 is the new first class.

Neither are guaranteed delivery services, just have a look at RM’s website for what they say but, do read carefully.

Hermes at least it’s tracked and insured and, again, depending where you are it’s a good service to okay, to poor. But overall, pretty good I’d say and generally better than RM overall.

DPD is great but not cheap.

Nobody will use a top class service that costs a minimum of near enough £6 a pack to send a part that’s not of reasonable value or, the size dictates there’s no other choice unless they really, really want it as fast as possible which, you can do but, it costs.

Given on most orders we don’t make £6 there’s no way to unilaterally offer that.

So, we give customers the choice and it’s entirely their call to decide which service they need and, importantly, want to pay for as we’ve no way to gauge how desperate or not it is.

In the end it’s really just a compromise on what is required.

K.

[FlyingBrick]

Re: Parts now coming slowly

Thanks Kwatt for such a prompt reply to my letter about the time taken for ordered goods to get to service engineers. Unfortunately I placed an order last week on the 8th August for a grill element and phoned up on Friday to find out what the problem was.
Had been told it will be with you on Monday 14th. Waited till 3.00pm with my van outside and nothing turned up via Hermes or Royal Mail.
Phoned up on Monday afternoon to find out that nothing was on its way and my Monday hanging around was just a waist of time as no courier was coming. Elderly lady promised a repair today and now have to take another ear bashing from her.
UK Whitegoods obviously have a problem in recent years because I could email David Conway and often they would turn up within 48hours on std Royal Mail service.
Have used some other companies to see what their turn around is and even thinking of eBay where at least there is feedback. Definitely problems going on at base. Not just summer holidays as in France. Had been a service manager for a electronics company so can sympathise with your problems but unfortunately it does not keep my customers at bay.

FlyingBrick

[kwatt]

Re: Parts now coming slowly

Depends what part, where it is etc how fast it ships.

We try as best we can to indicate the general lead times on each listing but, as is the way of this industry, stuff changes all the time and it’s impossible to keep thousands of items constantly up to date without an army of people to do it and, there’s not enough money bluntly to employ that army.

Then you’ve got delivery services that are patchy depending on where you are with the best of the lower cost options probably being RM FC or RM24 as it is now but, it’s still more expensive that the others. The others are cheaper but slower.

Then there’s DPD, brilliant but expensive.

That’s why a lot of the distributors only offer “free” shipping over a certain amount as they can usually roll that into the price past a certain order value. We don’t have the margin to do so frankly.

But without knowing what part it was, what order it was on and seeing the history I really can’t tell you much more.

K.

[FlyingBrick]

Re: Parts now coming slowly

Hi Kwatt

Order placed 8th August 16.55
Standard grill element part number SKU 6224543.
Did not want to put down the order number here for security reasons.

FlyingBrick

[kwatt]

Re: Parts now coming slowly

Yeah, I know about that one and that was a cock up as stock was not where it was supposed to be, which is why they upgraded it to RM FC free of charge for you.

But hands up, that one did go a bit wrong.

K.

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