ukw parts price runner ?

[funkyboogy]

just an idea.. thought i would drag this post into general forum

could ukw not provide a pricerunner service and charge a nominal fee per part search..ie 10p per item searched
search results to include lowest price supplier and stock availabilty

10p only an example , maybe needs to be 50p ? but i for one would use this service as im sure i would be saving ££££ on the info received,

i dont really have the time to search around , im sure most of the people on here are in the same boat..

hope fully ukw will be the stockist with best price availabilty
ally

[Martin]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

funkyboogy wrote:i dont really have the time to search around , im sure most of the people on here are in the same boat..

At 50p a go I’ll search for some spares for you. 😀

[Phidom]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

I don’t think there’s any quick way to find the best price for a given order as you usually need to get a few different items to make up a minimum free delivery value. It would be useful though to find out if any suppliers hold stocks of a less common component. It would also be useful if UKW could get parts for us (for a fee) in cases where we don’t happen to have a trade account with a given supplier.

[funkyboogy]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

dam knew i shouldnt have went in to high..

martin have you got any polish cousins ??

ally

[admin]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

Hi Philidom

It would also be useful if UKW could get parts for us (for a fee) in cases where we don’t happen to have a trade account with a given supplier

If you send Dave Conway a e-mail at the shop he would do that at present.i think he has done that for quite a while now.

Bryan

[Penguin45]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

I think you’ll find that Dave is snowed under….

The oddball stuff that I’ve needed actually ordering, I’ve always just trusted Dave to get it!

Chris.

[eastlmark]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

problem is that what may be the lowest price to one account holder is not nessesary the lowest to another, as we well know.

[Lawrence]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

eastlmark wrote:problem is that what may be the lowest price to one account holder is not nessesary the lowest to another, as we well know.

Which is a good point to bring up at Coventry

[kwatt]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

And there’s just two or three problems for starters. 😉

A lot of the bulk stuff that we hold in stock is now being dispatched from Kilmarnock as well as ISE as there was just no way that Dave could deal with all that now. Poor guy’s flat out most of the time answering emails and doing what he does.

And, as some of you will be aware there has been teething issues as we rebuild the stock in Kilmarnock, the good news is that we’re getting there but just cataloguing it all is a task in itself never mind anything else.

And, in about a year or so, we have to move it all! This is not a thing I’m looking forward to. 😕

I’m also looking at the IT, primarily the shop at the moment, in order for it to be able to offer discounted pricing so we don’t have to do it all manually as we do at the moment.

However, I’ll stress again, UKW is not a replacement for the pukka trade distributors. If you’re stuck or don’t have access to certain parts then we don’t mind helping as we know where to get most things, as we have done for a long time.

If we do go down this path though there’s not gonna be different pricing levels, it’s too much hassle and laborious. Aside from which you are then working on percentage markups and discounting back and not cash margins and common sense.

The only reason that I’ve been looking at this was for the ISE parts as it makes my life easier and, I like that. 🙂

Doing them that way speeds things massively for us as it just follows the normal pack it, dispatch it chain of events rather than a separate system which can be problematic at times. We are very slick now at orders placed online so long as we can source the parts fast or hold them.

Additionally it means that it becomes a LOT easier to sell the likes of the fault code books, tools and all that sort of stuff that we’ve sourced specifically for UKW members.

But I was also toying, as John and I have been for countless months, of being able to allow you to order an ISE machine directly online for direct delivery or delivery and installation to the customer. We’re a good way toward being able to do that we reckon and it should, we hope, really help the folks that don’t have the space to store machines or ability to deliver and install them.

It just so happens that the effect of all this is liable to be that we have to start instituting some trade pricing on many other things as well as the ISE lines and, we have to do that directly to keep the spares costs down as low as possible. Cest la vie.

As to the notion of a price runner type affair, it would only work if everyone got the same SRP and that, as we all know, simply isn’t the case. When you see some of the insurance claims that go through some of the insurers the price variations would scare you to death! DAG et all must really struggle with that one as, even between ordering parts on an NW account as opposed to UKW I can see MASSIVE variations in some pricing, not just a few points difference, it can be 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} or more in some cases.

Same thing for direct accounts with A. N. Manufacturer. The levels of discount can vary massively.

Now however, since everyone and their dog has moved onto some form of online pricing and ordering facility, there’s no way to do it other than punching numbers into each one and some are better than others. The best online lookup is CDSL but as you can’t now get the OPN you can’t compare pricing from just that lookup. Now you have to try to get the OPN from wherever then punch it into each one and see if the system finds it.

Every one of the main trade distributors is better on some lines, not so good on others both on price and stock levels which, especially for the smaller companies and sole traders I understand is often more important than just the price alone.

In the end I need to sort it out for ISE anyway so, if it’s of use for other things to you, great but it’s not a replacement for the distributors if you hold accounts with them I’d advice you look there first. That may sound like I’m loony tunes throwing away business but it’s not really. UKW is not geared to do trade distribution on the spares side of things, we do do a little of course to help when it’s needed, but I wouldn’t qualify us as a trade distributor and I’ve not got any notion of becoming competition to the existing suppliers. We will however quite happily resell anything from any of them, that’s not a problem.

I think I should have answered most things but if there’s anything you want to know just ask and I’ll give you an answer if I have one.

K.

[leavemetogetonwithit]

Re: ukw parts price runner ?

I’d like to be able to compile an order for say roughly £50’s worth, e-mail it to a third party, perhaps employed by UKW for the purpose, and let him source it at the best prices and then forward the complete order to me with an appropriate commission charge added for the hours of hassle and worry it’s saved me. The commission charge would be at least partly offset by the prices which might be a bit less due to the bargaining power of the third party.
I can see this would be an absolute nightmare to organise but I guess what Dave is already doing is anyway. If enough of us committed to such a scheme UKW could rent a huge warehouse and take on several staff and grow it. This would not be UKW becoming a main distributor just becoming a middle man to reduce complexity for all and enabling us to get on with what we’re trained to do. Even Connect etc. might be happy about it ’cause they could lay off a few call centre staff as they’d be dealing with fewer, larger orders.
Hang on a minute. Isn’t this what used to happen before we all got the internet and started dealing direct with the big suppliers? Sent all the small local intermediate distributors out of business?
Mike.

[Author]

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